Delta 400 Exposure advice

Ste_S · Mar 6, 2018

Advice needed on exposing 35mm Delta 400 please. I mostly shoot it at box speed, but sometimes need an extra 1/2 to 1 stop of speed. What's the best way of going about this ? I use a hybrid workflow and the neg scans will be worked on in Lightroom.

Shoot at 400ISO, under expose when needed and develop normally ?
Shoot at 400ISO, under expose when needed and push the roll one stop in development ?
Shoot at 800ISO, over expose if needed, push the roll one stop in development ?

Paul Howell · Mar 6, 2018

If Delta has the latitude of Tmax400 you should be able to shoot at ISO 800 without pushing in DDX or Tmax developer. The massive development chart recommends additional time for a one stop push, the only way to know to is shoot a roll at 800, sacrifice a frame by cutting the roll in half, develop one at standard time for 400 then increase time as recommended on the massive development chart. Scan each to see what you like the best.

Ces1um · Mar 6, 2018

I know everybody shoots for perfection, but for a half stop I wonder if there's any point in any correction with development? I would think lightroom would easily handle that.

Sirius Glass · Mar 6, 2018

Use an incidence or reflectance light meter, shoot box speed and develop normally. Works for me.

jim10219 · Mar 6, 2018

For a half stop, I would do what Ces1um said and just correct it in the computer. In fact, for a whole stop, you could probably get away with that in most situations. I once shot half a roll of Portra 160 at 1600 by mistake (I read the dial wrong), developed it normally (because the second half of that roll was shot at 160) and I still managed to get a few acceptable shots out of the first half of that roll. Granted, they would have looked even better if shot properly. And Portra has a very wide latitude for mistakes like that. But my point is, a lot can be fixed in Photoshop if you need to. It's not the best option, but you could probably get by with it in most circumstances. Either that, or meter the Delta 400 at 800 and then push it one stop in development.

Lachlan Young · Mar 6, 2018

Ste_S said:
Advice needed on exposing 35mm Delta 400 please. I mostly shoot it at box speed, but sometimes need an extra 1/2 to 1 stop of speed. What's the best way of going about this ? I use a hybrid workflow and the neg scans will be worked on in Lightroom.

Shoot at 400ISO, under expose when needed and develop normally ?
Shoot at 400ISO, under expose when needed and push the roll one stop in development ?
Shoot at 800ISO, over expose if needed, push the roll one stop in development ?

Delta 3200 is the best answer, unfortunately.

That said, if you're trying to squeeze a little more out of Delta 400, I'd run a test roll at Ilford's EI400 times & bracket some underexposures, see what the scans look like & work from there before considering pushing. A lot depends on the scanner & the operator of aforesaid scanner, but you might be able to dig a little more separation out of the shadows where on an optical print the paper curve would crunch them to black.

Also worth exploring Microphen, DD-X or XTOL as developers, as PQ or PA developers they can lift shadow speed by 1/3-2/3 stop which may be all you need.

Willyekerslike · Mar 6, 2018

In my experience I have found that it pays to treat Delta 400 as a slide film. I shoot it with matrix metering on my Nikon F100 and F5 with few problems. With my manual Nikons, F2s's, I use an incidence light meter. I meter at box speed 400asa and occasionally if in doubt I baracket with an extra shot at 200asa

Sirius Glass · Mar 6, 2018

Willyekerslike said:
In my experience I have found that it pays to treat Delta 400 as a slide film. I shoot it with matrix metering on my Nikon F100 and F5 with few problems. With my manual Nikons, F2s's, I use an incidence light meter. I meter at box speed 400asa and occasionally if in doubt I baracket with an extra shot at 200asa

That works well.

Ste_S · Mar 7, 2018

Paul Howell said:
If Delta has the latitude of Tmax400 you should be able to shoot at ISO 800 without pushing in DDX or Tmax developer. The massive development chart recommends additional time for a one stop push, the only way to know to is shoot a roll at 800, sacrifice a frame by cutting the roll in half, develop one at standard time for 400 then increase time as recommended on the massive development chart. Scan each to see what you like the best.

I know the fact sheet for TMAX 400 mentions you can shoot at 800ISO without pushing in development. I thought Delta 400 might be similar, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Thanks for the responses. The consensus seems to be the lattitude isn't forgiving, but I could probably get away with under exposing half a stop without changing dev time.
It sounds as though If I need to shoot 3-4 shots at 800 on the roll, i'm probably best off shooting the whole roll at 800 and pushing one stop in dev ? I like contrast and grain anyway...

MattKing · Mar 7, 2018

An under-exposure plus push development doesn't meaningfully increase the speed of the film - it increases the contrast. With reduced exposure and increased contrast, the full shadows lose detail while the near shadows and mid-tones look better. Usually that increase in contrast comes with a reduction in the quality of how the highlights are rendered.
Kodak's recommendation not to increase development when you under-expose TMY-2 by one stop (use an EI of 800) is based on a judgment call - that the deleterious effect on the highlights resulting from an increase in development outweighs the relatively minor positive effect on the near shadow and mid-tone contrast.
Others may weigh the different factors differently.
Its also worthwhile to pay attention to what contrast Kodak and Ilford consider standard - it may differ.

Andrew O'Neill · Mar 7, 2018

Whenever I've used this film, I always shoot it at EI 800, and development in Pyrocat-HD or Xtol 1+1. It's quite lovely for me at 800. So, it's very hard to tell you what you should do. Only way to find out is to shoot and see what you like.

mooseontheloose · Mar 7, 2018

I've switched over to this film when I need more film speed - I shoot it at 640 and develop in Moersch Finol - Wolfgang himself did the testing with this film and found that the proper speed of it in his developer was 640. It's not a huge push, but I have never had any problems with the negs since I started using it this way.

Delta 400 Exposure advice

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Delta 400 Exposure advice

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