Excited to be here and feeling a little lost! (JodyM from DC)

Welcome to APUG Jody.

As you can see there are lots of extremely helpful people here. It's a great place to be if you are overwhelmed. Good luck on your class and best of luck!

Best regards,

Bob

Steve Smith said:

Not quite the same (you have it the wrong way round). If you had your camera set to 400 and gave it the exposure which would be correct for 800, you would be under-exposing i.e. giving it less light.

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Sorry I wasn't clear in my original post... What I was trying to say was... On my DSLR, I set my exposure for ISO 400 and then I keep everything the same (aperture and shutterspeed) but I change to ISO 800, then I would be overexposing.

I now understand that the pushing/pulling film is different and I think based on some of the explanations, I am actually starting to understand push/pull.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to make this a thread about that.

That's right about the DSLR; because the camera "Changes the Film" to a more sensitive emulsion electronically. With film of course you are stuck with the ISO the film is rated at.

Welcome to APUG and back to film!

I wouldn't worry about push or pull processing for now. Just shoot 400 speed if you need higher shutter speeds or smaller aperture or want to hand hold the camera; shoot it at 400. For tripod work where you want less grain, shoot some 100 speed though honestly with a medium format camera like the Contax 645 even 400 speed film these days doesn't have much grain to speak of.

If I were you I'd just start out shooting some 400 speed film as 400 speed. Ilford Delta 400 is a new-style film, very forgiving but the older HP5+ 400 is also great for the more traditional grain look. Tri-X 400 or T-Max 400 are also good. You can't really go too wrong with a 400 speed B&W film these days, or Portra or Fuji 400 for color prints either, or Provia 400 for color slides.