Finest Grain Film

keithwms · Feb 18, 2010

Ronald, T Max is traditional? I thought it was tabular grained. And D100 is epitaxial(delta?) grained. Correct me if I'm wrong... but these are not what I call traditional. The traditional grain films are tri X, fp, hp... Perhaps you meant traditional in another sense.

Ian Grant · Feb 18, 2010

We understand what Ronald meant Keith, traditional camera films, like Tmax, Tri-x, Delta, FP4 ir HP5 etc as opposed to films being used outside their designed use like microfilms etc.

Ian

keithwms · Feb 18, 2010

Ah okay.

Thomas Bertilsson · Feb 18, 2010

You shoot the moon according to the sunny 16 rule, correct? It is after all illuminated by the sun.

So at an aperture of f/8 and ISO 100 film, you could shoot at 1/400s, or more commonly available on lenses 1/500s. On a tripod that shouldn't give any motion blur at all. You may want to expose longer than that depending on how much of the non-illuminated part of the moon you wish to have detail in. Trial and error.

Good luck.

fschifano · Feb 18, 2010

You're right Thomas, but the OP's lens is a mirror telescope with an aperture of about f/14. I have a Celestron 1000 mm f/11 telescope that actually transmits about as much light as my 50 mm Nikkor does at f/16, so they're not terribly efficient. That's why I recommended a faster film. Motion blur is a big problem, even with a sturdy tripod, and you want to do anything you can to minimize the effects. These telescopes also tend to produce a fairly low contrast image when used as camera lenses, and a little bit of extension to the development time doesn't hurt either. It's not as easy as it seems.

BetterSense · Feb 18, 2010

You shoot the moon according to the sunny 16 rule, correct? It is after all illuminated by the sun.

Yes, the moon is in sunlight, but the moon is actually black. So you probably want to give an extra stop or two of exposure past sunny-16 if you intend to print it to the middle-upper tone that matches subjective experience.

fschifano · Feb 18, 2010

No, it's not black. Take a look at some of the photographs from the Apollo missions. To me, it looks pretty darned close to a standard gray card, but that's only my observation of photographs of I don't know how many generations removed from the original. A little poking around yielded the links below. The average reflectance of a full moon is about 12%, so a bit darker than a standard grey card, but certainly not black.

http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/the-moon/moon-albedo/

http://jeff.medkeff.com/astro/lunar/obs_tech/albedo.htm

http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut26-1.htm

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/albedo.html

Martin Aislabie · Feb 18, 2010

Is Gigabit film still available ?

I don't know it is is/was the finest grained film out there but Gigabit was a very fine grained film

Retro in the UK used to sell it but they have ceased trading

Martin

Lee L · Feb 18, 2010

fschifano said:
No, it's not black. Take a look at some of the photographs from the Apollo missions. To me, it looks pretty darned close to a standard gray card, but that's only my observation of photographs of I don't know how many generations removed from the original. A little poking around yielded the loinks below. The average reflectance of a full moon is about 12%, so a bit darker than a standard grey card, but certainly not black.

Excellent loinks.

No one has yet addressed placement of the moon's brightness along our perceived visual scale. We think of it as bright relative to its surroundings, which is most often a darker sky when we notice the moon. So to make it appear as bright as we perceive it to be, and therefore perceptually 'correct', we need to place it higher up on the scale than 12%-18% reflective. That requires more exposure than you'd expect from an 'incident' reading, which is what 'sunny 16' is.

It does help to have some extra contrast with the moon. The best results I've had for a 'full frame' moon on 35mm were with an 8 inch Newtonian using Tech Pan back in 1986 or so. The boost in contrast increases apparent sharpness.

Michael Covington's Astrophotography for the Amateur has extensive tables of moon exposure data for specific moon phases. Your local library may have a copy. Covington is better known around here for his thorough HC-110 and Xtol web pages.

The moon may be a bit darker than we perceive it to be but it's certainly not black. I have also heard that "the sun is not yellow, it's chicken", but that was a while back.

Lee

BetterSense · Feb 18, 2010

Well if the moon is an average of 12%, that's a pretty dull. Slightly darker, as you pointed out, than a grey card. That's NOT white like it looks in pictures.

In pictures, and to the adjusted eye, the moon appears rather white...I would say zone VII-ish. Indeed, not blowing out the moon can be a challenge when it appears in a landscape. So yes, the moon is sunlit...but the moon is not white in reality, it is rather dark grey, so if you applied "sunny 16" it would come out looking dark grey. If you took a reading off a grey card in daylight and wanted to place it on zone VII you would meter it and then open up two stops. If you want to place it at the appropriate tone you should apply "sunny 16" and then considering where you want to place the tones, open up slightly to place the moon higher up the scale for a normal, white appearance. Whenever I have taken moon pictures, I have used "moony 11" or "moony 8" and got good results.

Thomas Bertilsson · Feb 18, 2010

All I know is I shot the moon as 'sunny 16' and opened up a stop. I used a 400mm lens with a 2x extender for 800mm focal length. I used Ilford FP4+ film and processed in Pyrocat developer. So 1/125s @ f/16 - I shot at 1/125s @ f/11 and got a perfectly acceptable and sharp picture of the moon that filled a surprisingly large portion of the frame, and that prints sharp to 11x14".

keithwms · Feb 18, 2010

Thomas Bertilsson said:
You shoot the moon according to the sunny 16 rule, correct?

That'd only be true if the earth had no atmosphere and the moon had no phases.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/howtophoto/index.htm

wogster · Feb 21, 2010

thuggins said:
Thanks for all the great information! I really appreciate the comments regarding tonality, as that is at least as important as grain size. I probably should have given a bit more information as to what I was looking for.

I've been trying to get a "great" shot of the moon for many years. I used Provia 100, Superia Reala, VS (I know it's an odd film for imaging the moon, but it is my favorite and there are always at least a dozen rolls in the fridge), Kodak Gold, as well as T-Max 100. Needless to say, the T-Max had a completely different character and proved to be a much better medium for the subject matter.

I'll have to get an assortment of the films mentioned here and give them a try. I just got a 90mm Orion Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope and am anxious to give it a try.

The moon is a difficult subject, although it's dark on the earth when we see it best, it is in full sunlight, so a full moon can require a very fast exposure, within 1/2 stop of sunny 16. This of course makes your background very dark in a print. So take a picture of the moon, at sunny 16, then back off 1/2 and 1 stop. Take another exposure of the background, with a much longer exposure. To print you need to combine both exposures.

dynachrome · Feb 21, 2010

I haven't done a formal comparison but Imakelink HQ looks as fine grained to me as TP. My supply of TP in 120 size is limited but I have Imageling HS and FS films in 120. Gigabitfilm was Agfa Copex Rapid microfilm. When ACROS is developed in undiluted Fuji Microfine it has grain at least as fine as TMX. Microfine isn't widely available outside of Japan or more people might use it. If you are looking to make a minimally cropped 11X14 then ACROS in 6X7 size will do at least as well as any copy film in 35mm size and the ACROS will be easier to use.

olehjalmar · Feb 24, 2010

In my experience, yes, but it also has a lot more contrast...

kauffman v36 said:
is the CMS 20 finer grain than tech pan?

lxdude · Feb 24, 2010

Who knew the moon had libido....

davidbivins · Apr 2, 2010

I had great results with Adox CMS20 in Diafine. The negatives curl to the point of frustration, but I ended up scanning them in the 120 glass carrier for a Nikon 9000.

full frame

100% crop

RobertV · Apr 2, 2010

Rollei ATP1.1 (Advanced Technical Pan) souped in the special developer (ATP-DC) iso 32-40 or putting in a low contrast document developer (e.g. RLC) iso 20-25. Even in a high dilution Rodinal 1+150 at E.I. 12 you can have nice results.

The basic scientific film is comming from Agfa Gevaert and is available in 35mm and 120 roll film. When you go for making prints there is only one problem: No grain anymore to focus on

darkosaric · Apr 2, 2010

nsouto said:
I'll second Adox CMS 20: have scanned it at 4000 and it simply has no visible grain.

I use it with Technidol but the original developer from Adox is also good.

which developing time did you used with Technidol for CMS 20?

thanks,

BetterSense · Apr 2, 2010

I can't imagine any grain benefit beyond TMX souped in a reasonably fine-grained developer. I have shot some TMX in 35mm and blown it up to 16x20. There's simply no grain all the way down to the resolution of my lenses. I don't see how there's any advantage to be had beyond that point.

Finest Grain Film

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