Flat Photos...Is it me?

This may be an overly basic question for the average member, or maybe it's covered somewhere else (couldn't find it though).

I've been shooting film for a few months now. Had some really nice results and some poorer ones. Thought I was getting the hang of things. I've been using a Pentax k1000 and bought myself some Ilford xp2 400. Took some photos and brought the film to be developed. Half of the photos I got back were sharp images with what I feel was good contrast. The other half though... well they're flat. There's no contrast. Just all kind of grey. They're in focus, but the whites aren't white, the blacks aren't black, and everything seems to be just one level of grey. This is a little troubling for me because I don't know what happened to make them like this and I don't want to run into the same issue. Just to be clear- the iso was set correctly. I used the cameras light meter and tried to always centre the needle. I purchased my camera from a reputable camera repair centre and it was cleaned/lubricated before I took possession.

so... Is it me? what do you think I could have done wrong? Was it the lab? If so, why would the settings go all wonky half way through printing? Is it my camera? It seems to be working fine, but I've had issues with my old k2 producing a photo or two like this just before the light meter died and the shutter magnets/assembly went kaput.

Couldn't it just be that the lighting in the scene was less contrasty in the other pictures?

Cybertrash said:

Couldn't it just be that the lighting in the scene was less contrasty in the other pictures?

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possibly I suppose. Remember though, it was roughly half my photos. One of them was a close up portrait of my daughters face against a snowy background. Her face occupies slightly better than 1/3 of the photo so I would have thought it'd be a fairly contrasty picture. It's really kind of weird. If I said they looked "smokey" would that help?

It's possible the lab's machine auto-corrected the contrast down a few notches. In many places, no one's really watching to make sure the prints look good. They also don't know what your intent was even if they do look at them. If you can post scans of the prints, we might be able to guess better. Seeing the negatives would help even more.

Have you thought about developing your own film? As this would give you more control and a better understanding about how the original lighting related to your exposure and development produces a given negative. The printing is then another matter.

Posting scans... I can post some of the ones I haven't tried editing yet. I'll get on that later tonight. As for the negatives, I don't have the equipment to do that. Unless I just took a photo of it against a light box or something.

as for developing my own film. I haven't gotten into that yet, and I'm not quite sure I'm ready to take it on. That being said, I happen to own an old dental film processor. Dental film is silver halide so I'm wondering if the chemicals are compatible with true black and white photographic film? Its just two separate baths held at a constant temperature with a roller system for developer and fixer. To be honest, I'm tempted...

You may have to do the darkroom printing yourself. The photo finisher's machines may be over compensating.

Use Kodak Tri-X or Ilford HP5+ instead of the pseudo black & white C-41 films and the problem may well go away. Of course then you have to find a photo finisher that develops real black & white film and prints it ... or you may start developing the film yourself.

You're using a C41 B&W film which will not give you a look that true B&W films are capable of. For the brightest whites and deepest blacks, switch to a true B&W film (Tri-X is an excellent place to start as it is very friendly to less than ideal exposure and development), and develop in D76, which is also very flexible to use. You don't need to nail the development in order to get great negs. The two were essentially designed to go together. Even easier, develop the Tri-X in Daiafine, a very simple to use developer that as far as I know is immune to over development. Put the film in it for the recommended time and after that it won't keep developing.

It may seem daunting at first "rolling your own", but it isn't, and the necessary equipment you'll need like the developing tank and change bag are inexpensive, and a one time expense. Kodak Rapid Fixer can last a year or more if stored and used properly, vinegar can be used as a stop bath, and once you buy your developer it can be mixed into a stock solution that can be used for many rolls of film. Measuring gradiants can be simple liquid measuring stuff from Walmart or a thrift store, and you can safely keep your chemicals in washed out soda bottles for quite a long time. There are better bottles available, but the soda bottles will work fine if you top them off and put some Saran Wrap on the top under the cap. Get yourself a cheap glass thermometer and you're done except for some distilled water from the grocery store (or you can boil your tap water and let it cool down), Buy some Photo-Flo to avoid drying stains on your negs and you're done. D76 can go "off" rather quickly, so I would start w/ Diafine or use TD-16 from Photographers' Formulary, a D76 clone that will keep much longer. It's more money than the D76 though, so perhaps the Diafine is a better way to start rather than D76 now that I think about it. Whatever you use, it will cost you a LOT less money than sending your stuff out for developing.

You have a camera and lens (I assume you have the usual 50mm Pentax lens on the camera) that are capable of giving outstanding results. I keep going back to the shots that I took w/ the very same setup when I first started getting serious about photography eons ago, and those shots still look really good. You may as well give give yourself something that will be in line w/ the same quality of your gear. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with XP2, but being a C41 film it's more difficult to learn to process at home vs traditional B&W films, and in looks and tonality it sure ain't Tri-X. Don't forget that flat negs are often the result of flat lighting or underexposure too, so that needs to be right no matter what you shoot. Once you get your equipment and chemicals together, ask questions here and we'll help you out. I have a lot of the gear you would need to start developing your own stuff that I could sell you for great prices, as I'm transitioning (again) to painting. Later, you can learn to obsess over different developers and films and argue their merits endlessly here :}

Prints from a mini lab from XP2 won't sparkle.
You may do better with a home office printer on nephews or sisters home computer and photo quality paper. The cheapest printers will do good quality mono or colour up to A4.
You will need to nudge the printers contrast slider on the printers driver to your taste.

It might be the lab's attempt at printing and putting in the wrong correction. As the whole film went through the same processing it won't be the processing. The key is: were the light conditions different on the flat half. Might it be that the meter was fooled on the flat half? Under a lightbox or against the light do the negs in the flat half look different?

I do not believe that Ilford C41 chromogenic film fails to give you the same results as trad B&W film. If you have to use a lab then many labs can only do C41 so you have no choice anyway but as I say C41 XP2+ negs can deliver everything that trad B&W negs will.

pentaxuser

So here are a couple of photos. One shows an "okay" photo and another shows a "flat photo". Seems to me to be a big difference between the two. Obviously the flat photo was on a very sunny day (see the hard shadow). Yes, I did cut the head off. In my defense I'm surprised I even was in focus.

likely underexposure in the second one. The lab does a crude correction of the print/scan to make it lighter, resulting in blacks that aren't black. that could be fixed to a large degree by a competent printer, either with digital or a wet print.

Snow or sand or any large, bright part of the subject will tend to:

1) cause the meter to recommend too little exposure; and
2) cause most mini-labs to print too dark.

It might just be me but the first "okay" shot looks a little flat as well. The shadows of the trees in water suggest that there is enough contrast but the background of the trees and ground looks a little more grey than I'd like.

Anyway irrespective of whether this is just my taste, the point I am alluding to is that there may be a tendency for the lab to print "flat" in both instances but it shows up much more in the sunny pic

Do the two negs under a loupe or even to the naked eye look closer in appearance than the two prints do?

pentaxuser

They are the typical images that must be overexposed because the camera lighmeter trys to make them as "standard" images. Next time, overexpose 1,5 to 2 steps.

Hi

Don't understand the underexpose them, XP2 gives perfect prints from 50 ISO or slower to 1600 ISO or faster with normal C41 development, after proper printing

But it is not really suitable for mini lab printing that was BW400CN, which will also give flat prints.

It will print well on a normal PC inkjet with photo paper, it is superb for wet printing.

Noel

The camera lightmeter converts any scene in a "standard" scene, the one that has a theoretical 18% of light reflectance. If the scene you are measuring is not a standard one - for instance, a snow or beach landscape on one side or a coal mine on the opposite - the lightmeter will give wrong exposure values, underexposing the bright scene and overexposing the dark one, meking both of them greyish, flat and dull.

Therefore, if the scene is a bright one, you have to counteract the camera setting by overexposing and, on the other hand, if the scene is of the dark type, you have to underexpose.

Looking at all the flat photos, they were taken on very bright days and out in the open. The consensus is I should have overexposed them by a stop or two. Good thing to know because I'll be heading down south soon where the sun is bright, the drinks are cold, and there's no snow to be seen. I would have hated to see all my film come back poorly exposed. I might try to stick closer to the sunny 16 rule down there. Thanks for the help!

Ces1um said:

Looking at all the flat photos, they were taken on very bright days and out in the open. The consensus is I should have overexposed them by a stop or two. Good thing to know because I'll be heading down south soon where the sun is bright, the drinks are cold, and there's no snow to be seen. I would have hated to see all my film come back poorly exposed. I might try to stick closer to the sunny 16 rule down there. Thanks for the help!

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This is a bit picky, but it might help with future discussions.

When you say "over-expose", to most of us it means that you want to give the film too much exposure.

Your problem occurred because the lighting conditions and scene fooled your meter. It mistakenly told you to under-expose your film, and you followed its advice.

What you need to do in those bright, highly reflective situations is understand how that situation often fools meters, and learn to increase the exposure, in order to correct the error.

You may encounter the same problem around other, very light and reflective environments - think white sand, bright reflections off water, bright and light background walls, etc.

You can run in a similar problem when the background is very dark. The meter may also be fooled there, and tell you to set the camera in a way that lightens everything. In that case, you will over-expose your film, unless you adjust things to decrease the exposure.

I use a K1000 often. I never metre an entire scene with it. Instead, I metre from my hand or my shadow on the ground, and open/close apeture accordingly. I've never used XP2, so I can't help you there.

Contrast: 1. Labs use medium contrast settings. I use a professional lab and ask for extra or increased contrast when printing images. 2. Problem with exposure. The light may be flat. 3. Lenses, themselves, vary in contrast. You were not specific as to where the "flatness" occurred. If it was the last half of the roll then if may very well be the shop. As an aside: Printing from negatives is not easy even with today's equipment. Use a reputable lab and develop a relationship with them. Have someone look at your negatives to see if they are all the same.

Andrew O'Neill said:

I use a K1000 often. I never metre an entire scene with it. Instead, I metre from my hand or my shadow on the ground, and open/close apeture accordingly. I've never used XP2, so I can't help you there.

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An incident light meter can help avoiding under exposing bright scenes [snow, wedding dresses] and over exposing dark scenes [black cats at night].