Good B&W film for snow?

[jfoote]

Out of film and need to get some. We have some snow on the ground in NC today and it may be here for another day or so. What's a good film to use? Still learning all this photo stuff...

 

[photoncatcher]

For day time shooting (I only shoot B&W) I would go with Plus x pan @ ISO 125. I wouldn't go with anything faster than that, or (in my opinion) you could end up with very dense negatives that will be a pain to print. I've also used $00 speed Ilford for night snow shots, but I pushed it to 1600 speed by longer development. Again, I shoot only B&W, and do my own processing, and printing. Have fun.

 

[jeffreyg]

Get your film before the snow melts. Why not try both a 100 speed and a 400 speed? Just be sure to expose correctly remembering that snow especially in bright sun is highly reflective and you meter will be reading it as if it is 18% gray.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

 

[jp498]

Tmax400. For overcast days, develop it in xtol 1:1 or d76. For sunny days, develop it in PMK or one of the other pyro developer choices. The massive dynamic range of the film and it's high quality is well suited to snow. An incident light meter will mean no problems with metering.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Really good snow in 35mm is not easy.

If you want to capture the sparkle and texture you are going to need the finest grain film you can get hold of - which rather narrows the choice to TMax-100. The choice of fine grain developers, unless you brew your own, is now down to Xtol or Ilford Perceptol (?? the M-X clone).

If you are looking for gritty dirty urban snow, or want an etched look to snow dusted pine trees or such, then try APX-100 in Rodinal, except you can't get APX-100 any more. Rodinal has poor shadow contrast but gives lots of the mid-tone to highlight contrast you want for snow. Some of the tight-grain crowd can probably suggest the closest Adox/Rollei/Photoimpex film.

 

[rawhead]

The choice of fine grain developers, unless you brew your own, is now down to Xtol or Ilford Perceptol (?? the M-X clone).

DD-X? It's as good as or better than Xtol IMHO.

 

[Martin Aislabie]

Something fairly forgiving of exposure and with a straight~ish shoulder - Delta 400, Tri-X, HP5

Snow plays havoc with a cameras metering system.

The best thing is, if you have a separate hand held meter with incident light readings – use it.

If not you need to dial in extra exposure compensation into the camera – so it exposes the film 1.5~2 stops MORE than it thinks it needs (if it says 1/60th at f5.6 you want to actually shoot 1/15th at f5.6)

Have fun

Martin

 

[johnnywalker]

I find Delta 100, 400, HP5+ and FP4+ all work ok in snow, but better with a yellow filter - catches more shadows in the snow. As was mentioned, you have to increase the exposure 1 1/2 to 2 stops.

 

[mfratt]

I like AA's way of dealing with snow. If I'm remembering this correctly:
Zone VI / +1 Stop = Snow in shadow on bright day
Zone VII / + 2 Stops = Lit, but textured snow
Zone VIII / + 3 Stops = Bright, gleaming snow

I usually try to keep it inside Zone VIII 1/2, especially if I have snow on the edge of the frame so I can easily get some separation from paper white when printing - plus I generally like to have texture in the snow.

I don't have experience with a whole bunch of different films or developers, but I may just have to give a shot to some of the ones you have mentioned here this weekend.

I've been using Ilford HP5+ 400 in HC-110. I rate it at 200 (I've found that anything more causes me to loose shadow detail @ ZIII). Using the ZS, I find that most of my snowy shots are N-1, which I develop for 3.5 minutes @ 68º F. This has worked for me thusfar, but I have a whole bunch of negs from the past week (which is when we just started to get more serious snow here), so I need to see how those have been turning out. This is my first winter shooting LF; a very exciting time for me!

I find Delta 100, 400, HP5+ and FP4+ all work ok in snow, but better with a yellow filter - catches more shadows in the snow. As was mentioned, you have to increase the exposure 1 1/2 to 2 stops.

Hmm. I'll have to pick one up before the weekend. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Elchin13]

I usually used Ilford FP4 and develop it in Xtol 1:1 for snow and have got great results from that combination.

 

[perkeleellinen]

This year I decided to do something different and I shot the snow with fast film (Neo1600) and a R25 filter. I shot in full sun and went looking for areas of strong contrast. I overdeveloped the film a little bit too. The next challenge is to print the negs.

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

What's a good film to use? Still learning all this photo stuff...

Although not my favourite film, try Ilford XP2 Super.

 

[hpulley]

I've been getting some beautiful results lately, just printed a bunch up yesterday that I mostly shot on Ilford Delta 400 and Ilford FP4+ 125 souped in Ilfotec DD-X, using Canon FD bodies (FTbN and AE-1) and 24mm f/2 and 35mm f/2 lenses with yellow 8 and red 25 filters. The meter is really fooled by snow scenes so there is no point in using fancy auto exposure cameras.

Ilford 3200 I'm having trouble with in snow. I'm wanting to use it for fast shutter speed stuff for skating, tobogganing, snow boarding and such but I'm having a hard time. I'm overexposing some which still gives me high shutter speeds so that isn't a problem but even overdeveloping some the highlights aren't where I want them to be. Shadows are OK so I'm getting the shadow detail I want but the range is not yet where I want it to be.

 

[jp498]

Harry, 3200 is probably too high a contrast film. You should be able to use 400 outside with no problems capturing action. You may not be able to f16 fixed focus, but it's doable with a normal aperture and modest focusing. I'd also suggest some slow film and panning for action.

 

[hpulley]

I was mostly trying things out since I had a roll to finish off after indoor Christmas day candids but you're right, the contrast does end up compressing things more than I'd like. It isn't really an ideal use of 3200 but I thought I should try it, even with extra development time it didn't do quite what I'd wanted.

I like Delta 400 in snow so I shall try it for some action shooting. I'm shooting autofocus for action so I don't need to use a small aperture just to preset focus and I have fast lenses for sure.

I shall try some panning as well though I need more practice on the hill as panning on the angle is more difficult than the usual cars and airplanes where I have more experience. Skating is easier.

 

[Ezzie]

I've used TMAX100 this winter, and its very forgiving indeed. I'm very happy with the results. I tried Acros 100 the other day, and being unfamiliar with it I messed up half the frames. Whether or not that is the film's fault or mine I need to investigate further, most likely my inexperience is to blame.