Increased Grain @ large Apertures???

[Stephen J. Collier]

This is might be a dumb question, but here goes.

Recently I shoot a roll of Ilford HP5 with my Canon F1 and developed the roll with Paterson Aculux 2. When I made prints from some of the negatives the grain structure was much lager in one print than in another. The only difference that I could think of to account for the difference was that the photo with the very apparent grain were shoot at about f/2.8 and the one that had much smaller grain was shot at f/8 or f/16. Does grain really get larger the wider the aperture is open?

I don’t remember ever being taught anything about this or reading anything about it and I have never noticed it before. It might be just one of those weird things. Thanks

 

[Stephen J. Collier]

Thank you.

 

[Claire Senft]

Might be in the printing.

If your lens when being used at 2.8 has low contrast and you try to reduce that effect by printing on a higher contrast paper you could make the grain more distinct and prominent thru increasing local contrast. Is the negative shot at 2.8 denser than the negatives stopped down? Are both the negatives equally contrasty? If you have a grain focuser that is high powered say 25x is the grain in vieiwing the negatives at 2.8 and 16 similar? Are both negatives taken of the same subject and light conditions so that you are comparing the same areas on the print?

 

[Woolliscroft]

Grain always looks more intrusive in out of focus areas than with in focus detail and wide apertures, with their lower depth of field, usually provide out of focus areas. Does the grain still look bigger in the sharp areas?

David.

 

[pgomena]

I once owned 4 Canon F1s, and tested the shutter speeds on all of them. Although the speed dial cranks up to 1/2000/sec, NONE of them had actual speeds higher than 1/500. I think I recall that you needed some sort of accessory to use those higher speeds, one that replaced the viewfinder and hooked into the body through that little door on the front to the left of the lens mounting breech. If you were shooting at F/2.8 and 1/000sec or faster, you were overexposing your film and increasing your grain.

Pete Gomena