Push processing Ilford Delta 400 to 3200 v Delta 3200 at 3200

pentaxuser · Mar 10, 2021

Recent threads and often ones by our newcomers would suggest that high speed films are of interest and tonight I came across what I thought was a novel video on the above. I had always assumed that D400 especially would "run out of steam" quite markedly beyond 1600 max and that at 3200 only D3200 stood much of a chance of producing anything like decent shots

Well this video which is only about 3 weeks old produced some surprises for me and I suspect from his comments the photographer/presenter as well

I liked what appeared to be a grounded, almost downbeat style that seemed refreshingly honest without gimmicks and had no hidden agenda.

Anyway enough of my reaction and here is the video for anyone interested

Thanks

pentaxuser

awty · Mar 10, 2021

Unless you take photos with 2 exact same cameras within moments of each other you wont have a great comparison.
Doesnt tell you much that isnt already known. If you push Delta 400 you will risk blown highlights and or low shadow detail. Also the way a scanner behaves on different films can be a big difference.
All is reveled when printing in the dark room. Delta 3200 prints a lot better and easier than pushed d400 or hp5 @3200 iso

DREW WILEY · Mar 10, 2021

Delta 3200 is actually a 1000 speed film anyway; the rest is just squeezing the last drops of toothpaste out of the tube. The difference is, with Delta 400 you start with a much smaller tube.

Helge · Mar 10, 2021

The interesting things start when you attempt to get some of that natural lower contrast back in 400, with various half forgotten techniques.

First thing to realism is perhaps that you needn’t rate and push all the way to 3200. 1000 or 1600 will most often do.

Helge · Mar 10, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Delta 3200 is actually a 1000 speed film anyway; the rest is just squeezing the last drops of toothpaste out of the tube. The difference is, with Delta 400 you start with a much smaller tube.

3200 has a real sensitivity of around a 1000. But the contrast is meant to be correct at 3200.
Develop 3200 at 1000 and you’ll get a pulled looking image.

Lachlan Young · Mar 10, 2021

Delta 400 and 3200 have radically different curve shapes - with Delta 3200's intended to raise shadow contrast & control highlight/ upper midrange contrast - at least in a fairly active & solvent developer. Any comparison that does not understand this critical difference from the immediate outset is fundamentally flawed.

pentaxuser · Mar 10, 2021

Yes one is always at the mercy of scanners ( be that hardware, software or undeclared user manipulation) to skew the results and he says nothing about how he scanned or had scanned the images but as I said he appeared to me to have no hidden agenda and was genuinely surprised as was I, that the pushed D400 looked both sharper in most pics and had less grain. I found that to be probably the more surprising of the conclusions that he as the presenter and I as the viewer drew

awty, as far as two exact camera taking the exact photo at the same moment I agree that this is the best way. However I felt that I could rely on his judgement that the light conditions were at least very close

Can I take it that you have tried both films at these speeds and printed from the negatives? Any chance of showing us the results and did you find any evidence that D400 pushed to 3200 does produce less grain?

My main problem with D3200 in 135 format is its grain. It tends to start to be invasive in certain scenes even at 5x7 so if D400 improves on this with no apparent drawbacks then it might be worth using for occasions when high speed is necessary. On the other hand if in fact this is a result of the way a scanner behaves then this, I agree, is important to those of us who do darkroom prints although for those hybriders amongst us then maybe pushed D400 v D3200 may still have advantages

So for all of the above I and possibly others might well benefit from your evidence

Thanks

pentaxuser

pentaxuser · Mar 10, 2021

Lachlan Young said:
Delta 400 and 3200 have radically different curve shapes - with Delta 3200's intended to raise shadow contrast & control highlight/ upper midrange contrast - at least in a fairly active & solvent developer. Any comparison that does not understand this critical difference from the immediate outset is fundamentally flawed.

Yes I am sure you are right in what you say but having looked at the video, what is your conclusions about why he appeared to get what appeared to me to be at least comparable pics with pushed D400 and with clearly less grain ?

Thanks

pentaxuser

DREW WILEY · Mar 10, 2021

I personally hated the curve of D400. Delta 3200, however, gives me wonderful results when I need a high speed film for snapshooting either 35mm or 120 film. I rate it at 800 for PMK development. When I need finer grain and longer tonality than either, TMY400 does the trick, but it's not as forgiving of shadow metering errors as D3200. That sometimes becomes a factor if I'm operating in heavy rain, for example - stealth shooting, quickly pulling the camera out from under a rain parka. Generally, however, I choose films based on how they look in print. D3200 is quite grainy and has a lot of interesting character, but generally isn't appropriate for the same portfolios as large format shots.

I don't use solvent developers - went through that phase long ago. Nor do I get "pulled-looking" images, which is completely wrong hocus-pocus terminology anyway, though seemingly ubiquitous on this forum by now. I get rich images, with excellent tonal gradation throughout.

Helge · Mar 10, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
I don't use solvent developers - went through that phase long ago. Nor do I get "pulled-looking" images, which is completely wrong hocus-pocus terminology anyway, though seemingly ubiquitous on this forum by now. I get rich images, with excellent tonal gradation throughout.

How’s that?
There is a general look to a pull as well as there is to push.

Paul Howell · Mar 10, 2021

I have not pushed Delta 400 and 3200 but have pushed Tmax 400 and 3200. Tmax 400 to 800 is not really much of push, to 1600 some loss of shadow, at 3200 loss of shadow detail is quite apparent, when I tested Tmax 3200 I found that at 1600, is quite good, 3200 is one push, some loss of shadow, at 6400 quite significant shadow detail loss. When pushing film my motto is expose for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may. My 1990 Kodak Professional Black and White Films, Kodak recommended using Tmax developer when pushing Tmax films, it was designed to hold shadow detail, when I shot Tmax 3200 at 3200 and 6400 I used Tmax developer, otherwise Clayton F76+ or D76 worked quite well. Question is if Ilford Delta is close enough to Tmax to work with DDX? If so then ISO 1000 to 1600 is normal, 3200 is one push, 6400 is a 2 stop push. On the other hand as I recall when Kodak discontinued Tmax 3200 the claim was made that Tmax 400 pushed so well that Tmax 3200 was not needed.

Juan Valdenebro · Mar 10, 2021

For 120 D3200 is good... For 35mm, I prefer TMZ in TMaxDev: there's grain, but it doesn't take the main role, and tone is clean and dynamic, what some would call great microcontrast.
Anyway, for artistic images, D3200 can be great even in 35mm: with no minimal details, concepts can be somehow enhanced.
I doubt D400 was designed to produce decent 3200 negatives for darkroom printing.

DREW WILEY · Mar 10, 2021

I prefer TMY400 at 800 to TMZ even at 800, though I really don't like shooting TMY above box speed unless I'm deliberately trying to block out deep shadows for sake of graphic effect, which I sometimes do. D3200 is a totally different kind of animal. Sometimes I go to the extremes with MF gear - either D3200 or gritty Tri-X one direction, or Pan F toward the other extreme. But that's only when I'm in a mood for something different. My go-to black and white films are both speeds of TMax. A couple days ago I printed a shot taken during high winds above timberline a few years ago with my 6X9 Fuji RF. I had both TMX100 and TMY400 along; but a tripod would have just blown over anyway under those conditions, so by employing the faster film I was able to successfully hand shoot it. The faster film is also useful to freezing the motion of falling water. But otherwise, TMX100 is the most versatile film for me in medium format usage. With view cameras, the sheet film itself contains such a surplus of real estate that one does not need to be concerned as much about grain, and can prioritize other features of specific films instead. By contrast, when I'm shooting 35mm, I generally want distinct graininess, at least in a poetic sense. I don't shoot 35mm for the same kind of subject matter or print sizes as my bigger cameras.

pentaxuser · Mar 10, 2021

michael_r said:
One of these days you’re going to have to try something yourself, pentaxuser rather than relying on second-hand, third-hand...n-hand subjective assessments (which are totally unreliable and mostly useless).

pentaxuser · Mar 10, 2021

I doubt D400 was designed to produce decent 3200 negatives for darkroom printing
One of these days you’re going to have to try something yourself, pentaxuser rather than relying on second-hand, third-hand...n-hand subjective assessments (which are totally unreliable and mostly useless).

The first sentence is from Juan. Juan you may be right but it still leaves the question of how pushed D400 managed to produce images that are comparable to D3200 and if anything have finer grain. The question remains: What did the presenter do to get these pics and can I ask what is it about D400 that makes you doubt it is incapable of producing decent 3200 negatives. This tends to suggest the presenter was some kind of either a magician or worse is some kind of a con artist whose aim was simply to con us that pushed D400 negs might perform that well

I cannot prove he is other than a magician or a con artist but lets assume he is one or both. In either case what is it he has done to create what you and others believe to be an illusion? Did he strike you as a con artist who set out to deliberately fool his audience?

michael_r, it might take me a long time to be able to test these things for myself so I fail to see the problem of putting this sort of information in front of Photrio and asking members interested enough to comment on it and suggest how and why the presenter got it so wrong

It is almost as if anything new or that flies in the face of what seems to be "conventional wisdom" simply draws the statement that it is "third hand, totally unreliable and mostly useless" without the production of evidence or a reasoned argument as to why we should doubt his video

I fear that were I to try this for myself and find that some or most of what the presenter said was correct even to a lesser extent that his video showed, it would cause too few of the naysayers to even want to ask more questions.

It's a great pity that Photrio has seemed to move from a broad church in terms of the examination of anything new or worse it always did reject anything new but I failed to see any real signs of this until recently.

pentaxuser

Lachlan Young · Mar 10, 2021

@DREW WILEY Delta 3200 behaves quite radically differently in less/ non solvent developers & becomes more like a fast 'normal' film without the distinctive restrained highlight density - and depending on developer etc, Delta 3200 can have a longer toe than TMax 400.

warden · Mar 10, 2021

pentaxuser said:
Recent threads and often ones by our newcomers would suggest that high speed films are of interest and tonight I came across what I thought was a novel video on the above. I had always assumed that D400 especially would "run out of steam" quite markedly beyond 1600 max and that at 3200 only D3200 stood much of a chance of producing anything like decent shots

That was an interesting video, thanks for sharing it. I like the presenter too. I think tests like this are more revealing when the lighting conditions actually demand iso3200 rather than a bright snowy overcast day, but this was still a fun video.

I'm also surprised that the D400 looked as good as it did. The presenter said D400 had 'better' contrast, but I think he meant that it simply had more contrast. The D3200 images could easily be adjusted to have the same contrast as the D400 but probably not the other way around.I may have missed it but did he say if these images were 35mm or MF?

It would have been better if the presenter would have shared how the scans were made, and by whom. If the scans were made at a service provider they could have been made by different employees using different equipment, different settings, etc. and that could account for some difference in the result. But in the end he learned what he needed to know, that D400 is a serviceable film for him when pushed. I'm sticking with D3200 in MF and P3200 in 35mm for the times that I need speed, but it's nice to know that if you are forced to use a 400 speed film you could.

It would be good for him to show the actual negatives so we could see the difference in contrast but I'm nitpicking now. My D3200 negatives are always an even low contrast and very easy to wet print, but if I push a 400 speed film it's immediately apparent that I have a very high contrast negative to work with, which is tricky in the darkroom but not such a big deal when scanning.

Sirius Glass · Mar 10, 2021

I am not a Microphen fan. I would like to see both developed in XTOL and in staining pyro and then printed to the same contrast.

awty · Mar 11, 2021

jawarden said:
That was an interesting video, thanks for sharing it. I like the presenter too. I think tests like this are more revealing when the lighting conditions actually demand iso3200 rather than a bright snowy overcast day, but this was still a fun video.

I'm also surprised that the D400 looked as good as it did. The presenter said D400 had 'better' contrast, but I think he meant that it simply had more contrast. The D3200 images could easily be adjusted to have the same contrast as the D400 but probably not the other way around.I may have missed it but did he say if these images were 35mm or MF?

It would have been better if the presenter would have shared how the scans were made, and by whom. If the scans were made at a service provider they could have been made by different employees using different equipment, different settings, etc. and that could account for some difference in the result. But in the end he learned what he needed to know, that D400 is a serviceable film for him when pushed. I'm sticking with D3200 in MF and P3200 in 35mm for the times that I need speed, but it's nice to know that if you are forced to use a 400 speed film you could.

It would be good for him to show the actual negatives so we could see the difference in contrast but I'm nitpicking now. My D3200 negatives are always an even low contrast and very easy to wet print, but if I push a 400 speed film it's immediately apparent that I have a very high contrast negative to work with, which is tricky in the darkroom but not such a big deal when scanning.

Thats what I meant to say.
If you get the exposure right, d3200 is very nice to print. I tend to up the contrast to about 2.5 to 3.

Here are a few D3200 neg scans prior to printing. Some xtol and some microphen, wonder if anyone can tell.

grain elevator · Mar 11, 2021

That the 3200 is lower in contrast and grainier is no surprise. I've had my first roll of it loaded for a few weeks, curious now to finish and develop it. I'm exposing it at 1600 but now I'm thinking I want high contrast, so I'll try to develop generously. Maybe should have gone to 3200 or even 6400. I'll sneak a few shots at those EIs on it and see have they turn out with relatively less development.

Craig75 · Mar 11, 2021

the bandstand shot he says is f/8 at 1/500 - which is what would you would expect at iso400 on a brightish winter day in uk so I dont see where the push was here.

warden · Mar 11, 2021

awty said:
Here are a few D3200 neg scans prior to printing.

That last shot is a Cindy Sherman Hollywood still, one of my favorites from you. The shadow is perfect.

Jonno85uk · Mar 11, 2021

Craig75 said:
the bandstand shot he says is f/8 at 1/500 - which is what would you would expect at iso400 on a brightish winter day in uk so I dont see where the push was here.

It looked heavily overcast in the video.

Craig75 · Mar 11, 2021

Jonno85uk said:
It looked heavily overcast in the video.

yes you are right when i look again - it's looking pretty miserable out there so f2.8 1/400 400 could be about right

pentaxuser · Mar 11, 2021

I agree the video asked more questions than it answered. Another poster said that he could not find if the presenter had said whether it was 135 or 120. Nor could I and yes this might be key in terms of grain. My experience is that D3200 in 120 is fine for me grain-wise in terms of how much I enlarge a print but 135 much less so as I said previously. Nor did he say if it was home developed or lab developed and in what developer nor anything about his pics in terms of scanning. It has to be a scan of course but was this one of a darkroom print, a manipulated inkjet print or a manipulated negative. Clearly if it was a manipulated neg to an extent that makes a darkroom print to match what I saw very difficult then I lose interest but if it was then clearly our hybriders might still have a deal of interest as it would appear possible to actually get a better picture picture with D400 pushed than D3200 at 3200

These are all good questions to which the presenter gave no answers unfortunately.

When there is less info in a video that is ideal to make a judgement one is always left with the question of why is this the case and that does leave me a bit uneasy, especially when what he appears to have achieved tends to be contrary to conventional wisdom in terms of a 3 stop push with a film such as D400 which is not the usual "go to" film for this kind of pushing

However what I feel I am left with is 2 possible answers:
1. He actually cleverly faked the whole thing and used a D400 or even some other film at its correct box speed to ensure that grain would be better than D3200 and contrast a little better as well. His sole objective was to pull a rabbit out of a hat and amaze his audience which is one a million miles from that which we have here on Photrio

2. Somehow he managed to achieve what he achieved genuinely.

If it's number 1 and it was a con then that is the end of the matter but if it is number two then my interest is how did he manage this.

I simply posted the video because I was curious as to whether our collective knowledge might be able to throw light on the how or better still there is/was someone on Photrio who has actually pushed D400 at least 2 stops and ideally 3 who might add some user knowledge to the group.

Frankly there have been occasions when I do wonder if there are those out there on Photrio, mainly as "lurkers" who have tried such things but have preferred to "hid their light under a bushel" for fear of the negative reaction which can follow and did follow a member who posted on high EI speed but disappeared after about one week.

pentaxuser

Push processing Ilford Delta 400 to 3200 v Delta 3200 at 3200

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