What film & dev did Robert Doisneau use?

evansol · Oct 3, 2009

I have been fascinated with the amazing quality of images photographed by Robert Doisneau in the 30s-80s, with his Rolleiflex and Leica cameras. Of course the focusing is sharp, but I have never found any source for information about the kind of film and developing chemicals he used for his work.

Most of his prints show rich tones, details in the blacks, and not overdone highlights, and even in book form, these photographs are gorgeous to look at!

Does anyone have any information about the nuts and bolts part of all his work, namely the kind of films he worked with, and how he developed them?

Enlighten me!

evanjsol@hotmail.com

Evan

JohnArs · Oct 4, 2009

I have somewhere also seen a Pic with a LF camera in use seems to be a 4x5 or 9x12cm!

What film he used no idea I only know the todays film are much better in every therms then at thad time!

Cheers and good luck by finding the magic bullet;--))) Armin

Ian Grant · Oct 4, 2009

No idea what films etc but I have a print of his shot in a Jazz club of couple dancing as it's available light it must have been a 400 ISO film. It's on a wall of my house in the UK, and the quality is excellent. It's printed on Ilford paper.

Part of the secret of Doisneau, Cartier Bresson, Kertesz etc is that they never printed large.

Ian

Philippe Grunchec · Oct 4, 2009

If you really want to know, ask his daughters who are keeping all his negatives!

HarryW · Oct 4, 2009

Evan,
In the biography (1995) by Peter Hamilton - Robert Doisneau - A Photographers Life, page 364 includes an extract from a former book by Doisneau on the Loire (1978-79) where he was asked to write a description of the technical aspects of his work. It runs to nine paragraphs the first eight pretty much tongue in cheek however the last paragraph gives this:

"Speaking of the camera bag, I don't have much space left to tell you about the contents. Two well worn Nikons, one for black and white, the other for colour. Four lenses: 105-50-35 and a 28mm shift. Some Tri-X film, some Kodachrome 25, two Ekta H.S. [Kodak High Speed Ektachrome] and Ekta X 64 [Kodak Ektachrome-X]. Four glass filters:K -1A - 81A - 85B, a half dozen gelatin filters. It's not much but heavy enough, particularly in the evening. The black and white were developed in Microdol X, fourteen minutes at twenty degrees or in D76, nine minutes at twenty degrees. Prints were on Kodabrom paper, Dektol developer, the enlarger an Omega in good condition.
Now you know everything"

The biography gives a brief outline of his equipment and it appears that he used Rolleiflex, Hasselblad, Leica, Zeiss, Leica M and flex as well as Nikon and large format (modified Speed Graphics amongst others)

Hope this is of assistance

Regards

Harry

evansol · Oct 4, 2009

JohnArs said:
I have somewhere also seen a Pic with a LF camera in use seems to be a 4x5 or 9x12cm!

What film he used no idea I only know the todays film are much better in every therms then at thad time!

Cheers and good luck by finding the magic bullet;--))) Armin

Thank you, John. I was curious because some of his photographs from the 40s and 50s were taken under nighttime available light conditions, and films were slower then, so he must have been using slow shutter speeds, but the pictures look well-exposed!

evansol · Oct 4, 2009

Ian Grant said:
No idea what films etc but I have a print of his shot in a Jazz club of couple dancing as it's available light it must have been a 400 ISO film. It's on a wall of my house in the UK, and the quality is excellent. It's printed on Ilford paper.

Part of the secret of Doisneau, Cartier Bresson, Kertesz etc is that they never printed large.

Ian

Hi Ian,

Yes, never printing large can make a huge difference with the quality of the print, and I only have the examples of the prints in my various books of his work to view; I haven't seen any of them as real photographic prints hanging on a wall.

Evan

evansol · Oct 5, 2009

HarryW said:
Evan,
In the biography (1995) by Peter Hamilton - Robert Doisneau - A Photographers Life, page 364 includes an extract from a former book by Doisneau on the Loire (1978-79) where he was asked to write a description of the technical aspects of his work. It runs to nine paragraphs the first eight pretty much tongue in cheek however the last paragraph gives this:

"Speaking of the camera bag, I don't have much space left to tell you about the contents. Two well worn Nikons, one for black and white, the other for colour. Four lenses: 105-50-35 and a 28mm shift. Some Tri-X film, some Kodachrome 25, two Ekta H.S. [Kodak High Speed Ektachrome] and Ekta X 64 [Kodak Ektachrome-X]. Four glass filters:K -1A - 81A - 85B, a half dozen gelatin filters. It's not much but heavy enough, particularly in the evening. The black and white were developed in Microdol X, fourteen minutes at twenty degrees or in D76, nine minutes at twenty degrees. Prints were on Kodabrom paper, Dektol developer, the enlarger an Omega in good condition.
Now you know everything"

The biography gives a brief outline of his equipment and it appears that he used Rolleiflex, Hasselblad, Leica, Zeiss, Leica M and flex as well as Nikon and large format (modified Speed Graphics amongst others)

Hope this is of assistance

Regards

Harry

Hi Harry,

Thank you for the most information I have received (so far!).
I always figured he used many different kinds of cameras in the 80s and 90s, but I was mostly curious about the films of the 40s and 50s, when there just wasn't a lot of choice of films available then, and yet, so many photographers got beautiful results with slow films, slow shutter speeds, slow lenses!

Evan

Ian Grant · Oct 5, 2009

evansol said:
Hi Ian,

Yes, never printing large can make a huge difference with the quality of the print, and I only have the examples of the prints in my various books of his work to view; I haven't seen any of them as real photographic prints hanging on a wall.

Evan

Some books tell you the sizes of the originals which is useful, In think my Doisneau print is about 6"x8" and while it looks excellent at that size I think would be poor larger as the films of the day were nowhere near modern standards. I did use FP3 & HP3 and the differences to modern FP4 but particularly HP5 are quite substantial.

This is the image I have:

Be-Bop en cave, Saint-Germain-des-Près 1951 - photo by Robert Doisneau

It's actually a better print than this one.

Ian

evansol · Oct 5, 2009

Ian Grant said:
Some books tell you the sizes of the originals which is useful, In think my Doisneau print is about 6"x8" and while it looks excellent at that size I think would be poor larger as the films of the day were nowhere near modern standards. I did use FP3 & HP3 and the differences to modern FP4 but particularly HP5 are quite substantial.

This is the image I have:

Be-Bop en cave, Saint-Germain-des-Près 1951 - photo by Robert Doisneau

It's actually a better print than this one.

Ian

Hi Ian,

This is one of my favorite images of his 50s series... the exact moment he clicked the shutter was perfect for showing the graceful movement of the man... it almost looks like he doesn't weigh anything, like gravity just does not exist for him... Fred Astaire look like that in his movies, too!

I just looked at some of your images in your portfolio, and I like the rich tones you are getting with your work. You are showing what makes B&W so magical. And your personal statement is very much like so many of us feel about the two 'types' of photography available now... the other has become so necessary for commercial work, for it's instant feedback and unlimited re-touching capability, but it's the film and mechanical cameras that feed MY soul, and film is certainly where MY heart is!

You can see some of my images in the gallery section, in the APUG conference section part-way down the gallery page, under evansol.

Evan

What film & dev did Robert Doisneau use?

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