Ilford FP4+ in Kodak Microdol-X, Computar 2.8/28

[iangreenhalgh1]

This is a lens that is very uncommon and with no info available, I think it is made by Kowa. It's very sharp, good contrast, only weakness I have found so far is some vignetting wide open and at f4. I'm really starting to like the tonality of FP4 in Microdol-X, I rate it at 64 and pull developing time by 15%. This gives a wide tonal range with good shadow and highlight detail and excellent grain. Not bad for 20 year old film.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

[Attila]

#5 and #8 eight to me, all pretty soft.

[BKSPicture]

Looks very nice!!
Like #5 the best, thanks for sharing.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Cheers.

[Katastrofo]

Strong set, like 5 for comp, too, nice shot of your mum as well.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Cheers Bill.

[ForenSeil]

#2 and clearly #5 for me. They have rich detail - I don't think it's soft. Tonality is very nice.

[mo]

I like 2,3,4.I think you have captured the trees and subtle light nicely (esp #3). I do like looking at the branches against the sky it seems B&W is made for this type of image.I am sure there is room for improvement,trying different viewpoints times of day etc I also like the busted down door.

Potential dumb question alert.....Have you ever gone back and reworked a negative? I am not sure how well you can manipulate a negative to get a slightly different result in tones etc?

[Attila]

[Orio]

[iangreenhalgh1]

All I tend to do is use shadows/highlights in photoshop to adjust the brightness of the shadows and highlights, but I usually only do that if the development/exposure was less than ideal, and that's usually with unusual, tricky film stocks like microfilm, if the development/exposure was correct then the tonality and highlight/shadow detail should be fine and no processing is needed, although sometimes I do tweak the contrast/brightness a bit. By and large, I try to avoid doing any processing of my BW film shots but if I can improve a picture with some processing, I will do, I see it as being the same thing as burning and dodging and selecting different filters or paper grades in the traditional darkroom process.

I am finding, with FP4 or FP4+ developed in Microdol-X diluted 1:3, that I rarely have to do any processing as I'm getting beautiful tonality and good detail in both shadows and highlights. There was a fairly famous British freelance photographer in the 70s/80s called Raymond Lea, he always used FP4 in 1:3 Microdol-X as he said it gave him the easiest to print negatives he ever saw. That was what put me onto this combo and my experience is the same - I just scan em and post em, they don't need any processing 99% of the time. I wasn't so keen on FP4 or FP4+ until I tried it with Microdol-X 1:3, now I really love it.

[mo]

Thank you all for answering,I learned a lot out of those replies.keep going Ian it seems you are on the right track.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Cheers Mo, I'm just shamelessly copying the techniques of the masters of the past, film is old technology so the best techniques were developed a long time ago.

[mo]

I don't think you are...why reinvent the wheel when its already here to be copied. It s the fact you are using the old technology/knowledge that keeps it alive and still available today.Its when it dies a silent death and nobody knows what to do in the future,assuming film will still be around then.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Cheers Mo. I agree, why re-invent the wheel.