Pushing Ilford FP4+ to ISO 200
If you’ve seen last week’s blog, then you’ll know that I’ve made my first attempts at pushing and pulling film. Pulling film to a lower ISO produces a more high key image with increased shadow detail and less contrast. Pushing film to a higher ISO creates the opposite effect and gives a more contrasty image with more shadow depth. For a full overview please do read the previous blog if you haven’t already.
After having pulled Ilford HP5+ from ISO 400 to ISO 200, this time I will be pushing Ilford FP4+ from ISO 125 to ISO 200. Not quite a full stop but it makes for a good comparison. Again I shot this with my Kodak Retina iiiS so the gear was consistent but I shot the roll across two different days. One when I was visiting RAF Coningsby (click here to read the full blog on that day out) and another when I went into London in the aftermath of the Queen passing away last year.
One thing I will caveat is that the day in London was duller than the one at RAF Coningsby, and reaching for small apertures with an older rangefinder camera meant I was dropping down to lower shutter speeds, slow enough to introduce a bit of shutter shake to a few of my images. This gave me a more negative perception to some of these photos that has nothing to do with the effects of pushing the film. One thing I’ve been guilty of since I started shooting with older cameras is stopping down the aperture too much to make sure everything is in focus. It became a bit of a crutch and it’s something I intend to avoid going forward.
Looking at the results I can see the increased amounts of contrast straight away, and there’s definitely more there than in comparison to the pulled HP5+ I shot before. There’s also more pronounced grain compared to shooting it at the box speed of ISO 125 and I would say it’s the same or possible worse than the pulled roll of HP5+. As ever HP5+ shows off its versatility.
Reflecting on the results I don’t think I would push FP4+ in 35mm (or 120 roll film) again. It’s not really necessary as there’s no shortage of ISO 400 black and white film stocks, however I could potentially see myself doing it for sheet film where I think the effect would be much more pronounced with the greater tonal range of a much larger piece of film. There’s also the other obvious scenario of being out somewhere and only having a roll of FP4+ when the conditions are overly dull. But again, I don’t see that being very likely. Though if you do want to make sure that shadow and highlight detail isn’t lost on a very bright and contrasty day or think that an otherwise very flat image needs more contrast then pushing and pulling may be the answer. Though perhaps not for films with such wide tonal ranges as FP4+ and HP5+. Contrastier T-grain film stocks like Ilford Delta 100 and Kodak T-Max 100 may benefit a lot more.
In the pre-digital era, it was much more important to push and pull film as photographers didn’t have Lightroom to easily manipulate their images in post-production. What we do lack now however it a great range of films above ISO 800 and it is at these higher ISOs that I can see myself pushing film stocks like HP5+ in order to cope with a lack of light. Certain high ISO films like Kodak P3200 are also manufactured with pushing and pulling in mind to give you more versatility in covering the shooting conditions you find yourself in.
Beyond black and white there’s a much bigger case to be made for pushing colour films where this is a lot less choice. Especially slide films where the fastest available is still only ISO 100 (Let’s hope we see fresh rolls of Ektachrome 400 one day). Unfortunately, I don’t yet have the equipment to process colour film and labs usually do charge more for doing so. But if it’s the difference between getting the shot and not, then it may be a price that has to be paid. As the hashtag online goes #shootfilmstaybroke.
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