Shooting Kodak P3200
Long time readers will know that I previously blogged about my experience using Ilford Delta 3200 with my Bronica SQ-A (you can read that blog by clicking here). I was impressed with the results and the surprising amount of detail that was rendered by such a high ISO film. After that I wanted to see how much I could pull from such a high ISO in 35mm, but this time I’d be picking up Kodak’s offering along with the rest of their black & white range which I will blog about in the coming weeks. My original plan for this roll was as an extra bit of fun for a wedding I was shooting but, in the end, I realized it was better to just focus on the job in hand with my digital camera. Instead, (bar a few photos at the MG & Triumph Weekend) I took it along to my trip to Italy which you would have seen in my blogs in the run up to Christmas.
Back in the day this type of film would have been used for nighttime and indoor events mainly, music concerts being the big one. Like Ektachrome it was originally discontinued when film was at its lowest ebb in 2012 but with strong demand it was brought back in 2019. Being such a grainy film, it’s not something you’d want to shoot everyday but there’s some situations where low light doesn’t give you a choice. I knew there was going to be a lot of grain, much more than I’d seen on the Delta 3200 simply because I was shooting on a smaller format. However even so I was a bit disappointed about the majority of the images I took. The difficulty here is that this is ultimately a specialty film that I didn’t fully understand. Shooting at box speed like I did, it works best when there is strong contrast and a well exposed subject whilst leaving the rest to fall into dramatic shadows or silhouettes.
It didn’t help that a lot of my images, especially at nighttime, look underexposed (a couple as you can see where a complete disaster). Judging by what I’ve elsewhere online, a lot of people are shooting this at ISO 800 or 1600 and their results are much more impressive. A lot less noticeable grain and greater levels of detail (you can see some examples here). Despite that when I did get the exposure right during the day, I was impressed by what was there, if you look at the interior car photo below you can still just about make out the numbers on the tachometer which make up a very small proportion of the image. To clarify I was metering based on the built-in meter of my Nikon F100.
Initially after getting my results back from the lab, I took one look at the images and thought I’d never shoot it again but having seen what results you can get from shooting it a stop or two over I do want to try again. It highlights how versatile B&W film can be and why something like this would have been so popular back in the film days when you had changing lighting conditions but a fixed ISO. I think I’d shoot it at 800 ISO next time, and it is worth pointing out that (as far as I am aware) there aren’t any 800 or 1600 ISO B&W films left on the market, so this fills that niche quite nicely alongside its Ilford equivalent. Watch this space, there may well be a follow up blog next year with this newfound knowledge.
Sadly, unlike Delta 3200, this is not yet available in 120 yet, despite the cryptic messages that Kodak Alaris periodically release. Hopefully that changes in the future giving medium format shooters another arrow in their quiver. Do you have any advice for me on how to shoot this film? Let me know in the comments down below.
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