Ilford Delta 100 in Kodak HC110 W 1+50

[Ian Grant]

Unfortunately, these are only files digitised with a DSLR, and some of them are already rather old.

Even with high end scans restrictions of Forum software & size make it difficult to show LF images at their best,

I find Ian's images interesting. They remind me a bit of those very sharp 19th-century photographs on glass plates. What negative format is that? 5x4?

Well I have my Grandparents wedding photos, shot on 12"x10", and 10"x8", plus two prints my Grandmother bought when she went abroad to the English Lake District on her honeymoon, from Scotland.

I mostly shoot 5x4, also 10x8, some 7x5, as well as 120 mostly 6x6 in a TLR, and a 6x17 camera,

My approach though is definitely not unique, I guess, well know, it's informed by a British tradition discussed in the 1083 Rural Myths copy of Ten-8 magazine, and the article by Paul Lewis "Where the Wild Things Went". Essentially it was about the revival of British landscape photography, and how it took inspiration from Minor White, claiming his disciples here were Thomas Joshua Cooper, John Blakemore, Richard Sadler, John Davies, etc. I also have the much earlier 1978 Issue 3 "Landscapes" copy of Ten-8.

Ways of working, subject matter, differed, but the strive for high quality prints (or other means of output) is important, and it's also not difficult.

Fay Godwin's work is mentioned in the 1978 "Landscape" Ten-8, and an image from "Remains of Elmet" a book she published of her photographs and Ted Hughes poetry, in 1979. The only work that shines in this magazine is John Blakemore's landscapes.

Around roughly 1980 Fay Godwin went on a workshop at Paul Hill's "The Photographers Place" near Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, lead by John Blakemore, it transformed her way of working. I don't mean composition, rather craft. She told us that on a workshop I went on with her

Later in 1994 she released an updated version of "Remains of Elmet" she had reprinted all the photographs, and added some some new ones, along with new poems. If you look at the two versions side by side they are like chalk & cheese.

Ian

 

[Dave_P]

This is quite a buzzing thread with lots of technical chat but zero image examples. Would anyone care to add visual examples to illustrate what you’re talking about, please? Thanks.

Here's one for a start:

Fontainebleau, rock and trees

I was prompted to post this one from last summer as there's a massive wildfire in this region now, pretty sad to see as it's an incredible area, very accessible from the UK yet largely unknown to Brits outside the climbing community. If you're ever driving up or down the A6 just south of Paris...

www.5x4.co.uk

 

[dcl]

Around roughly 1980 Fay Godwin went on a workshop at Paul Hill's "The Photographers Place" near Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, lead by John Blakemore, it transformed her way of working. I don't mean composition, rather craft. She told us that on a workshop I went on with her

Later in 1994 she released an updated version of "Remains of Elmet" she had reprinted all the photographs, and added some some new ones, along with new poems. If you look at the two versions side by side they are like chalk & cheese.

Sorry, I don't have the book from 1994, and unfortunately I can't find the Ten.8 magazine here in Switzerland ...

Zone System, Ansel Adams, Minor White, Barnbaum, BTZS etc. - I see the discussion is moving towards general aesthetics. I like this, because all of our technical endeavours ultimately lead to aesthetics. This can become quite obsessive.

Some apply the zone system as previsualization, others as control of exposure, still others as the control of development, and yet others in all three of these areas.

Blakemore strikes me as an exponent of contrast control through exposure. Which is based on previsualization. Looking at his prints I learn that is not good to be a slave to the method, after all. One needn't develop every scene from a contrast of 1:16 to 1:32 or reduce 1:64 to 1:32 simply because this or that procedure exists. It seems to me that there is a lot of pure light in his pictures.

In a black-and-white image, there can also be black and white, can't there? The question is: how does the black or white fit into the image? What do these tones do to the image? How do they influence rhythm, composition, spatiality, image / viewing time? That, in my opinion, is the true purpose of previsualization. And this is why I want to preserve the shadows in Delta 100 or every other film. To have some meat on the bone to work with, even if it gets black, finally.

The zone system or systems prescribe something like a full-scale print behind glass, mounted on museum board. If we orient ourselves toward this aesthetic, the zone system makes our work easier. Evedn if we intend another aesthetic: it inevitably leads to certain shooting techniques that continuously improve quality: tripod, external spot meter, large-format or roll-film magazines, various bodies for 35mm, calibration, standard print time … it is one of many ways to become conscious of what one is actually doing.

 

[Ian Grant]

Some apply the zone system as previsualization, others as control of exposure, still others as the control of development, and yet others in all three of these areas.

Guess I mostly use the Zone System first to get an Optimal EI and Development time, for a film and developer for average lighting conditions. I always use a Spotmeter if I need to check the highlights and shadows, where I want to keep detail in both to get the right exposure, or determine if I need to adjust development..

In terms of N+ or - adjustments I rarely use increased development, and if I need to control contrast only if I need N-2.

When I first used the Zone System it was with a Mamiya 645, so EI, Dev time, and more critically exposure placement, But I think this also needs to go hand in hand with advance printing controls. The ultimate aim is for craft to become intuitive, although you should never stop learning.

Ian

 

[Nas]

In a black-and-white image, there can also be black and white, can't there? The question is: how does the black or white fit into the image? What do these tones do to the image?

I think at the end of the day it's all highly personal. This is not maths we're dealing with where you have one correct answer. Another thing to consider is when viewing a print, how bright is the light you're viewing the print in. I've been to so many exhibitions where the lighting felt underwhelming to me.

 

[David M]

John exposed and developed to provide what he described as a "flexible" negative and he was able to produce a wide variety of prints with apparent ease. To me, his negs looked rather thin, but he was the master, not me. Incidentally, he seemed to use just a Weston meter, rather than a spot meter.
He demonstrated all this by producing a series of prints, all different, all excellent, from the same neg. This was from his Tulipomania phase.

 

[Ian Grant]

John exposed and developed to provide what he described as a "flexible" negative and he was able to produce a wide variety of prints with apparent ease. To me, his negs looked rather thin, but he was the master, not me. Incidentally, he seemed to use just a Weston meter, rather than a spot meter.
He demonstrated all this by producing a series of prints, all different, all excellent, from the same neg. This was from his Tulipomania phase.

I seen to remember Ansel Adams describing how to use a Weston meter for the Zone System. When I began using it I had two Westons, a Master V, & Euromaster, it wasn't difficult.

Ian

 

[David M]

Yes, the Weston's an excellent piece of kit. Pity they’re vanishing.

 

[David Lindquist]

The use of the Weston meter with the zone system goes back to the beginnings of its codification in the early 1940s. The way the meter's dial was set-up made it (relatively) simple to determine proper exposure according to the placement of a lower value and to determine where a higher value fell on the zone scale which determined the sort of development needed. Earlier editions of Adams's The Negative cover using the Weston Master series.

Ansel Adams and Fred Archer developed (no pun intended) the zone system while teaching at the Art Center School in Los Angeles. Adams credits work published by John L. Davenport in U.S. Camera in 1940 as providing the technical foundation for the Zone System.

It looks like repair of the Weston IV, V, and Euro-Master is still available: http://ian-partridge.com/westonrepair.html
And rebuilt versions of these meters may also still be available. I bought a Weston Master IV from Ian some years ago. Still works fine. No idea where he gets his selenium cells.

David

 

[dcl]

Hello,

now I have taken pictures with Delta 100@40. I developed the film for 6 minutes in HC110 1+50.

Beware! These aren't 5x4 negatives yet. It is 35mm film. The prints are only 7x5 inches large. But 7x5 isn't any easier to print than 10x8 or larger.

I finally got myself a scanner. The photographs look better on baryta paper. It's the reflection, as opposed to transmission on the monitor. The digital images are not as good as the printed ones.

The 35mm film was exposed in a Nikon F5, which can control exposure most accurately and features shutter speed calibration. It was also a good opportunity to test the PC-E Micro-Nikkor 2.8/45 and 2.8/85 with "genuine silver sensors".

The negatives were enlarged with Fomabrom Variant 111 7x5 glossy, which was developed in Moersch Eco 4812 1+14 for 4 minutes. I love this developer. After this the prints went into a citric acid bath, followed by a Fomafix 1+5 two-bath fixing.

I always took two exposures (reciprocity factor), I managed to produce eight photographs. That was a lovely eight hours.

I thought to myself, if we're going to talk about Blakemore and Fay Godwin anyway, why shouldn't I fabricate a few Blakemoresques?

I lightened the still rather green foliage with an X1 green filter, correction +2EV. That's tricky with the Nikon. This camera with its six or seven frames per second has to be mounted on a tripod. It is a complete slow-down.

The exposure is first determined with the unshifted lens. You can use the built-in spot meter for this. Fortunately, you can move it across the image on the back of the camera — just imagine: Nikon's matrix metering gave exactly the same result, incidentally...

Then you level the camera, shift the tilt/shift lens, make a swing to keep all the tree trunks sharp (in the first vertical image above) at the best aperture, here f/4. Then you put on the green filter (Cokin 4 inch) and adjust the exposure by +2 EV. After that, you engage mirror lock-up and expose for one to three seconds using an electronic release.

After the shot, take another image with double the exposure time. It's worth doing. Already at 1 second, the shadows gain definition when you extend the exposure time.

Afterwards, everything has to be reset. Some older ladies came by. They asked me if I was photographing a kingfisher. I said no, I was making pictures of light on the river. They didn't understand that. The Bernese are very practically minded.

I exposed for the highlights. What I was after was seeing the brighter leaves against an indeterminate white light coming from the depth of the image. That's why I didn't shorten the development. The white light in VIII and IX would have become muddy. I didn't want that.

The scenes were still very contrasty, though. The tree trunks in the Fomabrom prints still have detail, but overall come across as large, elongated stripes running across the picture plane. That makes the image somewhat more abstract.

My conclusion: The film is worth it. I can use it very well as 35mm film. I think that in 5x4, the images will come out somewhat more detailed and sharper. I normally photograph in 7x5 and 5x4, where the ground glass is larger and everything is much easier than in the viewfinder of the Nikon F5. In 35mm, Delta 100 is a good, fine-grained foundation for notes that you can't repeat later. Sharper than FP4+? A somewhat more mobile form of photography. I don't have to overdo it with tilt and shift ...

Thank you for your engagement and valuable tips. I've received Fay Godwin's first book on Elmet. It's very atmospheric. Although the images in the sky are sometimes somewhat overexposed, overprinted for too long. Split-grade printing would have been better — a dramatisation of the clouds with blue light, with equally bright highlights — but were they that far advanced in the eighties? Did Blakemore use split-grade printing?

Kind regards

Werner

 

[Ian Grant]

My experience is Delta 100 negatives scans can easily produce a perfect visual match to prints whether on RC or FB paper.

Thank you for your engagement and valuable tips. I've received Fay Godwin's first book on Elmet. It's very atmospheric. Although the images in the sky are sometimes somewhat overexposed, overprinted for too long. Split-grade printing would have been better — a dramatisation of the clouds with blue light, with equally bright highlights — but were they that far advanced in the eighties? Did Blakemore use split-grade printing?

The print quality in Fay Godwin's early books is a a combination of her own printing skills, at the time, an even more importantly the lithography used for the the image reproductions.

The only early Fay Godwin book I own is "the Drovers Roads of Wales", Fay showed us the early version of "Remains of Elmet" and image reproduction was similar, the original print quality is lost.

After going on a Blakemore workshop the reproduction quality of her images in her books very significantly improved. The major difference was the images were printed as Duotones, two Litho plates instead of one, and that makes a vast difference. Like Chalk & Cheese.

When I first met John Blakemore & Fay, on workshops mid to late 1980s, they both printed on Agfa Record Rapid, I guess they switched to Agfa MCC which replaced it. In printing terms John Blakemore was that advanced in the 1970s, in Britain and Europe the major influence was Minor White, and the Westons, in terms of print quality.

Ansel Adams only became a truly excellent printer after he retirerd. I have seen a lot of his work, almost all prrints made after retirement. However there was a touring Exhibition of his daughters collection, and the print quality was not good, I saw it twice, Oxford and Edinburg. Everyone I knew felt the same, and there were plenty of similar comments online, to be fair they were almost certainly conteporary prints mad not long after the images were made, and there have been huge advances in printing papers.

Ian

 

[Nas]

The importance of high quality litho printing for photography books can’t be overstated. One of the best ones I own is the first edition of Cyclops by Albert Watson. Printed in quadra-tone (4 inks). The process was special enough to get a mention on the imprint page. Highly recommended.