Friday, March 7, 2014

About to Try Ilford Delta 3200 For My Concert Photography

As you may know, I've been shooting some concerts with black and white film in my Leica M4-2 film camera, as part of a series I'm calling "Dreaming in Monochrom(e)." The idea is that I'm exploring using one of my Leicas in monochrome only, exploring how I'd really work with a digital Leica Monochrom if I had one.
 
Anyway, I've been shooting concerts with Kodak TMax 400 black and white film, pushed two stops to iso 1600.
River Whyless, by Reed A. George
Leica M4-2, 50mm Zeiss C-Sonnar f1.5 Lens
Kodak TMax 400 Film Pushed to iso 1600
 
While I'm really liking this new look to my concert photography, I'm finding the extreme contrast that I get by pushing 400 speed film two stops a little bit limiting. So, I've decided to try some Ilford Delta 3200 black and white film. My experience with Delta 3200 in the past was that the negatives can be a little thin; I've had better luck shooting it at iso 1600 than the labeled 3200. Apparently, the native iso is more like 1000, but it's got extremely wide exposure tolerance.
 
So, I think I'll shoot it at 1600 this time.
 
Here's an example concert shot on Delta 3200by Kontantinos Bezios:
 
Image Source: http://kbesios.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/20120904-105104.jpg
 
Konstantinos shot this on a medium format Plaubel 67 camera. I think the gray tones are very nice, and I hope to get a similar effect in my Leica.
 
(Click Here) to visit Konstantino's blog and see more of his work.
 
My only question now is whether or not I need to inform The Darkroom (my favorite mail-in film developer) that I shot Delta 3200 at 1600 or not. I tend to think not, as I read a lot of posts about shooting it at 1600 and developing normally.
 
By the way, if you want truly excellent film developing, (Click Here) to visit thedarkroom.com.
 
With any luck, I'll have some interesting new concert photos to share in a week or so!
 
DMC-365.blogspot.com
 

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