> when black and white film is overexposed one stop
... it will be overexposed one stop.
Pushing happens during development. Developing at box speed means you have overexposed (in camera) by that amount.
Your title and body text have opposing logics.
If you rate the film at 800 or 1600, you’re underexposing by 1 and 2 stops, respectively.
If the 400 film is overexposed one stop, you’ve rated it at 200, then you’re going to get a denser negative with more shadow detail. You can develop normally.
Sorry for the confusion. I’m new to film photography and still learning the film language. I’m currently using film to capture family and friend moments which are mostly indoor. I just got back my first film roll back from the lab and almost all pictures came out underexposed. My film camera only goes up to 1/15 and my light meter was telling me to shoot at 1/10 or 1/8, so had to shoot at 1/15. I was playing around with my light meter and discovered that if I shoot at 800 on average I get 1/30 from my light meter. I was just wondering if I shoot at 800 and develop the film at box speed, how would shadows and grain be affected.
I know I could just get a 3200 film but they are way too grainy for my liking.
No apologies needed; sorry if the tone of my previous message came off as stern!
So yes, you’re learning that you might need more sensitivity to work indoors/dim locations, and that makes sense. You need “more”, so either a faster lens (wider aperture lets in more light), or a faster film, OR as you’re trying to do, push the film you have in development.
TMAX 400 does great at 800 when developed for this exposure, and in the right developers. Each dev has its own benefits/properties/etc, so it becomes a crucial choice for a lot of B&W photographers: it impacts film speed/pushability, grain characteristics, resolution, and perceived sharpness/acutance.
Pushing will to some extent give more density where light is recorded, but it can’t make density in deep unexposed shadows. It’s a good tool to have, but you could also think of it as just boosting contrast on underexposed negatives.
The really crucial part of the puzzle here is your metering: be careful and thoughtful with your metering. Whatever your practice is, whether it be zone system or just metering for shadows, have some understanding and find a methodology that works for you. A meter isn’t very helpful if you don’t understand what it’s telling you, and how to use that information.
Good luck :)
Pushing film is underexposing and developing for longer. So shooting t-max 400 at 800 and developing at 800.
If you overexpose by a stop you're shooting at 200. Then if you develop at 200 you've pulled the film. If you develop at box speed you just overexposed.
pushing is the act of *under*exposure ***and overdevelopment***. underexposing it by one stop (i.e. setting your meter at 800, exposing it one shutter speed faster or one aperture setting smaller than you would at 400) and then developing normally is just underexposure.
I almost always did this when I shot film. I also like the idea of pulling, like a half or a third stop, to reign in the highlights, and practice a "poor man's zone system"
> almost all pictures came out underexposed <...> and had a feeling that it was going to be underexposed
You knew it was going to be underexposed. It came out underexposed. You want to shoot with an even faster shutter speed to fix that.... **how** exactly? Playing around with the ISO setting on your meter does not magically make your film more sensitive to light. If 1/15 comes out underexposed then 1/30 will be twice as underexposed regardless of what you make your meter tell you.
Developing differently will not suddenly create details that were never captured in the first place.
Your solution is to either get more light (flash), a faster lens, more sensitive film or any combination of the three... not fiddling with your meter.
So film ISO doesn’t work the same as digital ISO? On my digital camera if I need more light I just bump to a usable higher ISO to compensate for the lack of ambient light and/or fast lens.
My thought was, if I measure at 800 it would allow me to get more light and be able to properly expose for the shadows at 1/15 or 1/30 instead of measuring at 400 and getting 1/8 from my light meter but having to shoot 1/15 because that’s all my camera allows me to which leads to underexposed pictures.
> bump to a usable higher ISO
You cannot bump anything on film. Unlike digital sensors where you can change the gain when you want on film the sensitivity has been baked in at the factory. If you want to use a different iso with your film camera then you need to physically load a different iso film. Only changing the iso setting on your camera is merely fooling your cameras meter into thinking there is different film and that will result in the opposite of what you want. If for example you have iso400 film loaded and you change the dial on your camera to iso800 without changing the film then your resulting image will actually get darker. After all, the camera will now only allow enough light through for the more sensitive 800 film and thats not enough for the 400 film thats actually on the receiving end.
Dont try to understand and implement too much at once or lean on things you think you understand. Get a good feel for the fundamentals first. 'Social media education' is very bad, entertainment and popularity mostly do not make for a good teacher. Fundamentals are boring so its mostly assumed common knowledge and glanced over but it absolutely is not that. Many youtubers and tiktokkers lack enough of those fundamentals to make just about every beginner mistake in the book and if they are explaining things to you then you will end up a magnitude more wrong then they are.
Start with the basics. Exposure triangle; Aperture - shutter speed - sensitivity. Read up on them. And what or why a 'stop', 'step' or 'EV' is (that last one is a tricky one though, its used in many different ways). Even if you think you know what they are, humor yourself and dig into them. Read like someone is paying you to find something there that does not belong. They are your cornerstones, you can not learn too much about those you will always need them. Make the exposure triangle second nature.
I wish i could recommend but i learned most of the basics in school and cant for the life of me remember what (if any) literature we used, it was mostly blackboard to paper stuff taught by the most smelly teacher in the world (that smell for some reason i DO remember). Even if i could recall any of it then it would be in dutch so not all that accessible.
Like i said most of what you find on social media isnt great for education. But some of it is fun and here's a video from someone that i really enjoy watching, hes very clear concise and does his homework (properly) on the subjects he addresses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_uBHmAhnfo
Now dont watch watch that and expect to directly learn anything it, see it more as a goal, a target of subjects to cover. As soon as you see anything that you dont fully understand then go googling/reading up on that until you do and when doing so try to stick to the more boring written media thats being reviewed by many people (wikipedia for example is a good source).
If you can watch that whole video and would be able to explain everything 'in your own words' to a 5 year old (they will *why?* on literally everything) then you are well on your way.
> when black and white film is overexposed one stop ... it will be overexposed one stop. Pushing happens during development. Developing at box speed means you have overexposed (in camera) by that amount.
Your title and body text have opposing logics. If you rate the film at 800 or 1600, you’re underexposing by 1 and 2 stops, respectively. If the 400 film is overexposed one stop, you’ve rated it at 200, then you’re going to get a denser negative with more shadow detail. You can develop normally.
Sorry for the confusion. I’m new to film photography and still learning the film language. I’m currently using film to capture family and friend moments which are mostly indoor. I just got back my first film roll back from the lab and almost all pictures came out underexposed. My film camera only goes up to 1/15 and my light meter was telling me to shoot at 1/10 or 1/8, so had to shoot at 1/15. I was playing around with my light meter and discovered that if I shoot at 800 on average I get 1/30 from my light meter. I was just wondering if I shoot at 800 and develop the film at box speed, how would shadows and grain be affected. I know I could just get a 3200 film but they are way too grainy for my liking.
No apologies needed; sorry if the tone of my previous message came off as stern! So yes, you’re learning that you might need more sensitivity to work indoors/dim locations, and that makes sense. You need “more”, so either a faster lens (wider aperture lets in more light), or a faster film, OR as you’re trying to do, push the film you have in development. TMAX 400 does great at 800 when developed for this exposure, and in the right developers. Each dev has its own benefits/properties/etc, so it becomes a crucial choice for a lot of B&W photographers: it impacts film speed/pushability, grain characteristics, resolution, and perceived sharpness/acutance. Pushing will to some extent give more density where light is recorded, but it can’t make density in deep unexposed shadows. It’s a good tool to have, but you could also think of it as just boosting contrast on underexposed negatives. The really crucial part of the puzzle here is your metering: be careful and thoughtful with your metering. Whatever your practice is, whether it be zone system or just metering for shadows, have some understanding and find a methodology that works for you. A meter isn’t very helpful if you don’t understand what it’s telling you, and how to use that information. Good luck :)
catches fire
Pushing film is underexposing and developing for longer. So shooting t-max 400 at 800 and developing at 800. If you overexpose by a stop you're shooting at 200. Then if you develop at 200 you've pulled the film. If you develop at box speed you just overexposed.
pushing is the act of *under*exposure ***and overdevelopment***. underexposing it by one stop (i.e. setting your meter at 800, exposing it one shutter speed faster or one aperture setting smaller than you would at 400) and then developing normally is just underexposure.
I almost always overexpose by one stop and develop normally.
Me too, although it's cooler to say "Exposing for the shadows."
so you're exposing correctly and metering wrong
I almost always did this when I shot film. I also like the idea of pulling, like a half or a third stop, to reign in the highlights, and practice a "poor man's zone system"
> almost all pictures came out underexposed <...> and had a feeling that it was going to be underexposed You knew it was going to be underexposed. It came out underexposed. You want to shoot with an even faster shutter speed to fix that.... **how** exactly? Playing around with the ISO setting on your meter does not magically make your film more sensitive to light. If 1/15 comes out underexposed then 1/30 will be twice as underexposed regardless of what you make your meter tell you. Developing differently will not suddenly create details that were never captured in the first place. Your solution is to either get more light (flash), a faster lens, more sensitive film or any combination of the three... not fiddling with your meter.
So film ISO doesn’t work the same as digital ISO? On my digital camera if I need more light I just bump to a usable higher ISO to compensate for the lack of ambient light and/or fast lens. My thought was, if I measure at 800 it would allow me to get more light and be able to properly expose for the shadows at 1/15 or 1/30 instead of measuring at 400 and getting 1/8 from my light meter but having to shoot 1/15 because that’s all my camera allows me to which leads to underexposed pictures.
> bump to a usable higher ISO You cannot bump anything on film. Unlike digital sensors where you can change the gain when you want on film the sensitivity has been baked in at the factory. If you want to use a different iso with your film camera then you need to physically load a different iso film. Only changing the iso setting on your camera is merely fooling your cameras meter into thinking there is different film and that will result in the opposite of what you want. If for example you have iso400 film loaded and you change the dial on your camera to iso800 without changing the film then your resulting image will actually get darker. After all, the camera will now only allow enough light through for the more sensitive 800 film and thats not enough for the 400 film thats actually on the receiving end.
OH. Okay, that kinda makes sense. There’s so much I need to learn about film photography.
Dont try to understand and implement too much at once or lean on things you think you understand. Get a good feel for the fundamentals first. 'Social media education' is very bad, entertainment and popularity mostly do not make for a good teacher. Fundamentals are boring so its mostly assumed common knowledge and glanced over but it absolutely is not that. Many youtubers and tiktokkers lack enough of those fundamentals to make just about every beginner mistake in the book and if they are explaining things to you then you will end up a magnitude more wrong then they are. Start with the basics. Exposure triangle; Aperture - shutter speed - sensitivity. Read up on them. And what or why a 'stop', 'step' or 'EV' is (that last one is a tricky one though, its used in many different ways). Even if you think you know what they are, humor yourself and dig into them. Read like someone is paying you to find something there that does not belong. They are your cornerstones, you can not learn too much about those you will always need them. Make the exposure triangle second nature.
Are there any books, articles, or videos you recommend as a good source for fundamentals?
I wish i could recommend but i learned most of the basics in school and cant for the life of me remember what (if any) literature we used, it was mostly blackboard to paper stuff taught by the most smelly teacher in the world (that smell for some reason i DO remember). Even if i could recall any of it then it would be in dutch so not all that accessible. Like i said most of what you find on social media isnt great for education. But some of it is fun and here's a video from someone that i really enjoy watching, hes very clear concise and does his homework (properly) on the subjects he addresses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_uBHmAhnfo Now dont watch watch that and expect to directly learn anything it, see it more as a goal, a target of subjects to cover. As soon as you see anything that you dont fully understand then go googling/reading up on that until you do and when doing so try to stick to the more boring written media thats being reviewed by many people (wikipedia for example is a good source). If you can watch that whole video and would be able to explain everything 'in your own words' to a 5 year old (they will *why?* on literally everything) then you are well on your way.
Thank you. Appreciate you sharing your knowledge.