Home » Uncategorised » Ilford Fp4 on Large Format

Ilford Fp4 on Large Format

Spread the love

It’s a Saturday morning and it’s raining outside. I like photography but I really couldn’t be bothered to go out in the rain. trust me, I thought about it and even started wondering what camera to take, but then I thought… It’s Saturday morning. I’ll watch some TV… Nope, I’ll take some photos indoors…, nope, I’ll watch some TV.

So I did. I sat in my TV chair which is next to a large patio door and down near my feet are a stack of packaging boxes that my Daughter uses for mailing out her Wax Scents. The light coming in from the window onto the packaging boxes looked beautiful and I stared for a while and then I took a photograph on my phone.

I noticed the light wrapping around the boxes looked really nice and I wondered what I could do on Film. This is one thing I love about Large Format. I can set up and take just a couple of sheets. Thats what I did. It just takes a while to set up and compose, which I don’t mind. It’s Photography on a super slow scale!

I grabbed my Intrepid 4×5 Camera, a Schneider Kreuznach 90mm lens, a cable release, light meter, grey card, Film holder and Ilford Fp4 sheets.

It took me a while to get the movements and composure for the photograph. I set the lens aperture to f/45 and proceeded to find my shutter speed for the scene using the Sekonic Light Meter in Spot Mode.

I placed the grey card just on the corner of the boxes and toward the camera. I wanted to get detail on the shaded part of the boxes for which, you can’t see, but I had a white reflector bouncing some light back in.

The meter gave me a reading of 15 Seconds at f/45. I am now into reciprocity failure territory! But, before I calculate that I have to measure my bellows factor. That came in at 160mm from the lens board to the back of the film plane. My lens is only 90mm so I know I need to allow for the bellows or my photograph will be under exposed.

You can see I had to allow for almost 2 stops extra!

15 Seconds plus 2 stops is 60 Seconds. But I chose 45 Seconds.

Reciprocity Failure for that FP4 Film I worked out to take me to 121 Seconds. That was my exposure time for which I then proceeded to take my photograph.

I then took another photograph changing composition which gave me slightly shorter bellows so I compensated accordingly. I also metered with the Gray card pointing toward the window and not the camera.

I developed the two sheets in Rodinal at 1:50 in my Stearman Press Tank which holds 475ml of working developer. I put 9ml of Rodinal into a 500ml of water and proceeded to develop the sheets for 14 minutes with 5 inversions to start and then 5 inversions on the minute every minute. Stopped with just water and then fixed with Ilfords Rapid Fixer.

I was pleased with the way the negatives looked (although they may look dense in this photo hanging). I was hoping for more than usual grain and a contrasty negative.

This is the first Photograph.

I think by metering on the grey card toward the camera was a mistake. I should have metered it looking back toward the window as I was clearly over exposed.

This photograph was much more where I wanted to be.

It’s difficult to know if my over exposure was due to the times I chose or if my development was too long. I feel as if I developed these at a few minutes less I would have had a flatter, more pleasing negative.

Whichever I now have this on record for another time to reflect back on.

Latest YouTube Video

Download the NEW SFLaB ebook on Compositions
Download the SFLaB Beginners guide to Film and Darkroom
SFLaB FILM MERCH
Join me and others on Patreon
Buy me a Coffee or Film

All Posts