If time permits, I'll appreciate your comments for this photo.

Is this a typical results of Neopan 1600?

Thanks a lot for your advice
regards
hans

-- hans siddharta (hsiddharta@cbn.net.id), April 04, 2002

Answers

All the Neopan 1600 I've ever used looked the same. Try as I might, I was never able to coax colors from it, only black and white (and multiple shades of grey).

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), April 04, 2002.

Hans, I have never used the film, but will do so for the frist time on Sunday night for the infamous "Carl Baron" (comedian) performance in Melbourne. But the results look pretty good to me. Was it a 50mm shot at f/1.4 or f/2?

Hans, may I pose the folowing question: "Is this a typical result of your photographic ability? Why?

Because it is an excllent personal photograph. How can I tell it's personal? Through the intimacy of the compostion and relaxed look on your subject's faces. Also the child's face is screaming "Hey dadda, say FUJI!!!"

A very soothing image. Well done.

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), April 04, 2002.

I just developed some Neopan 1600, for the first time, last night. I printed it this morning and, just now posted a shot at my web site: http://www.web-graphics.com/steinerphoto It was not at all easy to print. It had nothing like the tonal scale of Pan F+ in Rodinal (I love that combination), but, of course, we wouldn't expect it to. I had to do a good bit of dodging, burning and throwing prints in the garbage before I came up with the print I posted on the web site. Were I printing your photo, I would dodge the shadow side of baby's face and also mom's face. I like the composition, with the line of mother's leg leading to the baby's face. Thanks for posting it. -Ollie

-- Ollie Steiner (violindevil@yahoo.com), April 05, 2002.

1) Yes it looks like Neopan 1600. IMHO N1600 is actually an ISO 500 film with built-in pushing - i.e at 1600 it lacks shadow detail and has this "chalk-and-charcoal" look, but is a little finer-grained than the true "3200" TMax/Delta films. Or in other words like HP5 or Tri-X pushed to 1600, but with 5-minute processing instead of 19 minutes.

It's also often REALLY cheap! Like $2.99 for 36 exp. roll - vs. $5.00 plus for the 3200s.

2) I like the picture. It has a nice tension in all the cut-off limbs. Maybe a little more contrast than I'd like (the whites get a bit hot and distracting) - but that's just N1600 at work.

Maybe a little lightening of some of the darker skin areas would be good - the woman's eyes and the baby's right hand.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), April 05, 2002.

I use Neopan 1600 for night fotography mainly (no-flash), for that it is excelent as it emphasizes the feeling of night-time. (Soon I will put some pic's from Istanbul on the web, I has some nice examples)

I have also used it for some portraits, in the specific case (blond girls with dark background/clothes, in low light) it did very well, but it would be interresting to see how the same shots would work out with another film and how other models would do with Neopan 1600.

I wasn't aware it had 'build-in' push but it makes sense as shadows indeed get deep dark. Also explains why it does so well for night-time

Reinier

-- ReinierV (rvlaam@xs4all.nl), April 05, 2002.

Your picture has definitely a Neopan 1600 look.

I can get better gradation with it than on your picture. Too many factors are unknown to tell for sure (scanning, ...).

What would be useful to know is which developer was used. Personally, as I use Neopan 1600 in very contrasty situations (night, low light ...) I use 2 baths developers (-> highlights control). Because I'm too lazy to do my own soup, I buy Tetenal Emofin but I'm pretty sure other 2 baths solutions would work pretty well.

-- Xavier C. (xcolmant@powerir.com), April 05, 2002.

I swiped the photo off my screen and ran it through Photoshop, sending the results to Hans. Here's what I wrote him, and maybe if the results look good on a real screen he'll post the results himself:

"I just downloaded your photo and ran it through Photoshop on my laptop--I don't know how the changes will come up on your own computer, but maybe they'll be OK.

First, the ends of the scan were short--you didn't have anything that was black, and nothing white. I didn't change that much. I suspect that in scanning you could have gotten a bit more information at each end, and had more material to work with. Then I applied a curve which brought more contrast in at each end (bringing out more detail there, by separating, and therefore lightening, the low tones more, for instance, and the opposite with highlights--darkening those just inside white so they stood out and showed more detail), and flattened out the middle quite a bit, to spread out what information was available there over a wider range of tones. The net effect is an image with more greys in the middle, so it's smoother and creamier, and more contrast at the ends, so there's more detail there. Since the black and white points haven't changed, I haven't done anything to the overall range, but effectively tried to take all of the information which was compressed into the extreme ends of the scale (towards black, and white) and bring it into the middle zones, while opening up the shadows and getting more highlight detail--it's like taking the pieces which are at the extreme ends of a chessboard and spreading more of them into the middle so you can see each one clearly, if you get the analogy."

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), April 05, 2002.

And that's why I abandoned my darkroom for digital processing. :-)

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), April 05, 2002.

Very nice candid shot. Like Andy Piper, I think it's got the typical Neopan 1600 look (high contrast, deep shadows). Like Reinier, I like to exploit it's chiaroscuro look for "available darkness" photography (here's an example).

-- Chris Chen (Wash., DC) (furcafe@NOSPAMcris.com), April 05, 2002.

I really like the picture. The composition and the light.

Regarding the film look, to me at least it is closer to an old Tri-X look than to what I get from Neopan rated at 1,000 and developped 4 minutes in Ilfotec HC (same as HC110) at 20°C. What I get with those parameters is much smoother and much much less grainy.

-- Stephane Bosman (stephane_bosman@yahoo.co.uk), April 09, 2002.