[Leica] Re: Wide-open, of course

[daniel.ridings at edd.uio.no (Daniel Ridings)]

Thanks all, Ted, BD, Graham, Ken and Mark. Your responses were needed 
and appreciated. Little tough time right now and I enjoyed the little 
escape from other issues (a cat that has been away from home too long).


> I just feel I have to defend your results as your technique:
> film-developer-dilution is darn close to what I do.
> Oops! I'm just now noticing your shooting it at 3200!
> Well! To me that explains the whole thing.

Well, Mark. I agree with what you write on all accounts. I usually _do_ 
shoot Neopan 1600 @ 1600 and develop in Xtol. Ok, 1:2 instead of 1:3, 
but I've succeeded with 1:3 too. I just settled on 1:2 since the math 
was easier (75 ml to 150 ml for each roll). I have beakers to measure up 
that and I'm lazy.

I too find that at 1600 and Xtol I get better negatives than I've gotten 
with anything in 35mm. There is one other competitor, Neopan 400 in 
Xtol. I'd probably use Neopan 1600 all the time if I could remember to 
carry the neutral density filters with me.

> As I shoot tons of Neopan 1600 in Xtol 1:3 instead of your 1:2 which is
> close enough. And it comes out right on the money. At 1600.
> None of this stretched out pushed underexposed tri x from the 70's look you
> are almost emulating here. :) To slightly exaggerate.

Actually, I wanted the extra stop (or faster shutter speed as it was). I 
wasn't very scientific about it. I saw it was dark (lighting by those 
silly 11 wat low energy lamps) and figured the exposure was probably 
1/15 @ 2.0. I didn't want to hand-hold that speed because it was a 
fairly lively bunch. So I went with 1/30 @ 2.0. So if it was "exposed" 
at 1600 or 3200 ... that was just my eyeball. My normal time is 10 
minutes at 68/20 degrees. This time I went with 12 minutes. I think it 
is probably the only time I've ever done that with this film. I've never 
needed to otherwise.

For some reason Neopan and Xtol is a combination that works very, very 
nicely. I don't know if it is because Neopan is such a nice film, Xtol 
is such a nice developer ... or both.

In 120 Neopan 400 is my standard. I buy 100 rolls at a time.

Just found a place in Japan to order Neopan (both 400 and 1600) in 100' 
rolls. The price will bring my per roll cost of 1600 down to about 30% 
of what I'm paying otherwise. I think they must be taking out a premium 
for the film here in Scandinavia. Around 34 USD for 100' is what it 
would cost from Japan:

http://www.unicircuits.com/shop/index.php?cPath=27

> Have you got other shots which give credibly to your pushed one stop ASA?

No, no ... not at all. I only do it in a pinch. I wouldn't even begin to 
claim that its real speed is 3200. It's not. It's 1600, even if some say 
it's lower.

Daniel