3. Exposure, in order to avoid under or over exposure the amount of light that falls on to the negative must be controlled, a smooth gradation between the darkest (highlight on the print) and the lightest (shadow on the print) is desirable The darkest should not be so dark that light cannot pass through and the lightest needs to have some detail visible if the darkest area on the print is to have visible detail.
4. Aperture and Depth of Field are related, the larger the aperture given as f stops
( f2, f2.8, f4 etc) the less depth of field there will be, a small aperture -
5. Shutter Speed and Aperture together determine the amount of light that falls on the negative, known as exposure (see 3. And 6.), a shutter speed of a 500th of a second at f2.8 gives the same exposure as a 60th at f8. The smaller aperture (f8) will give greater depth of field then the larger aperture.
1. The Terms, given below are those that principally concern you in the taking of a photograph, all of these have to be taken into account when pressing the shutter release. If you are a wise photographer most of these details will have been considered before putting a film into the camera as the choice of film is the first consideration, fast film for low light, slower film for outdoor and pictorial photography. You need to experiment in order to make a final choice that suits you.
2. Film Speed, given as an ASA or ISO rating, modern film would be described as ISO125 or ISO400, ISO125 being the slower film, ISO50 is slower still by one stop (see items 4. & 5.), ASA and ISO are for practical purposes the same. There have been a number of other film speed ratings used in the past and are now obsolete, see here for more information.
6. Sunny 16 for Black and White Film, the simplest way of taking a photograph without a light meter, in bright sunlight use f16 at 100th or 125th with a film rated at ISO100 or ISO125 respectively, expose a film in these conditions increasing the aperture to f8 for hazy sun or f5.6 for cloudy bright, develop the film for what you thing will be the right density, after inspection of the developed film, if it it not quite right increase or reduce the development time as necessary. You should only need to do this once or twice, when you have it right, don’t change anything, until you have gained some experience.
8. Developing the Black and White Negative, there are many different formulae and
procedures for developing film, my own preference is for two bath development, the
procedure is straight forward but there is a lot of detail, it is necessary in this
day and age to mix the necessary chemicals yourself but believe me it is worth the
trouble because if you use a 6 x 6 cm folding camera the image quality will simply
blow digital cameras away. Scanning the negative into a computer and printing with
pigment ink is another matter -
7. Using a Folding Camera by the Sunny 16 Method can give a new lease of life to
an old camera and is so simple compared to the modern digital camera, there are no
endless options to select and no batteries to run out. Following the directions under
‘Sunny 16’ all you need to do is preset the focusing ring to the red dot (found on
most folding cameras), at f16 this will give a depth of field from infinity down
to around 15 -
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