High Grain Photos

[Alerieq]

Hi there, I am new to the forums. I am a photograpy student at Houston Baptist University. I am interested in high grain photographs. I've asked my professor about how to do this, but he wants me to learn on my own. (He says that by researching and doing it on my own I will learn more than him explaining it to me.)

Will all of that said, I've tried to check out books at our library but the photography section is woefully small. I've also let my fingers do the exploring on the internet, but there's so much information that I have no idea where to start at!

Is there anyone that can give me an easy 1, 2, 3 breakdown of how to do this? (Or at least point me in the direction of a good book that I can buy? ...I can always add it to my growing collection of Viking history books...)

Thanks!

[J Eddington]

Film or Digital?

[toverman]

Maybe we want you to learn on your own, too!

[venchka]

Originally Posted by J Eddington

Film or Digital?

Film, naturally. Digital don't do grain.

I'm after the same effect. Here are a few things I know and a few guesses.

1. Get hold of Sam Haskin's "Cowboy Kate and Other Stories". The best high grain photographs I've ever seen. The educated guess from folks I've talked to suggest that Sam used Tri-X film. Nobody knows for sure what format he used.

2. Use film known to have pronounced grain. The faster the better. Tri-X is the best known. Ilford HP5+ is close. Both Kodak & Ilford make faster film, but I haven't seen examples from these films that I liked.

3. Use a high acutance developer. What people call grain in a photograph is really the spaces between the grains of silver. Acutance is a measure of the relative sharpness of the edges of the grain. High acutance devlopers leave nice clean hard edged silver grains. AGFA Rodinal and Kodak D-76 are two developers I use for this effect. Kodak D-19 is an x-ray film developer with a reputation for lots of grain. I have some but I haven't used it yet. Also, longer development times yield more noticeable grain. This is accomplished by diluting the developer to give longer times.

4. Push the film. Underexpose and over develop. Example: Tri-X metered at 1, 2, 3 or more stops over the box speed (ISO 800-1600-3200 or more) with development times of 50%, 100% or longer over the normal times. The Massive Development Chart is a good resource.

http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.html

5. Enlarge a small portion of the negative. This will make the spaces between the grains more noticable. Use a condenser enlarger.

6. Join the Analog Phtography Users Group (APUG) and the Rangefinder Forum. There are lots of film users there with a world of knowledge.

http://www.apug.org/forums/home.php

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/

Tell us more about what you've learned. It may be news to the rest of us. Share your results!

Good luck!

[CaptainTom]

" I want you to research and learn on your own" = " I have no idea what you are talking about, and don't want you to know how limited my expertise really is ".....

[CincoJoe]

Originally Posted by CaptainTom

" I want you to research and learn on your own" = " I have no idea what you are talking about, and don't want you to know how limited my expertise really is ".....

you beat me too it...lol

[venchka]

Out of curiosity, I GOOGLED "film grain".

Guess what I found?

Items 2 through 10 on the first page dealt with digital stuff. Either how to deal with film grain and scanners. Or how to simulate film grain in digital images. No wonder Veronica is having trouble.

[Alerieq]

To those who actually gave me advice, thanks.

For a project today, I did enlarge a small portion of the negative. (Form and Figure) The overall picture was an 8x10 so the grain came out decentlly well. (I think I need to re-shoot the picture so that I can get an even smaller area to blow up even bigger in the enlarger.)

I forgot to mention that my camera is a Nikon N75.

Thanks again for the help. I'll keep you posted on the next project.

[johnastovall]

The basic three books for anyone starting in photography film or digitial.

The Camera

The Negative

The Print

[venchka]

You're welcome.

It's to get gorgeous golf ball holes in the emulsion for that super grain effect. It's difficult to create a photograph that looks right with that large grain effect.

John's book list is correct. Since you are already working in the darkroom, you may wish to get The Negative and The Print first.

You figured out on your own that you need to know in advance if you're going to enlarge a small portion of the negative. I failed to mention that. Good for you!

You haven't said anything about the film and chemistry you are using. Houston Camera Co-op stocks D-76, Microdol-X, HC-110, Xtol and several Ilford developers. Experimenting with different film+developer combinations is fun!

[Alerieq]

Sorry, I did forget to mention the film and chemistry. It's the school lab so the supplied film developer is Ilford. I think the paper developer is Kodak. As far as actual film it's Ilford HP5 400speed 35mm 36 exp. It's the film that the campus bookstore supplies. Since I don't have a reliable car, it's sometimes difficult to get to the camera store. Mostly I buy what the bookstore has in stock. (I've got a field trip tomorrow so I picked up 18 rolls of different films. I want to see the difference between Ilford and Kodak is.)

[jonnydonut]

high ISO = high grain or noise

3200 which you might have to turn on separately in the custom settings and could be labled as "H"or 1600 ISO is still very grainy

[adirty1]

not true. there are some fine grain high iso films. back in the day it was easy to get grain from film. along in the 90's and early 80's it became very hard to get grain
I would have to dig through my old note books to find the process to get grain in just about any film but it can be done. I had a fashion photographer that spent 3 or 4 weeks testing a process to get the same results every time. that was back when the guess ads where big and so was grain and camera shake.

to get some gain that you can walk around shoot some IR film. you will have more grain that you know what to do.

[jonnydonut]

So don't buy the low grain film.

like your prof said, experiment. If you are shooting film and you don't want to make it a super complex operation I have an experiment you might try?... buy the highest ISO film you can find, the cheapest brand possible, take one photo, wind the film back to closed, then take the unexposed roll and leave it in direct sunlight for about 20 minutes, then put it back in the camera. that ought to get you some nasty photos.

[johnastovall]

One way to get high grain is develop just about any film in warm Dektol.

If you can fine some Kodak 2475 Recording Film it and Dektol will give you serious grain.

2475 has been dropped but there maybe old stocks out there...