Some More Ilford Delta 3200 (through a red R25A filter)

Being rather taken with this fast monochrome film (having used lower ISO rated films for years) here are a few more to whet the appetite.

Just about right – though I cheated a bit and added a vignette here for dramatic effect. 17mm.

All taken on a trip in winter round Poole Harbour (Dorset UK) on a drizzly, dull day using an OM2N, a Vivitar 17mm, a Zuiko 50mm f1.8 and R25A red filters to bring some drama to the patches of blue skies. Exposed at 1600 ASA the dev time was 9 1/2 minutes in D76 stock which does a good job with this film.

That looks suspiciously like a fingerprint on the right. Hmm. I’ll pretend it’s a Photoshop layer. 17mm.

The viewfinder is darkened using the filter (and everything is red obviously) but using smaller apertures and the depth of field markings is sufficient. It’s best to use these on the 17mm lens anyway as the viewfinder focus aids aren’t that useful on such a wide-angle lens where most things are in focus.

Hardly ‘gritty urban’ but it has something. The red filter has done a nice job on darkening the blue skies here. 17mm.

The ‘exposure factor’ for an R25A red filter is 3x so this is the equivalent of shooting at 200 ASA which is more than enough even on an overcast day using wide-angle lenses to use f11 or f16 and keep the shutter speed fast enough for hand holding.

The light was just right here for a few seconds as the sun came out from between heavy clouds brightening the wet pavement and putting some highlights in the river ripples. 50mm.

The low contrast conditions meant that the whole roll was fairly flat, so some levels adjustments plus the inevitable dust spotting were needed.

Not that happy with the tone of the grass in this one. I suppose it’s the low diffuse light and the red filter. It’s OK though.

Though it’s difficult to be certain the red filter has brought out some nice detail in those clouds, improved (I think anyway) by the grain of the film.

My favourite from the day with the sun getting quite low and the path and trees looking ominous. The 17mm lens goes a bit soft at wider apertures (below f8) and f3.5 was needed for this but the trees hide it luckily.

In case you’re wondering if you can achieve the ‘look’ of this film in software, the answer is that you can – almost! The following two images are firstly the last of a roll of Adox Silvermax and secondly the first off the roll of Ilford Delta 3200. I know it’s converting from one film to another but Silvermax is a fine-grained well-behaved film and the image characteristics are similar to a monochrome converted digital shot. OK – not 100% convincing, I know for a proper comparison I should use a digital shot but I didn’t have a digital camera on me at the time.

‘Proper’ Ilford Delta 3200 image

The Ilford image is quite low in contrast, the grain is quite soft and in the clouds the transitions between light and dark are nice and gentle. The DXO version comes very close, but this is with the contrast turned right down to a minimum. There is more detail visible in the buildings and the grain is sharp. I don’t personally think the clouds look as good but that’s purely personal.

Simulated in DXO Film Pack from a Silvermax image (no filter present on the lens).

So it’s very close indeed and possibly good enough, but I still prefer the original. Whether the difference is worth messing around loading, processing and scanning proper film is up to you! It would be possible to process the Ilford image to look more like the DXO default output but the grain would still be too sharp on the DXO image and that process seems to be the wrong way round (Ilford isn’t simulating DXO!).

I’m so impressed by this film there’s a load on order and if you hadn’t already guessed it’s heartily recommended! Hope you find this useful, thanks for looking.

p.s. There a reviews of lots of other films on the film, camera and lens review index tab.

 

Advertisement