c'monkyle
nightcall. (11)
Shot two rolls of Kodak T-Max 400 (TMY) with my Pentax K1000 at night. Developed with Ilford DD-X (Ilford's equivalent to Kodak's T-Max developer) for ~ 8 min 15 sec @ 20C (8min is what was recommended by the massive dev chart @ 20C, and I added some extra time to avoid the risk of underdevelopment).
My previous night photography has been with Ilford 3200, so this was my first time taking exposures long enough to have the potential for film reciprocity failure - or, as I like to call it, the non-linear region. My methodology for these two rolls was as follows: I started at f/8. I metered with the Light Meter app on my phone and exposed accordingly (~60-90 sec depending on the scene). I then repeated the exposure for longer, using the reciprocity compensation for T-Max 400 calculated by the Lightme app (~4-5 min). For some images, I then did another exposure adding an additional 60-75 seconds just to cover my bases (~7 min), although that was probably overkill. If the image had high highlights and low shadows making Light Meter go all over the place, I took a few more images for those shutter speeds AND their non-linear compensations. Since this was my first time doing such long exposures, and I REALLY wanted to walk away with at least a few good images, I then opened the aperture to f/2.8 and repeated this process. While not the ideal f-stop for some of the photos I was taking, f/2.8 allowed for much shorter exposure times (~10-20 seconds), thereby reducing uncertainty due to non-linearity.
Unfortunately, I did not log each exposure, so I don't know exactly which photographs correspond to which shutter speed/aperture combinations. I really wish I knew for sure, because I THINK that some of the shorter exposures (ie, not reciprocity-failure-compensated) ended up turning out the best. If true, this means T-Max 400 didn't even "fail," which is quite impressive - and means that taking all these long exposures isn't necessary (at least until you get up to much longer exposure times). I'll need to do some more testing to confirm this, though.
You could also spare yourself the long exposure times by pushing this film. The data sheet says it can be pushed up to 1600 no problem and it's acceptable at 3200. I may give this a try, but I'm honestly really digging T-Max @ 400...
Conclusion: Night photography is a lot of guesswork. As long as you have the patience to take several exposures, it is very forgiving. Just use several exposure times given by the lightmeter apps and at least one of them will turn out.
nightcall. (11)
Shot two rolls of Kodak T-Max 400 (TMY) with my Pentax K1000 at night. Developed with Ilford DD-X (Ilford's equivalent to Kodak's T-Max developer) for ~ 8 min 15 sec @ 20C (8min is what was recommended by the massive dev chart @ 20C, and I added some extra time to avoid the risk of underdevelopment).
My previous night photography has been with Ilford 3200, so this was my first time taking exposures long enough to have the potential for film reciprocity failure - or, as I like to call it, the non-linear region. My methodology for these two rolls was as follows: I started at f/8. I metered with the Light Meter app on my phone and exposed accordingly (~60-90 sec depending on the scene). I then repeated the exposure for longer, using the reciprocity compensation for T-Max 400 calculated by the Lightme app (~4-5 min). For some images, I then did another exposure adding an additional 60-75 seconds just to cover my bases (~7 min), although that was probably overkill. If the image had high highlights and low shadows making Light Meter go all over the place, I took a few more images for those shutter speeds AND their non-linear compensations. Since this was my first time doing such long exposures, and I REALLY wanted to walk away with at least a few good images, I then opened the aperture to f/2.8 and repeated this process. While not the ideal f-stop for some of the photos I was taking, f/2.8 allowed for much shorter exposure times (~10-20 seconds), thereby reducing uncertainty due to non-linearity.
Unfortunately, I did not log each exposure, so I don't know exactly which photographs correspond to which shutter speed/aperture combinations. I really wish I knew for sure, because I THINK that some of the shorter exposures (ie, not reciprocity-failure-compensated) ended up turning out the best. If true, this means T-Max 400 didn't even "fail," which is quite impressive - and means that taking all these long exposures isn't necessary (at least until you get up to much longer exposure times). I'll need to do some more testing to confirm this, though.
You could also spare yourself the long exposure times by pushing this film. The data sheet says it can be pushed up to 1600 no problem and it's acceptable at 3200. I may give this a try, but I'm honestly really digging T-Max @ 400...
Conclusion: Night photography is a lot of guesswork. As long as you have the patience to take several exposures, it is very forgiving. Just use several exposure times given by the lightmeter apps and at least one of them will turn out.