So, you’ve bought your beautiful film camera and are ready to take a trip to give it a jolly good work out. Now you need to feed it with Kodak, Ilford or Fujifilm’s finest offering. So what are the best black and white films for travel photography? Going online to Amazon or one of the many photographic stores that sell film can leave you bewildered. So many brands to choose from? What ISO do I need? How many rolls should I buy? If I buy too many will they keep for next year’s trip? Still need to find a camera? Check out our guide.

Fear not. We will lead you out of the quagmire of all these issues. We will also address the questions of what hot weather does to film and even whether x-rays affect it.

Decide on an ISO

Let us start our film buying journey by deciding on what ISO to get.

This is where you need to ask yourself some searching questions. What will the weather be like – sunny, bright, dark, overcast or maybe you’ll even be doing night-photography? Will the subject be moving or stationary – candid, landscape, cityscape people, animals etc?

All these questions will help you decide what speed ISO you require the bulk of your film to be.

If you are from a digital background then you’ll find black and white films don’t have the same ISO range you might be used to. The majority of films come in 50, 125 and 400 ISO with a few at 3200. We can always adjust the ISO with development techniques (‘push’ or ‘pull’ the film) but that is a story for another post.

If in doubt take a range of film. Remember that unless you have 2 film camera bodies you will have to change film when you need to change ISO so it is sometimes wise to buy rolls in 24 exposures rather than 36.

Black and white film for travel photography in Venice on contact sheet

So how many rolls?

In many countries, it’s exceptionally difficult to buy Black and White film now, so take more than you think you will need. Remember it’s not digital, so take your time to compose each image before pressing the shutter button. You will be surprised how few images you actually take compared to digital but you will be even more surprised at the high number of amazing photographs you create. Still not sure about Black & White? Check out what we suggest makes a good black and white photo.

Brands

This is where we come to personal preference. Different brands have different characteristics (looks) so experiment before you go. Completely new to all this? See our guide on how to load film into a camera.

For example Kodak Tri-X has a candid photojournalism and grainy look while Ilford Pan F 50 ISO is excellent for fine grain landscapes. Ilford FP4 125 ISO is a good all rounder.

Of course while the film has a ‘look’, its character changes with different developer chemicals (as well as printing paper and toning chemistry, if you’re not going to go hybrid and scan the negs to your computer).

Here are some more of the more popular black and white films for travel photography

Kentmere –   Kentmere is produced by Harman who also produce Ilford. It was always seen as the budget option.

Rollei RPX – the new Agfa APX fine grain film. They bought the Agfa technology when Agfa went bankrupt.

Rollei Retro 400s – high contrast fine art film – has an IR layer so cuts through haze well. Also ex Agfa technology.

Agfa APX – Lupus, who now sells Agfa, bought trademark but not technology. It’s not the original Agfa and not as good as the original either.

Kodak Tri-X 400 – unique grain characteristics with a good tonal range.

Kodak T-MAX 100 and 400 – T grain structure rather than classic or cuboid grain structure – for people who don’t like grain.

Kodak T-MAX P3200 – low light grainy film

Ilford XP2 super – process with a colour processing called C41. Any D&P lab can do it.

Ilford Delta 100 and 400 – not T grain but similar results.

Ilford Delta 3200 – low light grainy film.

Fujifilm Neopan  Acros 100 – High quality traditional Black and white films.

Fujifilm Neopan 400CN – Processed in C41 chemistry like Ilford XP2. (Unfortunately it is no longer produced)

For something totally different try out Ilford SFX 200. This film has an extended red sensitivity which by using a deep red filter can make the sky go almost black, and green vegetation almost white. For more effects you can get with filters, see our 5 essential filters for black and white photography.

Where to buy these films.

In the UK we use AG-Photographic or Amazon. For the rest of the world we suggest Amazon or a local traditional photographic specialist.

Do we have a preference for the best black and white films for our travel photography? Well, we are rather partial to Ilford FP4 for 125 ISO all round photography. For lower light situations, we tend to use HP5 by Ilford 400 ISO. We are also very fond of Kodak Tri-X as it is 400 ISO and very flexible (forgiving for under and over exposure) It also has a beautiful film grain so loved by old school photojournalists the world over.

Will the weather affect my film?

The answer is yes. Hot weather will slowly change the ISO of your film.

The geeky explanation: When film is manufactured it is done at a specific ISO. This is usually different to the stated ISO on the box as the manufacturers know that the film will receive heat before it gets loaded into your camera. This could be from the shipping in a hot container to the country for sale, or could be from sitting in a hot shop or warehouse. To compensate, the manufacturers make the film at a different ISO to stated. They just guess (albeit an educated one) what it will be when it reaches the camera after “cooking” in the heat of normal shipping.

If you are traveling to a very hot climate with a lot of film it is recommended that you keep your film in a cooler bag to stop the ISO increase. When I used to shoot film professionally we used to buy film marked pro. This wasn’t just a marketing ploy. The pro film was made and shipped at its stated ISO and then kept in a fridge (or frozen) to make sure the ISO did not change.

The only way around the ISO problem if you are being very accurate (read picky) is to develop one roll to see if the film is under or over exposed due to ISO ageing. Then you can adjust the development time of all the rest to compensate. Just make sure all the films are from the same batch.

Should this keep you up at night worrying about your films exposures? No. Most people won’t even notice the ISO difference.

Will X-rays affect my film?

Yes. Every time your film is x-rayed it is exposed a tiny amount. One or 2 x-rays won’t really make too much difference. If you are country hopping through multiple x-rays you could always ask the airport security to hand check the film. Remember that some security personnel are nicer than others and it always helps to smile and ask politely as they don’t have to do it. The higher ISO films will be more affected than the lower ones.

Once again don’t worry too much about this. Most people probably won’t notice the difference.

Let us sum this up now

What are the best black and white films for travel photography? They all are. It just depends on your own requirements but these are a few suggestions to get you going.

Experiment with a few brands and types before you go, to see what your personal preference for the film characteristics are.

Before you start putting tons of film into your Amazon basket take a moment to decide the percentage of high, normal or low light situations you might encounter.

Take more film than you think you need. Keep it cool in a fridge or mini bar at the hotel and the excess should last you till your next trip. You can always keep it in the fridge at home.

Most importantly – just enjoy the whole photographic creation process.

And if you’re not ready for the move over to film yet, check out our guide on converting colour to black and white digitally!

The post Best Black and White films for travel photography appeared first on ImageExplorers.

The light meter in your camera is a very useful tool, but there are times when you need to know that it’s actually lying to you. So how you can overcome it? Exposure compensation to the rescue.

Firstly, let’s look at what the camera light meter sees. The light meter shows a scene as being correct when it averages to perfect grey. Great for most images but it means that if you’re trying to photograph a white polar bear in snow your camera will give you the perfect exposure reading to make the snow and bear a mid-grey. This is a perfect time for exposure compensation. By adding 1, 2 or even 3 stops of light we can make the grey go white and compensate for the camera’s incorrect exposure. Exactly the opposite for a black cat sitting on a black mat. We need to give the camera less light than it thinks it needs so that the cat will look black and not come out grey.

“But I don’t photograph polar bears and my cat is already grey”, I hear you cry!

Okay, so how about a sunset or sunrise? All that sun shining directly into the lens as well as a dark foreground, can fool the camera into giving you an exposure that results in an image which doesn’t look like you envisaged it.

Without exposure compensation (the camera’s ‘correct’ exposure), on this image of shipwreck in Cyprus, the sky looks too light

By using exposure compensation on the shipwreck in Cyprus we can make the sky more pleasing, but everything else is too dark, but we then use dodge and burn techniques to correct this. See image at end of post.

How about the photograph of your loved one standing on a beach in the shade of a palm tree? The camera looks at the scene and makes its exposure decision based on the sunny background so the small person in shade in the front is too dark but the bright sunny background is perfectly exposed.

Correct exposure doesn’t always mean a pleasing image

So how do we fix this?

Well, if you’re photographing in manual mode, you can just adjust your shutter, aperture or ISO a few stops to compensate for this. If you are photographing in an auto mode like aperture or shutter priority, or even program mode, then most cameras have an exposure compensation button.  This allows you to over or underexpose a scene to compensate for the camera’s light meter.

So far so good but sometimes you want the perfect exposure for the bright sunset so the sky looks beautiful. Not only that but you also want the dark foreground to look bright and vibrant too.

Well there are various ways you can have your cake and eat it.

Option 1 – Bracketing

This means taking 2 or 3 (or more) images of exactly the same shot with different exposures. Most cameras have a bracketing function built in, where it will take a number of shots, a number of stops over and under your original choice of exposure.

So what next? You open Photoshop and this is where the magic happens! Photoshop will allow you to merge these multiple images into an HDR file so you can have details in the dark as well as light areas.

Using 2 images of different exposures (circled in red) to create a third HDR image

Although one can do this in Photoshop, (you get there by selecting multiple images in Bridge and choosing Merge to HDR from the tools and Photoshop sub-menu), I would recommend using a different piece of software. Aurora HDR 2018 seems to give much more pleasing results than Photoshop.

Option 2 – Dodge and Burn

Use an image that shows the most detail in both areas. Lighten the darker areas with either a dodge tool in Photoshop or an adjustment brush in Raw (much better quality). Now darken the light areas with a burn brush in Photoshop or an adjustment brush in Raw. See our before and after tutorial of Queen Carolines Temple in Hyde park.

Similar image from shipwreck set –  with a bit of dodging and burning in Photoshop Raw to bring the ship and rock details to life

Option 3 – Shadows/Highlights

In Photoshop there is an adjustment setting in the adjustment menu called the Shadows/Highlights. This amazing adjustment allows you to lighten the darker areas and darken the light areas of an image. (You can achieve a similar result in Raw with the Shadow and Highlights sliders. You will also need to up the Saturation and Contrast a bit.)

Correct exposure doesn’t always mean a pleasing image – image copyright Adobe

Using the Shadows/Highlights tool as a form of Exposure Compensation

Finally, if your images show too much detail in the shadows and highlights area there are numerous ways of increasing contrast to get more “punch” but a quick trick is to use the Dehaze tool in Photoshop Raw. See a video tutorial here and our favourite Photoshop shortcuts here.

The post Why Your Camera Lies to You – Exposure Compensation appeared first on ImageExplorers.