Useful camera settings for film photography

Water Wall, Houston Galleria, Leica M2, Ilford HP5.

Using an incident light meter is definitely the best way to determine exposure - especially with a film camera with no built in meter. Even free smartphone meters do a good-enough job. But with experience, exposures can be guessed quite accurately using rules of thumb and converted to an equivalent setting for creative purposes. In this post, I'll explain those things along with some common settings for various purposes.

Useful settings

Full settings assuming 400 speed film is in the camera:

• Outdoors, general shooting. 1/250 f11 in full sun. 1/125 with cloud. I'm over exposing and keeping a small aperture to help when zone focusing. 
• Outdoors, lights at night. 1s f8. This works for scenes like fountains or downtown buildings with the lights on. To get more depth of field, reciprocity starts to kick in (explained in the section below) so that the calculated 4s, f22 must be converted to about 10s f22.
• Indoors, bulb lights. 1/60 f2. Slight under exposure to prevent motion blur. 1/30 is preferable if you have steady hands and a steady subject. f2.8 is pushing it.

Partial settings for specific scenarios:

• Indoors with flash. Sync speed and f8. The fastest possible shutter speed compatible with flash means your lighting is completely in control. Exposure is a function of flash power and a light meter or digital camera (the modern Polaroid) must be used to determine the settings. f8 is in the sweet spot for image quality.
• Star trails - avoid them by keeping exposure time to under 10s. Star trails that look like they were taken on purpose start at 15 minute exposures. 60 minutes and beyond creates impressive trails. f5.6 is a good starting point, but not that critical.
• Light trails. Shutter speeds of 10s to multiple minutes.
• Water movement. 1/500 or faster to freeze it. 1/125 is mushy. 1/30 looks blurry. 1/4 is smooth. Exposures in the minutes make water look like fog. 
• Aircraft with propellers. 1/25 to 1/125 to get a desirable blur. Freezing the propellers makes the plane look like a stationary model. For jets, any speed is fine.
• Moving vehicles. 1/125 and below for panning shots.

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General tips

• Black and white film is very forgiving when it comes to exposure - especially if you are scanning the film and processing on a computer. Definitely better to over expose than under expose.
• Know what the full stop numbers are for aperture and shutter speed. The reciprocal rule (explained below) helps convert a rule of thumb into a purposefully creative settings combination. Apertures values: 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32... Shutter speeds: 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15...
• Keep things in full stops to keep it simple. Half stops are over-kill. You only need to consider half stops when you have a quirky lens like an f1.8 or f3.5. 1/3rd stops are for delicate studio lighting setups.
• For normal focal lengths, I'm keeping the shutter speed at or above 1/60 to prevent blur from camera movement and it freezes most things bar fast cars and small children.
• Purposefully blowing out the highlights or making silhouettes can be achieved by altering shutter speed and aperture, but I find it can easily be done in post production. It is easier to remove detail from a well exposed image than to add it back in to a over or under exposed one.
• Manual settings can at times be faster to use than automatic ones.

The sunny 16 rule

• This is great for street and travel shooting. In full sun, use f16, set the shutter speed to 1/ISO and you're done. I use HP5 (400 ISO) most of the time so I could use 1/500, but often round down to 1/250 because over exposure is preferable to under exposure. 
• A little cloud and I'm down to 1/125. Heavy clouds or shadowy areas get 1/60. I don't like to go slower than 1/60, so I open the aperture as dusk sets in.

Equivalent settings / reciprocals

• Any part of the exposure triangle can be changed, but if the total exposure is to stay the same, the other parts of the triangle must be modified to compensate. For example, if we are using sunny 16 in full sun with 400 speed film, we would use 1/250, f16. If we want a shallower depth of field, we can open the aperture and compensate by making the shutter go faster - 1/500 f11 and 1/1000 f8. When the maximum shutter speed is reached, an ND filter can be used to block more light so an even wider aperture can be used.
• With film, the equivalency rules break down with longer shutter speeds as the chemicals do not react to light linearly with time. This is known as reciprocity failure. It is fine from fast speeds down to about one second, but beyond that extra time needs to be added to compensate. 
• For example, with Ilford's HP5 film, the technical information sheet (find it here) uses a graph to convert a calculated shutter speed into a practical one. For example, 5s becomes 10s, 10s becomes 30s, 20s becomes 75s, 30s becomes 3 minutes. 

F8 and be there

• This guidance is for getting a shot with the least amount of fuss.
• The saying comes from Arthur Fellig, who was limited to slower films than we are now. When using 400 speed film, I use f11 for 16 so I don't max-out my shutter speeds. A positive side effect is that the sunny 16 rule can then be used without the conversion to f8 (two stops).
• f8 gives a large enough depth of field for zone focusing, and more-so with f11. Set the focus so the infinity mark is over the f8 indicator on the right and the zone of acceptable focus is so large you wont need to touch the focus again.
• Be there. Put yourself in-front of something worth taking a picture of.

Two manual camera settings that beat automatic ones

Between a scene presenting itself and you pressing the shutter button, there are two calculations you or your camera need to make - the exposure settings and focus distance. Eliminating these calculations makes the shot happen faster, and makes the image more important than operating the contraption in your hands. Here is how.

1. Estimating exposure.

Many vintage cameras lack light meters. External light meters can be used, but that is one more gadget to carry around and slow you down. Both film and digital have a lot of latitude with respect to over or under-exposure, so you can worry less about settings and more about making a compelling image.

Just use the sunny-16 rule and relax. In summary, the rule means using f16 and shutter speed of 1/ISO in full sun. Drop one or two stops for cloudy conditions. This is an exact equivalent of shutter or aperture priority depending on how you reduce the light hitting your film.

This method is preferable to your camera's reflected light meter (if it has one) because you are essentially using an ambient reading, and you can ignore the apparent brightness of the subject (e.g a bright white building, or black cat).

With indoor light at night, I find I can shoot ISO 400 film at the equivalent of f2.0 at a 60th. 

2. Zone focusing.

Just because we have auto focus, it is not necessarily the fastest way to focus. The lost art of zone focusing is to use a narrow aperture and set it to the hyper focal distance. This is much easier to do with vintage lenses with lots of distance scale markings. Lenses for modern digital cameras are not as easy to manipulate for zone focusing.

For example, I use f11 and set infinity to the '11' mark on my Rollei 35 lens for walking around cities. Anything 3 meters and further will be in acceptable focus - a picture is ready to be taken at any time. 

TIP: 'Trim' your settings

Pilots use trim controls to keep an aircraft flying in a straight line without having to make constant corrections on the main controls. It compensates for changing wind and weight distribution conditions. In a similar way, I find I'm 'trimming' the settings on my camera as I walk around outdoors even when not actively shooting. For example, if clouds roll in-front of the sun, I'll decrease the shutter speed a stop or two. If I want the background out of focus, I'll set infinity beyond the hyper-focal range. Having the settings trimmed means not fumbling with the camera when a subject presents itself. Read more about the exact settings I use here.

Downtown Houston, Rollei 35s, Ilford HP5.

Why do we like some images more than others?

We often know what art we like, but can't describe in words why. 

There are groups of scientists who try to understand our aesthetic preferences. Their literature provide two types of information: trends and interpretations. Trends describe with tests and graphs things we often already know, like that yellow colours make us feel warm. Interpretations attepmt to provide reasoning for the trends - we relate yellow colours to the sun, which provides warmth.

Two talks I've listened to recently on Youtube are by a psychologist and neurologist who research how people respond to works of art. I've summarized - or in some cases taken a sound-bites of -  their presentations as a list of concepts:

Stephen Palmer (UC Berkeley)

• Find his lab's publications here.

• Composition can be split into spatial and colour composition.

• Scientific knowledge is still catching up to people's aesthetic sense. General rules of composition work well, even if we don't fully understand why.

• Spatial - Front facing objects are preferred by the viewer to be in the center of an image (center bias). Objects facing right are preferred to exist on the left of the image and vise versa (inward bias). Implied motion overrides the direction in which the object faces.

• The mind generally likes objects to be at their expected vertical elevation, e.g. flying birds above the center of the frame (inward bias), canonical (naturally familiar) perspective and at a canonical size (small butterflies and large elephants). 

• Colour - There are hues and saturations of colour we naturally find attractive or repulsive. This is related to objects that we strongly associate with that colour.

Vilayanur Ramachandran (UC San Diego)

• Find his group's publications here.

• The brain is the interface of art and science.

• Art is not about realism, but exaggerations and distortions that provoke a response. 

• A picture of reality is not stimulating. Something more is needed to produce art.

• We appreciate an amplification of a subject's unique or defining features. This is the concept of 'peak shift'. Caution here - over-amplification results in caricature, which is rejected as beyond realistic by the viewer.

• Critical information should be isolated - what is it about the subject that defines it? Line? Texture? Clutter should be removed.

• Abstraction gives the viewer a pleasing problem to solve - what is the subject?

• Metaphor and symbolism add layers of meaning that keep the viewer engaged.

The No. 2 Kodak Brownie

The Kodak Brownie No.2 might be the simplest practical camera still easily found today. It takes 120 medium format film and costs less than a music CD, if you remember those. It produced 6x7cm negatives which is one of the larger medium format sizes. 

This particular model was  released in 1901 as the Victorian era drew to a close. The specialized technology of photography was now in the realm of the public. We often hear that digital cameras and iPhones have  taken work away from professional photographers, but it has happened in pulses over the entire history of photography. There is nothing new under the sun.

A box Brownie's simplicity can't be overstated - the only decisions to make are the framing of the subject, and the timing for when the shutter is fired. Changing the aperture is possible, but the manual (find it here) suggests that it only needs to be changed when using timed exposures or flash.

Here are the settings:

• 1/60 shutter (presumably slower due to age of the camera)

• apertures of 16, 22 and 32

• Focused to infinity (presumably hyper-focal)

• 90mm focal length (a ‘normal’ length for this size of negative)

Though the Brownie was designed for 100 speed film (or possibly slower), using modern 400 speed film allows some license to play with aperture settings (the equivalent of using shutter speeds of 1/125, 1/250 and 1/500 at f11). That covers outside scenes from bright sun to moderate shade. Long manual exposures are needed for indoor photography.

I have found that my copy of the camera shoots a little to the left when shooting in the landscape orientation. I'll look into how I can adjust the viewfinding elements and report back.

This camera is probably the cheapest way to get into medium format photography, and the results can be quite good if you give the camera enough light.

Freight train near Washington Avenue, Houston. Brownie No.2, Ilford HP5.

My film was X-rayed and I used it anyway

Online wisdom says, while airport security x-rays do minimal damage to film in hand luggage, checked bags get a larger dose of radiation that can be fatal for the film. Is this true?

On a return trip from the UK, my hand luggage was deemed it was too heavy by the staff. I repacked in haste. I realized I'd made a  mistake as our plane left the ground - I had put the film in the checked bag.

I was using HP5 which is a 400 speed black and white film. They were developed at home the usual way (read about my developing method here). The images are slightly lower contrast than usual, which might have made it more difficult to print in the traditional film days. But by scanning film we can easily salvage the negatives with software. They look as good as any other roll. 

Sowerby Bridge canal, Halifax. Hasselblad 500cm, Ilford HP5.

Post processing a scanned negative

Playing with film is easy - take pictures, develop the film, make scans and process them digitally. This hybrid method means you don't need a darkroom or an enlarger until you want to go all-in. I have a simple overview of the entire workflow available here.

In this post, I'll elaborate on how I treat black and white images after they are scanned.

Post-scanning workflow

Once a set of black and white negatives is developed and scanned, the digital files can be processed like any other digital image. My scanning is done with a tethered DSLR on a tripod over a light table. Here are the processing steps I usually take:

Importing

• I import the images from the tethered image folder (move rather than copy) with a preset that inverts them into positives and decreases saturation to zero. The preset also adds metadata tags including film type and camera type.

  • For the inversion I use curves - it is the only way to do it as there is no 'invert image' function like with Photoshop. Move the left-hand node from the bottom to the top, and the right-hand node from the top to the bottom (see the screengrabs below).

Processing

Update May 2022: I have a youtube video covering a lot of this information in detail

• Because each frame is scanned in the exact same location on the light-table, I can use a 'sync' in the Develop module to crop all the images at once. I usually leave the film border on the image and crop it out of those I intend to print.

  • Why leave on the film borders? Because they have frame numbers in case they are needed in the future to match with the physical negatives. They are a visual aid to determining which images are truly film vs digital black and white when scanning through Lightroom. They often look great when left as original borders on an image.

• If no import preset was used, invert the image with the curves, and decrease saturation to zero.

• For each image, I shift the exposure to centralize the tones on the histogram.

• Black and white points are adjusted, usually to the extremes. The frame border should really be pure black and the text (like Ilford HP5, or Kodak TriX, or a frame number) should be pure white. This is a good starting point, but adjust for the photograph.

• If the black point still doesn't clip (remember this is altered by the 'whites' slider after the inversion), I'll use the curves to clip them slightly. This generally takes the image from foggy to clear.

• Luminance can help with a grainy picture, depending on what is desired.

• Some post-crop vignette can help divert attention from the edges of an image.

Exporting

• I export using a custom export preset: The files are resized to 1250 pixels on the long edge at 150 dpi and 77% quality for a Jpeg.

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Film Scan On Import

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Film Scan After Processing

Presets

Presets are essentially a one-click macro that automatically applies a series of tweaks all at once. Other than the ones I use on import/export, general developing presets can be tricky to use if they were developed for regular digital images. I’ve found that if any presets used the tone curve, they reset the image back into a negative. Another side effect is that any colour corrections are inverted, too. So any sun or warming brushes turn into cold blue tones on my inverted negatives.

It seems there is a gap in the market for those using Lightroom presets for images originating on negative film. If there is the demand, I can make my simple import and export presets available.

Lightroom pitfalls

• Lightroom has no 'invert image' function. The inversion must be achieved with curves.

• A number of sliders are reversed once the negative is made positive with curves. Exposure is back to front, as are the blacks and whites sliders.

• I still haven't figured out how to deal with the highlight and shadow sliders on an inverted image. They can be unpredictable, especially the highlights.

• The adjustment brush auto-mask function doesn't seem to work well with my images - maybe because of the grain, or because they have been inverted. Auto-mask usually works fine on my conventional digital images.

• Because I leave the film borders on each image, it can confuse the auto-transform function when trying to correct for perspective. I have to rely on manual corections.

• The negative origin of the image seems to confuse the spot heal tool, too. It seems to pick sample areas that are not at all similar to the heal area.

• Lightroom won't do face recognition on an image inverted from a negative.