Hoar Frost

This is my first processed and posted film image of 2017.  Hailey and I were out on a day trip a couple of weeks ago and I stopped beside the road to take this shot.  It was a dull and overcast day, really damp with heavy fog.  That made photographing with a view camera rather painful.  You see, the small knobs and controls of a view camera are not easily operated with gloves on.  I find that I have to remove my gloves to be able to properly access the controls.  This usually results in my fingers becoming excruciatingly cold and sometimes nearly frostbitten.  On this day it was only about -8C, but the humidity levels were extreme, and there was a brisk breeze out of the north.  It was not very pleasant and I questioned why I was so stupid as to attempt large format photography.  The results have convinced me that as stupid as I may be, I need to continue to work at this.

This image was taken on a new film, Bergger Panchro 400.  I am familiar with Bergger and have used some of their paper and film in the past.  This particular emulsion is new, at least to the North American market.  When I first learned of it last year, I purchased a hundred sheets of film and began to experiment with it.  This is a rather unique film that consists of two emulsions coated onto the same base.  Much like multigrade paper, it is advertised to include one emulsion for contrast, that supports the high and low ends of the image scale, and a second softer emulsion that supports all the values in between.  I am quite impressed with the results so far.  

My initial experimentation has been based on exposing the film at the rated box speed of 400 iso.  I chose to process in Ilford Perceptol developer, diluted 1:1.  Development was for 20:00 minutes, at 24C.  The results are good, particularly when light conditions were crisp.  But, shadow values were a bit lacking, and in overcast light, the negatives were heavy and dense.  Moving forward I think I need to provide additional exposure, and will rate the film at 320iso.  For normal development I think that development can be reduced slightly, to about 18:00 minutes.  In flat overcast light I think that exposure can be reduced somewhat to about 500sio, and development increased, perhaps to 25:00 minutes or more.  Further refining is in order, and I will continue to share my results.  In the mean time I have purchased a couple hundred more sheets of this film...