Increasing the contrast of B&W films eg. 7222

Samuel Preston · January 27

Hi all, just looking for some opinions/knowledge on increasing the contrast of black and white film, specifically the stock most readily available, 7222. I shot it once in 35mm for stills, and I pushed it one stop and it was really quite stunning, but the box speed stuff I have seen in 16mm which is the format I would shoot, is quite flat and not really my thing. I would want to increase the contrast out of camera, but I don't want to increase the grain in the smaller 16mm format. I also want to keep the latitude of the negative stock instead of going with 7266. Therefore, would it be wise to use a colour filter yellow/orange to up the contrast, I presume this will have no change in grain structure. But this might be difficult as colour filters aren't optimal when used on things like skin tones I have heard, and will obviously mostly only work outside with the colours it can cancel out eg. blue sky for yellow filter. Is it therefore easier to push 1 stop, suck up the fact that there will be more grain, and have a higher contrast level throughout all scenes without having to consider the colour filters? Maybe people have had to make this choice and have something to share about the topic. If you have any samples I would love to see. I have only shot 1 roll of b&w motion picture so far and am looking to shoot much more in the near future! Cheers!

David Sekanina · January 27

Get a 10bit log DPX scan of your negative and adjust the contrast to your liking. Alternatively print your negative onto a high contrast fine grain print stock and scan that one.

Edited January 27 by David Sekanina

Robert Houllahan · January 27

I recently did a Digital to 7222 recording at Cinelab and I calibrated for one stop over and pulled 1/2 it had a nice contrastier look, it was for re-scan not a print.

We also tested a number of developers a number of years back before we ran a big well known 35mm B&W feature and found F76 developer to really work best and produce much nicer looking grain.

It is a negative so it will be a Log scan typically on a Scan Station or Arriscan and then as David said you can adjust contrast to your liking.

Eric Eader · January 28

Samuel,

There is a lot of 'lost knowledge' concerning B&W photography, first with the advent of color film and more recently the takeover by digital.

To recover some of that knowledge I recommend that you acquire as soon as practical at least these five books:

1. 'The Mystery of Filters II' by Hank Harrison (It is a notebook style item from late 70's early 80's). There is a also an earlier 1938 pamphlet edition with less info, but nice to compare with the later edition if you can find an inexpensive copy.

2. 'Wratten Light Filters' (1945) by Eastman Kodak Co.

3. 'The Photography of Colored Objects' (1938) Eastman Kodak Co.

4. 'Filters and Pola-Screens' (1951) Kodak Data Book

5. 'Agfa Lichtfilter' (1954) Dr. - Ing. Franz Wenzel A Soviet era East German book on Agfa Filters. I am assuming you read German being in Berlin. Die Extinktions- oder Dichtekurven der Agfa filter etc. Also Color and Color Printing filters. (I have to use a Translator myself but I couldn't pass the book up on ebay).

Harrison is good especially for the theory. He questions whether/when to actually compensate for filter factors. Instead, he suggests that one think in terms of "How much the filter darkens white" rather than how much more exposure the film needs to compensate for light loss. (Over exposure/under exposure of film tones). The 'Filter Effect Chart' is extremely valuable. Also using the Pan Viewing Glass (23W), with filters to observe approximate effect on film.

Early 'Wratten Light Filters' (sized approximately 5 1/2 x 8 1/2"), have diagrams showing filter cut-off and a listing of light frequencies passed or blocked numerically). (Match number to color). Watch the Yellow, Orange, Green, Red shift points on graphs. Especially important, it has 'Wedge Spectrograms of Standard Photographic Materials' in BOTH Tungsten AND Daylight. Why you might want to use an X1green filter indoors under tungsten. There is a difference in film's response to light color. Later versions deleted one or the other. (Yeah, they were using more powerful lights then).

'Photography of Colored Objects' (sized 6x8 5/8"), opens the door to using filters to alter color response for technical or artistic reasons.

'Filters and Pola-Screens' illustrates my point about material deletions, but uses color pictures of dinner plates to compare before/after with various filters. Converting color objects to 'gray scale' with the appropriate balance differentiation/separation.

That is a lot right there!!

But wait there's more!!

By gelling lights, the old timers could take advantage of color response to lighten/darken an area for emphasis and still have detail (as needed). Observe a stage play photo shoot to get an idea of warm/cool, shadow/highlight effects on film.

They also used dimmers for certain lights. (not so much for a change during the shot but to balance the look. Remember, no color temperature change... just lighter or darker with B&W.

Don't forget nets in front of lights; but sometimes that is a forest/pest to navigate on 'no-budget' shoots.

Here is a BIGGIE!!! Make up for B&W was different than for color. Remembering the idea: filters lighten their own color and darken their opposite color, a make-up artist could apply the appropriate shade to achieve almost any effect. The same idea for color gels on lights!!

If you haven't smacked the computer in frustration yet, hang on.

All the above means: TEST, TEST, TEST, and TEST some more.

Bulk load 400' or 100' of 5222 and shoot, shoot, shoot. Hand develop and print in a standardized way so the differences show up; then shoot a roll of 7222 to compare and adjust the process first to see what happens relative to 5222; then to construct/execute a planned/designed scene.

My comments are directed toward getting it in the camera on set. Post Production, as above, still applies.

Of course while you are doing this everyone else is shooting digital, but everything I've mentioned will help you understand B&W in ways others don't. It takes TIME, MONEY, and TESTING. There is no short cut.

Art is the Most Expensive Mistress of all.

David Mullen ASC · January 28

Traditionally contrast for b&w negative was adjusted by development, i.e. pushing. You don't necessarily have to underexpose to compensate, you could rate normally and push one-stop for more density & contrast. But if you are finishing digitally, then probably normal development is fine and you can increase contrast in the grade.

Color contrast filters only increase contrast based on the color content of the scene, they don't increase contrast overall no matter what is in the frame. You see some increase in contrast outdoors with the yellow-orange-red filters because the shadows often have blue skylight in them, so they go a bit darker than the highlights, and skintones get lighter because they have red in them. But indoors, while you'd still get the lightening of skintones with those filters, you don't really change the contrast overall. And one could argue that shooting under tungsten light indoors is already like using a yellow-orange filter on the camera outdoors.

Simon Wyss · January 28

It might perhaps be worthwhile to start to think about lighting rather than technology. Black and white is drawing, colours are painting, simplified. Bring in lights and shadows by perspective or actively with light sources, reflectors, and flags. Observe surface textures.

Samuel Preston · January 28

Thank you for the very insightful answers! Good to know which developer pairing works well, and the detailed information on the specifics of filters.

The tips to do it in scan are good but I would like to have it closer to my preferred look SOOC, as would like to do as much as possible in the ‘physical realm’ with this physical medium. It will be finished digitally of course but maybe doing a print to increase the contrast could be fun.

And to Simon Wyss, thank you for your advice, but this isn’t my first rodeo, especially not in the general realm of black and white. I almost only shoot stills in b&w. But my ideas are leading me to want to do a few shoots doc style with just me and my arri on my back in the mountains of northern italy, I therefore am bound by the constraints of what lays before me, no lights, no flags, reflectors etc. It was bad enough seeing my lighting team on my last shoot handle those arri 2ks and other tungsten fixtures. I’ll leave the big lighting for the big sets!

Edited January 28 by Samuel Preston
sentence corrections

Robert Houllahan · January 29

You might want to talk to the lab you are working with and have a discussion about target density and target gamma.

What we do every run for process normal is shoot a test strip on a XRite Sensitometer on some fresh stock we are running which is then processed and read on a XRits 310 Densitometer. We aim for a "standard" reference D-Max and D-Min and some stocks and processes will be based around a target D-Max. For example when we make optical tracks for printing the target density is a 2.8 specified by the person who records our optical 16mm tracks.

I am home now but I can get the last Sensi strip and densities for 7222 from last week tomorrow and post them, we run F76 at 75Deg F / 3min (50ft /min) and a 1:3 mix with the developed being about 100Gal with allot of turbuation so a pretty active developer, For 3378 Sound film we run at 80Deg at 20Ft/min so more than double the dev time and higher temp, that gets it to the high density.

So it is a good idea to do some experiments and shoot some brackets and see how things turn out with more or less target density and then a lab can process to that density / gamma specified.

Uli Meyer · January 29

On 1/28/2024 at 7:21 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

But if you are finishing digitally, then probably normal development is fine and you can increase contrast in the grade.

That's what I would suggest. This test was shot at box speed ASA 250. I used an ND .6 for the exteriors and no filter for the interior. The light that day was particularly beautiful.