Barack Obama carnival prize and Ilford Delta 3200

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This Barack Obama doll was among the prizes you could win at the balloon darts game during the 2011 Three Rivers Festival in Fort Wayne. The button on the president's suit is emblazoned with his election slogan, "Yes We Can." An American flag, a portrait of Christ, money, and a dollar sign license plate hang in the background above the balloons! The festival ended July 16.

This was my first try of Ilford Delta 3200 at EI-3200. Had always shot it at 1600 before. This was developed for Ilford's recommended time for 3200 in Kodak Tmax Developer. I really like how it came out!

[Ranchu]

It does look cool at 3200. I find the pole w/Osamalama-24th-century-Obama somewhat distracting, the Jesus-monkey-arrow interaction draws my attention somehow.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I think Obama would have been better if not obscured by the flag, but you get what you get with documentary work. What's an Osamalama-24th-century-Obama? LOL

[Moriturii]

I really wonder how Sebastiao Salgado got his pictures to look the way he did with Tmax3200. Not an ounce of grain.

Random Question: When you wet print a picture, rather then scan the negative with a scanner, does the grain appear less?

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Originally Posted by Moriturii

I really wonder how Sebastiao Salgado got his pictures to look the way he did with Tmax3200. Not an ounce of grain.

Random Question: When you wet print a picture, rather then scan the negative with a scanner, does the grain appear less?

It is impossible to get pictures from Tmax 3200 "without an ounce of grain". I worked with that film for 15 years. Grain is simply part of working with high speed films. Same with Ilford Delta 3200, Fuji Superia 1600 (a gorgeous color film, sadly discontinued), etc. All have grain.

I have wet printed and scanned both Tmax 3200 and Delta 3200. Scans look grainier on screen because we can look at them blown up far larger than we will ever print them, but in the prints, there is no difference.

Have you seen Salgado's work in books or original darkroom prints, or prints from scanned film? Reason I ask is that there are digital way of reducing grain that can be applied to the scan used to make an inkjet print or for book publication. Can't do that with wet prints. If you saw books or inkjets, they may have been run through noise reduction software.

Here it is run through noise ninja:

[Ranchu]

It's from Lulzsec. "'It has come to our unfortunate attention that NATO and our good friend Barrack Osama-Llama 24th-century Obama have recently upped the stakes with regard to hacking. They now treat hacking as an act of war. So, we just hacked an FBI affiliated website (Infragard, specifically the Atlanta chapter) and leaked its user base. We also took complete control over the site and defaced it...'" http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/06/0...Challenges-FBI

Big balls.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Originally Posted by Ranchu

It's from Lulzsec. "'It has come to our unfortunate attention that NATO and our good friend Barrack Osama-Llama 24th-century Obama have recently upped the stakes with regard to hacking. They now treat hacking as an act of war. So, we just hacked an FBI affiliated website (Infragard, specifically the Atlanta chapter) and leaked its user base. We also took complete control over the site and defaced it...'" http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/06/0...Challenges-FBI

Big balls.

For the 99.9999% of us who are not hackers, that was a pretty obscure reference. Calling someone, like Obama, names only works if people understand what you're saying.

[tlitody]

Originally Posted by Moriturii

I really wonder how Sebastiao Salgado got his pictures to look the way he did with Tmax3200. Not an ounce of grain.

Random Question: When you wet print a picture, rather then scan the negative with a scanner, does the grain appear less?

Yes and no. A diffusion enlarger helps mask grain whereas a full on (many aren't) condensor enlarger exagerates grain.
B+W film doesn't scan as well as colour film. The grain is accentuated. Try some some XP2 which is chromegenic B+W film. It will scan much better than silver gelatin films. By much better I mean with much less grain exageration due to scanning.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

XP-2 isn't 3200 speed, and anyway he asked how Salgado got Tmax 3200 to be grainless. I'm still curious what kind of Salgado images he saw, books, inkjets, or wet prints, since Tmax 3200 is basically a grainy film.

[tlitody]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

XP-2 isn't 3200 speed, and anyway he asked how Salgado got Tmax 3200 to be grainless. I'm still curious what kind of Salgado images he saw, books, inkjets, or wet prints, since Tmax 3200 is basically a grainy film.

Random Question: When you wet print a picture, rather then scan the negative with a scanner, does the grain appear less?

no reference there to any particular film speed as far as I can see. And no reference to Salgado or anyone else.

[Tim Gray]

In my experience, TMZ does look grainier scanned then wet printed, particularly if you aren't scanning it at 4000 dpi. I can take a 4000 dpi scan and downsize it to the same size as a 2000 dpi scan (or a 1333 dpi scan), and the downsized 4000 dpi scan looks significantly finer grained.

Also, in my experience, TMZ can look pretty clean if shot at 800 or 1600 in good light. It starts to look a lot grungier if shot at 1600 in poor light (i.e. probably under exposed) or 3200.

Oh, and nice picture

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Originally Posted by tlitody

no reference there to any particular film speed as far as I can see. And no reference to Salgado or anyone else.

Below is the reference to Salgado and 3200 that I mentioned.

I really wonder how Sebastiao Salgado got his pictures to look the way he did with Tmax3200. Not an ounce of grain.

Random Question: When you wet print a picture, rather then scan the negative with a scanner, does the grain appear less?

I guess they're two questions. I see about the same grain in prints, but the scans look grainier on screen.

[tlitody]

Just in case anyone hasn't seen it, there is video of Nathalie Lopparelli working in the darkroom. She used to print for Salgado as well as a lot of other well known photographers.

http://atelierfenetresurcour.com/prestation-eng.html

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Originally Posted by tlitody

Just in case anyone hasn't seen it, there is video of Nathalie Lopparelli working in the darkroom. She used to print for Salgado as well as a lot of other well known photographers.

http://atelierfenetresurcour.com/prestation-eng.html

Cool! Thanks for the link, Tiltody. I wonder if he still has his stuff wet printed, or does inkjets now?

[tlitody]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

Cool! Thanks for the link, Tiltody. I wonder if he still has his stuff wet printed, or does inkjets now?

don't know because I haven't been following his work.

[eleskin]

Obama Carnaval Prize. The title speaks for itself (Congress, Obama, Budget disaster) .

Nice photo. I like Delta 3200 very much. I used XTOL and 120 with my 645N. I loved the results!!!