No ISO 400 film at hand but facing a nice low-light situation? Your frigde is full with ISO 100 films but you want to shoot fast moving things? You want high contrast and hues shifts without crossing? Maybe Push Processing is a way!
Push Processing is an old known darkroom technique. Basically it´s about underexposing and then overdeveloping a film. Just put a ISO 200 film into your camera and set it to ISO 400. Expose the whole film with this setting and upon letting it developed write “Please push one step” on the envelope. I wanted to try this for quite some time and now that I did, I’m stunned by the outcome: high contrast, some hue shifts and large grain.
It’s also possible to push by more than one step, I already tried a ISO 100 Film on ISO 400 setting and it turned out good. Pushing ISO 400 to ISO 1600 should be worth a try. Black and white film can be pushed even more.
Push processing should be tested in combination with X-pro and Redscale. There’s a lot to do! Try it out!
16 comments
violet_rayy
Amazing shots and great article!
ifisheye
ill have to try this
vicuna
Great tipster and gallery!! That's a good old technique which gives more texture and contrast to the shots... with b&w, I remember that the Ilford HP5 400 asa is very very flexible and can be shot (and developped) as a 800/1600 or even 3200 asa film... the more you push, the more grainy are the shots and sometimes this gives a fantastic dramatic vintage mood....
renaishashin
wow thx @zark ! I'm gonna try it out REAL soon! Nice colors!
wuxiong
Yeah, quite useful and practical tipster, thanks for sharing it and your nice photos.::))
mephisto19
should try this
sexyinred
awesome shots! love the outdoor shot especially
coldkennels
My sister (a professional photographer) had suggested this to me, but I'd never seen examples till now... great gallery!
ethermoon
i shoot the film underexposed, then say to the developer push one step higher, is that it? i sometimes love underexposed shots... :-)
stouf
Nice ! For other push-processing experiments, you can visit @rater, @eggzakly and @stouf 8DDD
breakphreak
it depends on a film: some can be pushed, others might become completely abstract. pushing a slide/xpro film is even a more sensitive process where perfect temperatures can make wonders (read: find a trustworthy lab). and finally, some films are especially developed for pushing :)
cinzinc
iv always been curious about this technique. thanks to ur experiment i dont have to worry about a low stock of iso400 film in my place
livethdream
sagebrush
trash-gordon-from-outer-space
Wie formuliert man diesen Wunsch denn am besten auf Deutsch?
daforl
is it possible to overexpose a film and then do the opposite of pushing?