I have gotten off to a slow start with film photography this year. I didn’t get my first roll developed until mid-March and only recently finished a 2nd roll.
As I had done with that first roll of film, I experimented with shooting one stop over-exposed. The main difference with this roll is that I was using black and white film, Ilford Delta 100. I used my Minolta Hi-Matic 11, set at ISO 50. I shot at this ISO on 2 occasions and then finished the roll at ISO 100 to see if there was any notable difference.
The first time was toward the end of March on a walk to the East Passyunk neighborhood. It was a chilly, gray, and windy day so I ended up taking only 7 photos.
We had a much nicer day a couple weeks later in early April. We took a walk to Old City to go to our favorite local stationery store, Omoi Zakka. I didn’t shoot many photos on that walk either but for the opposite reason. It was warm and sunny and I have overdressed. By the time we walked to our destination and did our shopping, I just wanted to get home so didn’t take any photos on the way back.
We went out the following weekend, and it was nice enough out (and I was dressed appropriately) that I was able to finish the roll. I decided to switch the ISO to 100 so I could compare the over-exposed speed with the box speed. As with my prior experiment, there wasn’t a significant difference. The highlights in a few of the above pictures seem a little bright, but they were taken on a very sunny day so it’s hard to say what difference the ISO setting made.
It’s a bit hard to decide given the small sample of 2 rolls of film, but based on what results I’ve gotten so far, I may be inclined to continue over-exposing color film but not black and white. There wasn’t much of a difference with either, but I would be more concerned with losing some shadows and contrast in black and white photos. Granted, I could always adjust for that in the editing stage, but I like keeping my editing of my film photos to a minimum.
One benefit of shooting at the lower ISO is that it provides a little more latitude for shooting at a wider aperture thus giving a bit of extra options for shallower depth of field. But given the slight variations in outcomes, it’s probably not providing that much latitude.
It’s been fun experimenting with these 2 rolls. Until I had done so, I never thought about shooting film at any ISO other than what was printed on the box!
A
Nice find, your post and the Minolta Hi-Matic 11 a friend just gifted me a few hours ago. It was her late husbands camera and looks as new. I had no plans for using this camera until saw this post. Now I will clean the lens and get a battery and filter for it and some B&W film and take it to old town for an early evening street shoot.
I recently unpacked my many years collection of old film cameras to put in a Mahogany & glass wall case I built to display them in my new little modern, but mid-century furnished house. Though I shot for years in film(since the mid late 50’s), I abandoned it about 15-years ago for digital and thought I would never go back to film. But the handling of my old cameras brought on a certain nostalgia for them and film. And with my granddaughter’s interest in photography I thought I would start her off with a digital camera but now have reconsidered and will start her off with a manual range finder and then an SLR before moving to a Mirror-less Full-frame digital camera. Should her interest hold I will re-gift the Minolta Hi-Matic 11 to her and share your post with her.
Thanks for the post and pics. _ A
Tom
Thank you for your kind comment. I’m glad my post served as inspiration for using the Hi-Matic. I really enjoy this camera and hope you and, maybe later, your granddaughter will as well.