----- Original Message ----- From: "Herb Chong"
Subject: Re: How far can you push it? (B&W film that is...)
note that EI2000 isn't real speed gain since the shadows have lost too much detail to reproduce the full tonal range, but under moderately low contrast gym lights, it wasn't objectionable.
This is something to take into consideration. As Herb says, overdeveloping does not produce much, if any, speed increase.
What overdeveloping does, is to expand the contrast of the film.
If the scene is very low contrast, extending the development will expand the tonal range to something more usable.
If the scene is at all high contrast, all that happens is you go from ugly to soot and chalk.
When I was a teenager, I took lots of pictures of the sport of fencing,
As an aside, it was the only sport I was ever interested in, and which I was also quite proficient at. Fencing is a co-ed sport, which made for a wonderful opportunity to meet girls.
Anyway, regarding the photography, some of which was done with a Pentax Spotmatic II, I found that I was able to "push" Tri-X a couple of stops in the gymnasium.
Sadly, this pushability didn't work on the street under more nomal lighting.
William Robb