Pushing film increases the appearance of grain in a frame, which is a look that some photographers prefer. In these situations, pulling is a convenient solution. Other times, the ND filter is simply not around. For genres in photography like landscape, long exposures often need to be made in broad daylight.ĭepending on the specific circumstances, using a ND filter may cause unwanted disturbances to the relative brightness values of the subjects in the frame. Of course photographers would choose a film that has them covered for the type of situations they mostly shoot in, but sometimes exceptions happen.Īnd so where one finds himself in a shoot where the film in the camera isn’t fast enough, the shutter can’t be slower, and the aperture can’t be further opened up, pushing is an attractive option.Ĭonversely, pulling is a common solution where the ND filter is missing in making long exposure shots. For regular film shooters, buying film in bulk is more economical. In other words, the frame will almost certainly be underexposed, but it can be mitigated by extended development to obtain a still usable image.Ĭost-saving is also why many photographers sometimes push film. Photographers often find themselves in situations where the lighting is not ideal, but the shooting must nevertheless still go on, and are also restricted to shooting at handheld shutter speeds. This results in a lower contrast overall. Shadows are usually fully developed 5 minutes into the development.Īs a result of pulling, the shadows will render properly, coming out as bright as it was exposed the highlights and mid-tones will be toned down. Pull development is essentially stopping the development after the shadows have finished developing, while the highlights have not. In the development process, the shadows require the least time to develop, while it takes a longer time for density to build up in the highlight areas. The entire curve shifts downwards when you reduce development time, which does not create that much of a change at the blacks but lowers the brightness of the frame from mid-tone upwards. This practically means that your highlights (and most likely mid-tones) will become much brighter if you develop your film for longer. This practically means that your blacks will look pretty much equally dark however long you develop your film for.īut further up the brightness levels, most notably the highlights, they proliferate to a larger extent as development times lengthen. Observing the densities of the blacks, we can see that the densities are affected to a minimal extent regardless of development time. A steeper incline in the curve represents greater contrast in the negative. This curve, aka this relationship, shifts with development time. Referring to the graph above, the curves represent the relationship between the building up of density on a negative with the brightness zones. The denser an area, the brighter it renders on the final scan/ print. The development time affects the brighter parts more than the darker parts, thus altering the contrast level.ĭensity refers to the amount of silver that remains on the negative. Why pushing film increases contrastĮvery image can be roughly said to contain values ranging from blacks, mid-tones to whites. Pushing increases the contrast, and pulling decreases it. The most apparent difference that pushing and pulling makes is the contrast level of the resulting negative. Most of the time it will be a combination of the two. There are two types of purposes for pushing and pulling film: technical and creative. Some creative visions call for pushing to increase graininess. Pushing allows the use of a slow film at handheld shutter speeds, while pulling is mainly to maintain highlight detail in contrasty scenes. Depending on the content of the exposure, pushing usually raises overall brightness, while pulling reduces it. Shoot me an email/ DM to share your thoughts too.Īlso, Pin this article to your Film Photography boards in Pinterest if you find it helpful! What is the purpose of pushing and pulling film?įrom a technical standpoint, you increase the contrast of the film by pushing, and reduce it by pulling. If you find this helpful, SUBSCRIBE to my channel via the box on the left to make the most out of my blog! Also, do share it with people who might be interested. Detailed but easy to follow explanations are provided regarding the effects of pushing and pulling film. A downloadable pdf is included that contains the time charts for pushing and pulling common black and white film stocks. This guide covers all basics about pushing and pulling black and white and colour negative film.
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