Practicing the ‘Burning In’ Technique in the Darkroom

In one of my latest Darkroom sessions I decided I wanted to enlarge a photo I’d taken of some logs which were outside a house I was staying at during a recent visit to Rye.

I had taken this photo using my Hasselblad 500 C/M camera and some Fomapan Creative 200 ISO black and white film.

I used Ilford IV Multigrade Resin Coated Pearl paper to make my prints. In the first print I made I used a 2 1/2 Contrast Filter and exposed the print for 5 seconds:

I was quite happy with the detail in the top half of the photo but I felt the detail was lacking somewhat in the lower part of the photo on the logs.

It was a bright, sunny day when I took the photo and I didn’t have a lens shade at that point to use on my camera. The lower logs were more exposed to the sunlight.

I therefore decided that this would be a good photo to try out the ‘burning in’ technique. I exposed my next print again with the same contrast filter and exposure time. However, this time I hovered some paper over the top part of the image and exposed the lower part of the photo to a further 5 seconds and this was the result:

I was pleased to see that the lower part of the photo was starting to show more detail in the logs. However, I felt the contrast filter I was using was lighting the lower logs a bit too much.

In the next print I decided to remove the contrast filter completely but I still ‘burned in’ the photo the same way as I had done for the second print and here is the result:

I liked the fact that you can see more detail in the lower logs but by not using a contrast filter, it made the photo darker overall. I also still had the problem of the little log that looks almost white in all of the photos. Although there was minimal detail on the actual negative of this log.

Perhaps I could perfect this photo even further but I wasn’t sure what would be next best to try. I don’t think I wanted to try any other contrast filters and all I could think is that I try ‘burning in’ some smaller areas a bit more.

The Fomapan Creative 120 ISO 200 Film and my Hasselblad 500 C/M Camera

I recently purchased this film from Analogue Wonderland whilst buying some other 120mm film:

The Fomapan film is available in different ISO’s from 100-400. I decided on the 200 ISO because I knew I wanted to use it on a bright sunny day in England.

I had seen some photos taken by other people using this film and I liked the style of photos the film seems to produce.

The other appealing thing about the film is that it is very cheap and can be purchased for £3.50 at Analogue Wonderland.

If I’m completely honest, amongst the other more expensive films I had purchased from Analogue Wonderland, this one had remained at the bottom of my pile. This was because I was waiting for a very sunny day and I also viewed it as not being of great quality because it was very cheap.

I recently spent the weekend in Rye with some friends. It was a beautiful sunny day on the Sunday so I decided to take a walk around Rye and test out this film in my Hasselblad.

When I got the film developed, I was extremely impressed with the quality and contrast of the photos. Here are some of the photos I took:

It’s definitely a film I’ll be buying again as I think it is great value for money. I also want to try out the other ISO formats they do.