Tri-X Forgives

So they say Tri-X, and black and white film in general, is “very forgiving”. Here’s one example of what this means.

I was standing around with all the other parents and families, waiting for their children to walk up the gangway from the dock where their boat, freshly returned from summer camp, had just arrived. The sun was shining. We were all anxious to see our kids. Cameras, video recorders, and balloons all at the ready. What would our babies look like? How much had they grown? They did make it onto the boat, didn’t they?!

Needless to say, I was excited to see my daughter. So excited in fact, that I suddenly forgot most of what I knew about operating my camera and set the exposure incorrectly. Like +4 stops incorrectly to be precise. Basically, I zigged when I should have zagged.

Here’s the damage:

The exposure was so intense that light was even bleeding beyond the boundaries of the shutter opening and into the spaces above, below, and between (see upper left edge).

Almost all the frames I shot that morning came out like this, save for a few I made before the arrival, and a couple at the very end; none of which actually had any pictures of my daughter and/or her friends in them. Fail.

Disappointed, I was nevertheless very curious to see if I could pull these out of the fire given black and white film’s reputed nature.

Here’s the result after processing this image in Lightroom:

Pretty impressive. Tonality and detail certainly suffered from the abuse, but it’s still a perfectly usable image.

You can’t do this with digital. Not even close. Photographers get really excited about being able to recover even 1 stop of overexposure with digital. Beyond that, there’s just nothing to recover but dead white pixels. Granted, I understand color film wouldn’t be able to cope as well with this extreme a case either, but I’m guessing it would still come out ahead. I ~~can’t~~ can wait to find out for myself one day.

And so, brothers and sisters: Behold!

Go forth and purchase from the multitudes of poor, forgotten, meter-less film cameras!

Dust them off and fill them up with the almighty Tri-X!

Fear not for thy pictures!

Be ever faithful that, in the end, Tri-X will forgive.

Amen.

Say it with me!

Amen.