Ilford Delta 3200 - 120 Film

Pushing the user to the limits, but delivering the goods

As someone recently returned to medium format film photography, I needed and wanted to experiment in the same way in which I did, 50 years ago. I bought the roll of Ilford Delta 3200 in a batch of different films with no specific tasks in mind. On a cold winter hazy sunny morning I loaded the film knowing I’d push the camera to its physical limits of 1/500 at f/22. I thought it’d be over exposure but I wanted hand-held because a tripod was out of the question. Almost snapshot mode. I knew I’d probably get grain. I knew I’d get contrast. But I knew what I’d be photographing and I wanted moody atmosphere. And I dreaded the possible outcome of having pushed beyond the limits and having to bin the results. I think 9 usable shots out of 15 isn’t a bad score with 3 more shots in which it was the composition which failed rather than the exposure. OK I spent a couple of hours using Lightroom to achieve the best possible “look” but I would have spent more hours in the darkroom and wasted more physical resources. Is the film designed for use in sunlight? Probably not. Did it “deliver”? Most certainly. Did I achieve a satisfactory result? Most definitely, the grain and contrast gave the atmospheric effects for which I strived. There was detail in the sky and the blacks were not blocked out. The contrast was high but not “soot and whitewash”. There was excellent rendition and detail. The grain was not intensive. Will I be buying another roll for other experimentation? Definitely.

Plenty of Scope to Play

I grabbed a roll of this to have a play in low light, but also to see how it performed in general, dull daylight. Run through a Yashica 635, it didn't completely blow me away, but learnt a lot about how this film performs. In low light you get a nice gritty feel - there's a lot of contrast if there are manmade lighting sources, which would be fun to explore; but I actually think this is a really interesting film to mess about with in daylight, allowing you to use a fast shutter, or smaller aperture. The grain I was expecting to be massively prominent is more just a 'feel' in the medium format, which makes this a much more useable film than I suspect is the case in 35mm. I think I'll have another go with this, and I might pull it to 1600, seeing if I can get more balance to the light and dark at night. But all in all definitely worth having some fun with! Developed in ID-11 1+3.

Excellent even on a rainy day.

So happy with the exposure on the photos taken on a Holga 120N with this high exposure film on a cloudy day, and even in the pouring rain. The heavy vignetting suggests I could even have tried a smaller aperture setting.