I have recently started getting into film photography and I’m still learning the ropes. After buying a variety of color and black and white films to experiment with, I noticed that I somehow accidentally bought a couple of rolls of very high speed Ilford Delta ISO 3200 film. At this point, all I have is a Kodak Ektar H35N and an Olympus Pen-EES 2 which has a max ISO of 400. Is the Ilford film useless to me, or can it be used at lower speeds in certain conditions?

EDIT: This is tangential, but I was originally going to ask this question on Reddit instead of Lemmy because the conventional wisdom is that Lemmy isn’t useful yet for more niche topics, but I thought “why not try Lemmy first anyway,” and I’m glad I did. I found the most active film photography community on Lemmyverse.net (which hadn’t yet even federated to my small instance) and it paid off. How nice!

  • demesisx@infosec.pubEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    You could just get the meter reading then close down the aperture by around 3 stops.

    • ISO 800 is one stop more sensitive than ISO 400
    • ISO 1600 is two stops more sensitive than ISO 400
    • ISO 3200 is 3 stops more sensitive than ISO 400.

    It would be a great film to use if you want to really lean into graininess or play with exposure times. Sebastiao Segado-vibe grain unlocked if you play with push or pull processing too.

    Salgado uses tri-x 400 rated at ei 200 for extended tonal range and shadow detail.

    • Bilb!@lem.monsterOPEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      Thanks, I’ll hold onto it and give it a try once I know what I’m doing a bit better.