 Yo what up welcome back to another episode of I watched dune last night and it's all I can think about today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace Well, it's time to push some shit again not like out into the toilet But like chemically push some film pushing film is a very popular process used by many Photographers not digital photographers to create a certain look with their images in general I've never really been much of a ho for pushing film not the YouTube channel I am actually quite a hoe for that I guess I just never really understood the appeal of pushing your film when you could just shoot it at box speed and then add the Resulting effects like contrast in post but little did I realize the dumb assery of my ways There is a monumental difference between digital contrast and chemical contrast I've never pushed Ilford HP 5 before but the hype around it was too hard to ignore I decided I would push a couple of rolls of 35 millimeter HP 5 two stops a.k.a. The mat day special HP 5 is kind of fallen out of my graces lately because I found a new lover in the form of Kodak Tmax 400, but is it possible? It's time for me to relapse on HP 5 Let's find out a lot of you are already probably pretty familiar with what it means to push or pull your film But for all the newbies out there too bad. I'm not gonna explain it. You're f***ed. All right Here it goes to put it in simple terms pushing your film is when you shoot at a higher ISO than box speed Which results in underexposure and then over develop your film to compensate for the underexposure the effect typically results in more Contrast more grain and more pain, but there ain't no grain without pain It's a look that is very very cool for black and white film buffer color film You can start to get color shifts if you go too far, but how far is too far? I'd recommend you have an open and honest talk with your lab technician I find that a lot of relationships are easier with open communication strict boundaries and a safe word But speaking of laps the darkroom was forming the collab of the century with beers and cameras and they invited me along for the festivities I was super excited to hang out with Phil, Trev, Juan, and Caleb and just shoot the s*** about film cameras Needless to say though Baxter was not amused that I'd be leaving without him After loading the Leica m6 with the freshest roll of HP 5 that I could find I headed down to the apocalypse now hellhole that is currently downtown in LA Our first stop would be the king of burgers that's right in and out But this was no ordinary in and out this in and out was right next to LAX And featured a bunch of landing planes flying overhead which of course was a solid photo opportunity Unfortunately someone's car had broken down on the way to work Since the car was small and old the three of us figured that with enough gusto we could get behind it and collectively take some photos As I said before in order to set up your film to be pushed you need to underexpose because I'm pushing two stops I would need to underexpose by two stops The easiest way to do this is to take your light meter and just set the iso to something that's two stops more sensitive For example illford hp 5 is 400 iso at box speed So to push it two stops and underexpose it two stops I would set the meter to 1600 iso now you might be screaming at your computer screen phone screen Coachella hologram whatever you're watching this on in whatever year you're in about the fact that LA is bright and sunny Literally forever. Why the hell would you shoot at 1600 iso in a place that gets 12 minutes of clouds every year? I don't know it's for demonstrative purposes In the chariot up to the Getty museum I thought it might be a good time to swap out the 35 millimeter sumacron for the 12 millimeter voilander The architecture of the Getty is something to behold for sure I found that the leading lines and curves really played well with the grainy black and white look of pushed hp 5 Though it was incredibly bright and reflective there. So I was shooting at max shutter speed and f16 Basically everything from the dust on my lens to the distant spiral arms of the milky way galaxy was in focus Upon further investigation of these images it seems that they have a lot of grain more grain than grains of sand in the movie dune After getting kicked out of the Getty for not knowing anything about art We headed to the hotel while in the hotel lobby I realized not only that the hotel's theme was that it couldn't decide on a theme But I also realized that hp 5 at 1600 is perfect for indoor scenes which might provide significantly less light Like these shots, but more importantly this shot, which is definitely one of my favorites because the contrast is simply on point Before we headed to the beers and cameras event We were talking a bit and trev brought up a good point about how I was incorrectly calling it The eastern sierras when it should correctly be called the eastern sierra after feeling some pretty deep ancestral shame I was on a mission to get something back against trev something that he couldn't possibly see coming So when he whipped out the contacts t2 that night I had to upstage him with the superior optical quality mechanical perfection and james bond swagger of the budweiser camera I didn't get any b-roll of the event, but it was really awesome to meet everyone at beers and cameras It was a pretty big hit as recognized by my hangover the next day So it might be worth noting that if you accidentally under exposure images You can't magically save them by pushing your film the same way that undercooking a turkey and then jamming the bastard in the microwave Won't save thanksgiving I actually really dig this shot. I think it's the kind of shot that would only really work with high contrast It was here in my scanning process that I realized that maybe Just maybe pushed hp5 is kind of the jam But speaking of things that are at the jam, I'd like to thank today's sponsor square space Are you looking for an easy way to display your beautiful photography? An easy way to show your work to your parents Co-workers or even all your high school teachers who said that you were a total failure of the modern educational system Well, then look no further square space is an all-in-one website building platform designed to help you Create a beautiful website with ease if website building isn't your forte. Worry not square space offers 24 7 customer support And even features an online forum for anyone to seek help for specific inquiries regarding your website So what are you waiting for if you're ready to build a website? You can start a free trial today at squarespace.com slash grainy days And if you use the code grainy days at checkout you can get 10 off your first purchase So is pushing hp5 two stops that's so raven or not that's so raven I think it is that so raven having an image come through the scanner and negative lab pro with the contrast already dialed in Is kind of amazing all I have to do is bump the sharpness and crop the image Which is perfect because less work means I can get drunk and watch dune on repeat all night and practice my tibetan throat singing at 3 a.m You have something in your hair Am I beautiful now? It was dog poop I can't imagine that pushing hp5 further to three stops would yield very positive results In fact, they'll be negative crazy smart and good-ass jokes aside I think pushing hp5 two stops is the perfect amount The grain flourishes to the point that it almost kind of looks like you took your latest banger on a piece of high grit sandpaper This is definitely a look that i'm going to use the crap out of in the future Though now I am personally conflicted between the two powerhouse black and white films the fine detail and Grainless rendering of tmax 400 or the grainy sex appeal of hp5 Perhaps different film stocks are called for in different situations I don't know what I do knows that I had a blast meeting everyone And it's important to experiment with film photography because you never know what you might get I mean from personal experience most of the time it'll be crap But every once in a while it'll change the way you shoot and that's a good thing So have you pushed hp5 two stops before if you have what did you think but more importantly, what did you think of dune?