David Shoots Film

The American Museum of Natural History is a remarkably dark place. I guess it’s probably no darker than any other old-school municipal museum packed with dark-stained dioramas and taxidermy, but taking photos anywhere other than in the dinosaur exhibits on the top floor is a challenge.

These were taken with a Leica M4 and 28mm M-Rokkor. I went with Tri-X (actually Arista Premium 400 – same thing) at an exposure index of 6400 and HC-110. The results were pretty satisfying. The greater challenge, at this point, is finding the right balance of light to dark in very complex settings. I intentionally exposed for some shadow detail, but I knew (from a past visit) that I was going to want some of the images to go quite dark, with lots of black.

Recipe for Tri-X @ 6400 in HC-110 dilution B:

Tri-X 135 (or Arista Premium 400 135)
HC-110 dilution B (7.5ml syrup + 240ml for single roll in steel tank)
26 minutes total development
30 seconds initial agitation
5 gentle inversions every 5 minutes
water stop/rinse 1 minute
fix
hypo clear
rinse