I had a role of Ilford Delta 3200 sitting in the freezer and unfortunately I didn’t have any other black and white film for a trip up into Rocky Mountain National Park and during a snow storm. I decided to go for it. Since Ilford Delta 3200 is actually a ISO 1000 film, I decided to shoot this role at 1250, but still process the role at 3200. I had a 6 stop variable ND filter with me to help cut down some of the light in the bright scenes and so I could try to do some shallow depth of field work as well.

The film needed a lot of light and found that the dark areas definitely showed the films graininess, which I expected. The film had a nice contrast to it being that I developed at 3200. I show with my Minolta X-700 using both my 50mm f/1.4 and also my 35mm f/2.8. I did discover that both of these lenses are very sharp wide open, and especially the 50mm, at least not with this film. I did find some situations hard to focus using the ND filter so that may have been part of the cause.

I can’t say I’m a fan of this film, but do understand now the characteristics of the film better. It’s a little too grainy for my taste so I’ll look for other options. I’m so used to the clean images from my Fuji X-series cameras and Acros so maybe that has spoiled me.

If you want to see some similar images using my Fuji XT-3 and the Acros-R simulation, head over to my Adventure Blog for my Winter Wonderland in Rocky Mountain National Park blog post.