May 18, 2019 – I decided to accompany my teenage son and his friend on a trip down to San Francisco. They had tickets to see Mac DeMarco perform at the Bill Graham Civic auditorium and had never navigated the BART transit system…so I went along for moral support. My goal was to get them to the front door of the concert hall and then head out for some early evening street photography with my trusty Nikon F3HP + 50mm f1.8. Much to my chagrin, the forecast called for a single solitary evening of rain in what was an otherwise mostly dry May.
Because the evening was so much darker than I could have imagined, I decided at that moment to see about pushing the boundaries of Kodak TRIX 400. After some test metering in the area I was going to photograph in, I decided I was going to go “The Full Monty” and push the roll to 3200. I wandered around the streets that rainy San Francisco night, running between covered awnings in an attempt to stay dry while looking for interesting light sources. The most intriguing moments materialized in the form of boutique shop windows, car headlights and cozy café windows framing warm dry patrons.
My Nikon F3HP was a good choice of camera that night, as it has never let me down regardless of the weather or other plenty of abuses it has taken in travel & transit (ask me sometime about it a cam strap ring coming loose and it hitting the asphalt full tilt in Malibu, CA) If you are looking for a rock solid every day 35mm workhorse, you can’t beat the functionality ,ergonomics and of course the wonderful selection of vintage & new Nikkor lenses.
I was pleasantly surprised when I receive the pushed 3200 film scans back a few weeks later from the fine folks at the darkroom.com. The frames had plenty of detail and I rather liked the drastic separation between true whites and blacks with radically diminished gray tones. These frames represent my favorites of the 2 hour evening session. I definitely won’t hesitate to push Kodak Trix 400 anytime I need to In the future… and neither should you.
Photo’s of my Nikon F3HP were shot with a Leica Q (28mm f1.7)
Benjamin Fargen is photographer & documentary filmmaker living in Sacramento, CA
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David Smith on One Rainy Night in SF – Nikon F3HP + Kodak TRI-X pushed to 3200 – By Benjamin Fargen
Comment posted: 24/08/2019
benjaminfargen on One Rainy Night in SF – Nikon F3HP + Kodak TRI-X pushed to 3200 – By Benjamin Fargen
Comment posted: 24/08/2019
Yes...www.thedarkroom.com is correct.
They do fantastic work. I highly recommend them.
All the best,
Benjamin Fargen
Brian on One Rainy Night in SF – Nikon F3HP + Kodak TRI-X pushed to 3200 – By Benjamin Fargen
Comment posted: 24/08/2019
https://thedarkroom.com/
"darkroom.com" is a printed circuit design shop,
This is like on Taxi, do you mean the darkroom.com or thedarkroom,com... (Blue Berries or Blueberries)
Ashley Carr on One Rainy Night in SF – Nikon F3HP + Kodak TRI-X pushed to 3200 – By Benjamin Fargen
Comment posted: 24/08/2019
Enjoyed the write up and the photos.
Comment posted: 24/08/2019
eric on One Rainy Night in SF – Nikon F3HP + Kodak TRI-X pushed to 3200 – By Benjamin Fargen
Comment posted: 24/08/2019
Great, wonderful photographs : really love them. Really they carry some thing rich. The camera is a wonderful machine and the Trix-X especially pushed give a fantastic touch.
Whaouuuu very very beautiful, there is art and emotion in these photographs. I would say despite I ama Leica user (M3 black 1965) and of course Nikon user (so great camera and lenses), that we do not need a Leica to make good photographs (sometimes a very good Leica CL is better than some M) : all is in the talent of the artist.
Comment posted: 24/08/2019
Huss on One Rainy Night in SF – Nikon F3HP + Kodak TRI-X pushed to 3200 – By Benjamin Fargen
Comment posted: 26/08/2019
I use thefindlab.com or northcoastphoto.com, neither of which have ever messed up my film. And both give excellent results.
Comment posted: 26/08/2019
Returning to film with a fun, compact, affordable and easy to use Nikon FE - By Daniel Sigg - 35mmc on One Rainy Night in SF – Nikon F3HP + Kodak TRI-X pushed to 3200 – By Benjamin Fargen
Comment posted: 26/11/2019
Comment posted: 26/11/2019
Nick on One Rainy Night in SF – Nikon F3HP + Kodak TRI-X pushed to 3200 – By Benjamin Fargen
Comment posted: 20/06/2022
On the topic of pushing to 3200, did you then develop at box speed?