Keith (M) Posted February 21, 2011 Share #1 Posted February 21, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Coming back to developing my own b&w film after a gap of over twenty years, I am in a bit of a quandary when it comes to judging whether or not I am getting the development right or not. I am aware there are lots of guides and 'how to's' on the web and yes I do have Ansel Adam's 'The Negative'! If I dare mention the word 'scanning', this is where part of my problem lies I think, in that using VueScan on my Epson Perfection 3200, the results all look very light but the histograms seem OK. Therefore I am trying to eliminate the negative as being at fault and if the negs are OK, I can then dig further. At the moment I seem to be going around in circles! In the image below, the left side is HP5+ developed in Ilfosol 3 @ 1+9 for 6mins 30secs. The right side is a neg from 1988, FP4 developed in Unitol. There is a difference in the film-base colour in that the FP4 has a pinkish tinge whereas the HP5 has a more blue/grey tone - presumably a change in base material in the intervening years? I would appreciate opinions on the HP5 neg as to whether it looks to be correctly developed - thanks! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted February 21, 2011 Posted February 21, 2011 Hi Keith (M), Take a look here Judging a B&W Negative?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
andybarton Posted February 21, 2011 Share #2 Posted February 21, 2011 The neg of the church looks OK to me. You seem to have variation in the sky and plenty of detail in the stonework. When scanning, in my expererience, you need to get a low-contrast scan, which you then tweak in Photoshop to a suitable level of contrast. If you scan "flat" you will retain as much of the highlight as possible. I ALWAYS "over-expose" and "under-develop" my black and white negatives. This retains the detail in the shadows and in the highlights and makes for very easy scanning. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael-IIIf Posted February 23, 2011 Share #3 Posted February 23, 2011 By the expedient of availability I've moved from Ilfosol to D76 as my developer of choice. I'm no expert on the different developers and have generally used whatever is readily available to me. I find FP4 developed in D76 (1+1) gives negs which are much easier to scan than Ilfosol did. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted February 23, 2011 Share #4 Posted February 23, 2011 First, the color of the base (pink or violet or blue) can sometimes be from incomplete fixing. This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but one cure is to soak the negatives in developer (no worry, it won't redevelop), then rinse and fix again. Regardless, a little color does not hurt. Andy's suggestion and observation is spot-on. One thing that I do - if I hold a negative about a foot from a 40 watt light bulb and cannot see through the highlights, then I know that printing it will be a real pain. For large format, one should be able to barely see newspaper type through highlights when the negative is placed on the paper on a light box. 35mm is the same, but you need a loupe. (This presumes normal shadows) I'd say you are doing okay. I've settled on three developers: D76 (ID-11) 1:2, Rodinal, and a staining two-bath process using DiXactol (and all alkaline chemistry). Congratulations and welcome back to the wet! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgray Posted February 23, 2011 Share #5 Posted February 23, 2011 Those look fine to me. While sometimes a slightly colored base means that not all of the dyes are washed out of the film or that it may be underfixed, it's not always true. Some films have a slightly tinted base. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted February 25, 2011 Share #6 Posted February 25, 2011 You can not tell by looking without great experience with a particular emulsion/developer. T Max negs look thin in comparison to say tri x when developed correctly. Next there is only one way to see if you are developing to the proper contrast, PRINT the neg. Type of enlarger and lens contrast all come into play and make significant contribution to the print. Plotting curves will only get you close. Some monochrome film will print and scan well in my darkroom and on my KM5400 scanner if developed to the same time. Tri X and T Max 100/400 all work well if developed to print on my Focomat 1C with Focotar 2 lens. Set it up to print on a V35, it has too much contrast to scan. There is 2/3 stop less contrast with the V35. Plus X is simply beautiful film, but I can not find a time where it prints properly on #2 paper and scans. I have Bracketed development times using my normal scene, studio full tonal range target, grey scale, and MacBeth Color patches. Studio Lights. All films are different. LFI did an article on it 5 or 8 years ago, so it is not just me. Retained silver films like tri X or Ilford Delta, HP5 all have some degree of difficulty scanning. C41 films are much easier. OK, now if you scan, find a test target with full tone range, and do some tests. Scan and see if the whites blow or shadows go black without detail. Repeat the test under the same light and cut the time back until detail shows in both shadows and highlights. 6 exposures on 12" of film is sufficient. I will repeat what was said above. 1/2 box speed and reduce development 20%. Life is easy for printing and scanning. Contrast is hard to lose in the darkroom, harder still scanning. Keep contrast low. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith (M) Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share #7 Posted February 25, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Thank you for the comprehensive reply Tobey, which I have taken note of regarding the recommendations for scanning (having sold my enlarger and dismantled the darkroom, my outputs are scanning to LR3 and CS4 prior to either resizing for my website/forms/Flickr and occasionally printing on my Photosmart 7960). Will be developing my first roll of Kentmere 100 this afternoon (in Rodinal R09). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Ryan Posted February 26, 2011 Share #8 Posted February 26, 2011 Questions for Andy: "I ALWAYS "over-expose" and "under-develop" my black and white negatives" Could you give us some examples? Say box speed is 100 or 400 - what ISO do you set for the roll? And by what % (or whatever) do you under develop? & Toby: - " 1/2 box speed and reduce development 20%". Toby, does that apply to both 100 and 400 films? even 1600? thanks - I am in a similar situation to Keith; coming back into developing b&w after many years and scanning, not printing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted February 26, 2011 Share #9 Posted February 26, 2011 Now that I have an M9, I know that I will never again even try to scan a negatve. Digital is digital, and film is intended to be printed coventionally, whether 8x10 contact-printed or enlarged 35mm, 6x9 or 4x5. I'm liveberated from the polar issue. Film lives. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharlesL Posted February 26, 2011 Share #10 Posted February 26, 2011 Can't comment on developing, but I put the image into a post-processing program (Picture Window Pro), flipped it to negative, cropped to the church scene, and with a few routine adjustments got a nice image. Not too sharp, but that could be any number of things, such as working from a small JPG file. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted February 26, 2011 Share #11 Posted February 26, 2011 Cut the box ISO in half and cut development time 20%. Any ISO. film This is a rule of thumb that I have never found to be wrong. You may get something different. You will get more shadow detail, about the same contrast, and exceedingly fine grain, better than any fine grain developer will get you. Neg also stays sharp, not always the case with fine grain developers Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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