HP5 exposed at ISO 100 - what to do?

[carstenw]

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I have lent my M6 to my girlfriend for a week, and gave her a quick tour of the camera, but when she switched film, she forgot to set the ISO setting to 400, so she now has 15 pictures or so exposed at ISO 100. The question is how to best handle this.

 

I would normally just tell her to finish the film, label it ISO 100, and let them sort it out in the lab, but 2 stops extra exposure is quite a bit, and I was wondering if anyone here had experience with this kind of thing. Is it better to leave it as is, or switch to ISO 200 or 400, and try to salvage the earlier pictures with a medium development, or perhaps some other strategy? The film is HP5.

 

Thanks for any tips. I am especially interested in comments from people who have actually exposed HP5 at ISO 100, naturally, but all comments are welcome.

[klaush]

Carsten,

 

try this:

Kodak D-76 1+1, 20 degree Celsius, 5.5 min. First 30 s permanent move, afterwards every 30s 2x shakes.

My standard for HP5+ is 200 ASA, 7min developing time, with good results. So 100 ASA and 5.5 to 6min should be fine, perhaps a bit soft.

 

Klaus

[carstenw]

Thanks for the tip, Klaus. So, you don't recommend, for example, to shoot the rest of the film at ISO 200 and deal with the first 15 exposures during the printing rather than development of the film? I have only straight-forward normal experience, not with pushing and pulling

[timothy]

Carsten,

 

I often shoot half rolls of film, for instance, if I'm switching between film speeds or switching film types. Even if I'm not switching per se, but I come home after a day's shooting with seven and a half rolls exposed, say, I will rewind the half roll to develop with the others. I think of those shots as the remainder of a long division math problem.

 

That said, your girlfriend could finish the rest of the roll at EI 100.

 

The Massive Dev Chart shows HP5+ exposed at EI 100 developed with FX-19 stock solution for 10 minutes at 20 degrees C.

 

How to make FX-19:

 

Distilled Water 750 ml

Phenidone 0.75 g

Hydroquinone 7 g

Sodium Sulfite (anhydrous) 100 g

Distilled Water to make 1L

 

FX-19 is essentially a phenidone-hydroquinone version of D-76.

 

The Massive Dev Chart also shows HP5+ exposed at EI 100-200 developed in Xtol at 1+1 dilution for 10.25 minutes at 20 degrees C or developed in Xtol at 1+2 for 12.75 minutes at 20 degrees C or developed in Xtol at 1+3 for 14.5 minutes at 20 degrees C.

 

These are the only two developers that the Massive Dev Chart gives information for at EI 100. However, other developers will work just fine. Klaus' development times for D-76, for instance, should work great.

 

All that I have said, though, is preface to me recommending an entirely different course of action; instead of exposing the entire roll at EI 100, split it among EI 100 and EI 200, 320, and/or 400, and develop using a two-bath developer. If you've never used a two-bath developer, this is a perfect opportunity to see how you can develop a couple stops variation of EI values in the same "soup" with good results.

 

My motto: It's fun to experiment!

 

Timothy

[timothy]

Why two bath developer?

 

Barry Thornton once wrote, "If you use sheet film, and are a careful worker, you can expose and develop each sheet individually by zone system procedures to produce the best negative possible to allow production of fine prints. If you use roll film, unless you very carefully group all pictures of the same subject brightness range on to the same roll, you cannot give appropriate development to each exposure and some compromise development has to be given to the whole roll. If the subject brightness range for each picture is low, this isn’t too much of a problem since the latitude of the film will normally allows a good quality, if not fine, print to be made. If, though, the subject brightness range exceeds the film’s range (and it often does) or exactly matches it, then there is no latitude even if the exposure is exactly right with the use of a precisely calibrated spot meter. If a camera’s automatic meter is used, then it is highly likely that the exposure varies from the ideal no matter how sophisticated it is supposed to be, especially if the effective film speed has not been ascertained by personal test.

 

"What two bath development does is to try and compensate for these variables in each individual negative automatically to produce full toned negatives that print more easily for high quality. This means that a negative of a low contrast subject continues to develop up to produce a good printing contrast, while, more importantly, negatives of high contrast subjects have the highlights held back while the shadows continue to be built up so that detail can be printed easily at both ends of the scale. All this happens automatically for different films developed together for the same time. The technique is the same for all versions of the two bath. Bath A contains only the developing agents and preservative and sometimes a restrainer. Bath B contains the accelerator, and sometimes a restrainer. The film is ’developed’ in Bath A with agitation every half or full minute -it’s not critical. Actually little development takes place. Mostly the film is becoming saturated with the developing solution. However, some development does take place and agitation is important to prevent streaking. The solution is then poured off and saved. Drain the tank well but don’t rinse or use a stop bath. Then pour in Bath B, and after a quick rap of the tank on a hard surface to dislodge any airbells, let the tank stand still with no agitation for three minutes or so when all development has ceased. Note, though, that while no agitation is ideal, and usually works well for unsprocketed roll film (120/220), there can be streamers from 35mm sprocket holes. This seems to vary with different kinds of tanks, different films, and the local water characteristics. Do your own experiments to determine the minimum agitation you can achieve without streaking before committing a crucial film to the process. Perhaps try one minute intervals to start with.

 

"In the second bath the developer soaked into the film emulsion is activated by the accelerator. In the highlight regions where the developed silver will be densest, the developer available in the emulsion is soon exhausted and development halts, thus automatically limiting the density of the negative at that point. The more the exposure, and the denser the highlight, the faster development ceases. In the shadows, though, there is little silver to reduce and there is enough developer to keep working there to push up the shadow detail density. The less light the negative received at this point the longer the development proceeds. Indeed there is a minor hump put into the characteristic curve of many films between the shadow and mid tones to give heightened shadow contrast. The effect is not the same as the well known technique of compensating development by diluting developers, which does work in holding back dense highlights, but can give muddy mid times and does not have the same automatic contrast equalisation as the two bath. Of course there is a limit to the contrast that can be equalised, but most negatives will print to good quality on 2 or 3 grades of paper with only the most extreme contrast range subjects requiring other contrast control methods for printing."

[timothy]

I have lent my M6 to my girlfriend for a week, and gave her a quick tour of the camera, but when she switched film, she forgot to set the ISO setting to 400, so she now has 15 pictures or so exposed at ISO 100. The question is how to best handle this.

 

I would normally just tell her to finish the film, label it ISO 100, and let them sort it out in the lab, but 2 stops extra exposure is quite a bit, and I was wondering if anyone here had experience with this kind of thing.

 

Carsten,

 

Okay, I've reread what you wrote here. So, you're not going to be doing any development yourself, eh? If the lab is going to process the film, they are most certainly not going to use a two bath developer of which I was making a much hoopla (and for good reason). Your initial idea to have them shorten the development time is the best option. Professional labs in the States and Canada that I have dealt with do not usually pull film two stops, but I'm sure they would as a special request. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't do that for you. Assume that your girlfriend's 15 pictures are worth processing as best as possible. I DO NOT recommend having her switch to EI 200. Stay with EI 100 as you were thinking.

 

Timothy

[rob_x2004]

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If the fifteen frames are so important, shoot the remainder at same ISO and tell the lab they can peel the first foot of film off the spiral to test develop. Easy stuff. Your lab will probably just laugh and say..."Thats ok sir, its only two stops."

[carstenw]

Thanks again for the answers. I have told her to continue as she was, at ISO100. The trouble is simply that she is just getting back into photography with a little push from me, and I don't want her to get discouraged. She believes that some of the 15 pictures are really nice ones.

 

At the moment, I don't have enough equipment to do the development myself. Both my girlfriend and I have fond memories of the darkroom, however, so I am looking at a sensible way to have this ability at home. I do have a small second bathroom in which I could do some limited work. Eventually, I might develop my own film, and get a good scanner. I do already have a very good B&W printer in the Epson R2400.

[telewatt]

If the fifteen frames are so important, shoot the remainder at same ISO and tell the lab they can peel the first foot of film off the spiral to test develop. Easy stuff. Your lab will probably just laugh and say..."Thats ok sir, its only two stops."

 

.... ...

[Mark Antony]

Well you could try developing it in Ilford Perceptol.

This is a speed reducing developer, nominal rating for HP5 would be 200, if you dilute it 1:1 you should get a slight compensating effect.

I would also think a weak 1:100 solution of Rodinal will work OK especially if you agitate sparingly, say first 30 secs then one inversion per min times about 18min.

 

Mark

[DavidStone]

Well you could try developing it in Ilford Perceptol.

This is a speed reducing developer, nominal rating for HP5 would be 200, if you dilute it 1:1 you should get a slight compensating effect.

I would also think a weak 1:100 solution of Rodinal will work OK especially if you agitate sparingly, say first 30 secs then one inversion per min times about 18min.

 

Mark

You beat me to it! Perceptol is, in my opinion, the best bet. But you won't find a lab to do it for you. I'd finish the film at 100 and get yourself a developing tank - there's a lot of darkroom stuff being almost given away right now, with the rush to digital. HP5 in Perceptol, either diluted or just cut the dev time by 20%.

 

David

[timothy]

Carsten,

 

It would be so much fun to do as David says, ". . . get yourself a developing tank . . ."

 

Timothy

 

P.S. Does anyone use a speed-reducing pyro developer? If Carsten's going to go for it, he might as well go all out.

[rob_x2004]

Well you could try developing it in Ilford Perceptol.

This is a speed reducing developer, nominal rating for HP5 would be 200, if you dilute it 1:1 you should get a slight compensating effect.

I would also think a weak 1:100 solution of Rodinal will work OK especially if you agitate sparingly, say first 30 secs then one inversion per min times about 18min.

 

Mark

 

Hang a sec, you have massive exposure on the film. Isnt contrast going to be an issue?

 

I dont know the characteristics of this film so I am just asking.

I thought a quick development with good agitation would be the idea, hence the 30second tilts of Klaus's response?

 

I have trouble with APX400 @ 200iso in Rodinal. Nice dense negs but not very contrasty, especially to scanning. Under the enlarger maybe they are fine.

 

What is the long develepment at one to 100 going to do? Bringing the whole lot up evenly over a long period of time wont that soften your contrasts?

[rob_x2004]

?

[Mark Antony]

Hang a sec, you have massive exposure on the film. Isnt contrast going to be an issue?

 

I dont know the characteristics of this film so I am just asking.

I thought a quick development with good agitation would be the idea, hence the 30second tilts of Klaus's response?

 

I have trouble with APX400 @ 200iso in Rodinal. Nice dense negs but not very contrasty, especially to scanning. Under the enlarger maybe they are fine.

 

What is the long develepment at one to 100 going to do? Bringing the whole lot up evenly over a long period of time wont that soften your contrasts?

 

Well 2 stops isn't that massive, Perceptol is a speed reducing developer which you would normally rate at 200, if you then dilute the developer 1:3 contrast is less of a problem.

 

I personally use Rodinal at 1:100 for the purpose of killing contrast, sometimes excluding agitation (apart from initial 30 sec)

 

The more frequent the agitation will yield more contrast. If you are having trouble with APX in Rodinal, then probably you are using too concentrated developer say 1:25? and too frequent agitation to dev for low contrast.

 

Using Rodinal at 1:100 will allow the contrast to be alleviated somewhat, less agitation will hold back the highlights (which are overexposed) and let the shadows develop.

 

I know some that use it 1:200 and just agitate for one min and leave standing for an hour (no kidding) I'm not brave enough for that and give a small inversion every 5 mins to stop streaking from the bromide in the film.

Just google Rodinal stand develop and have a read.

here is APX 100 overexposed by 1 stop (on a bright day) and then given diluted Rodinal dev.

[rob_x2004]

Sorry I meant it is all going to be well exposed. Which I figured meant you would want to go with adequate agitation but finish it quickly. Leaving it soak is going to give you a thick even black negative isnt it, where a poor old scanner is going to have a tough time reaching an edequate contrast in the negative?

 

From published development times there is something kooky happening with 1+100 that I dont understand but I have never tried to get to the bottom of it.

 

All my stuff is pretty much 1+50 ten to start and two on the minute. Contrast isnt my problem except in the dusk which is understandable. Actually I am down to tilts rather than inversions, but my water is very very soft.

[rob_x2004]

I was getting this off APX400 but 1000f/16 is at my limit. http://www.leica-camera-user.com/sports-leisure-time/21536-apx400-off-bat.html

I havent yet figured out how to go round using teh stuff at 100 or 200iso. In good conditions using 400 at 100, 200 is fine but overcast where you need a bit of contrast it is problem for me. If life is stationery I would rather use APX100 in the dark.

[Mark Antony]

Sorry I meant it is all going to be well exposed. Which I figured meant you would want to go with adequate agitation but finish it quickly. Leaving it soak is going to give you a thick even black negative isnt it, where a poor old scanner is going to have a tough time reaching an edequate contrast in the negative?

.

 

No you have it the wrong way round, giving it a longer soak in weaker chemical, with less agitation will give you thinner negs with less contrast.

Short development times with stronger dev and more agitation will give you higher contrast.

 

Basically the weaker the dev (higher dilutions) the greater the compensating effect, time is relative to dilution.

[Mark Antony]

I was getting this off APX400 but 1000f/16 is at my limit. http://www.leica-camera-user.com/sports-leisure-time/21536-apx400-off-bat.html

I havent yet figured out how to go round using teh stuff at 100 or 200iso. In good conditions using 400 at 100, 200 is fine but overcast where you need a bit of contrast it is problem for me. If life is stationery I would rather use APX100 in the dark.

 

Faster films tend to have lower contrast than medium and slow speed films.

Your image that you linked to is quite high contrast but acceptable (if the negs aren't too heavy)

In these days of film scanning I tend to favour high dilutions and longer times for compensating effect, look at the images in this post on my Blog

http://photo-utopia.blogspot.com/2007/03/kodak-plus-x-pan-this-film-has-been.html

 

The new version of Plus-x is contrasty at published times, dilute dev and longer times is the way to go. It is almost impossible to over do it with weak dev, and a ballpark dev time for most films would be 18min 1:100 at about 2/3 rated speed. Of course conditions, film types even cameras mean the best method is to find the true speed of the film scientifically and go from there.

Mark

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[rob_x2004]

No you have it the wrong way round, giving it a longer soak in weaker chemical, with less agitation will give you thinner negs with less contrast.

Short development times with stronger dev and more agitation will give you higher contrast.

 

Basically the weaker the dev (higher dilutions) the greater the compensating effect, time is relative to dilution.

 

Yeah I understand that.

 

If you say the amount of development is time by concentration, then what I was driving at was reduce development to account for the over exposure. I am not sure reducing concentration is always the answer.

 

Less development. Maintain contrast, agitate. Obvioulsy within time temp concentration mix. Whatever range you can maintain I reckon.

 

If you hold back the highlights and everything in between gets compressed as well, so depending on what is in the negs contrast issues, or I guess I should say lack of contrast might be more of an issue. That would be dependent to some extent on the nature of the particular film. I dont use much ilford stuff. But my feeling is that ilford isnt really contrasty stuff.

 

In aside, that one I linked to was at just after mid day, at the water. Pretty much couldnt see without sunglasses. But if you have a squiz at the shadows and the blacks there is still pretty reasonable amount of detail rather than just being black blocks. Of course it is contrasty. Its summer here:D. The info is in the neg. Curves or softer paper.