RPX 100 film grain and correct development?

[ironringer]

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I shot a first test roll of RPX 100 film with my "new" 1932 Leica II Type D, and am impressed with the good results from that 80-years-old lens.

Could other users review the example picture (taken at f6.3, 1/200 sec.; small file, so can't really examine the grain) and the 100% crop (strong grain), to comment on the grain? There is more grain than I expect in an ISO 100 film, and I wonder if the lab used some generic development process instead of the correct process for this film.

I would be interested to see other example pictures from RPX 100 film, for comparison of tonal range and grain.

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[250swb]

Without knowing how the image was made from the negative it is hard to say. If it is a print that has been subsequently scanned then the grain is harsh and it could be the development. If it is from a scan of the negative made by the lab it could be down to the scan resolution and if any sharpening was added. Or a bit of both. Personally looking at the crop I'd guess it has been scanned at a low to mid resolution and badly sharpened because it looks like what grain there is has been exaggerated, this is often the cause of the 'speckle' effect.

 

 

Steve

[ironringer]

Thank you Steve for your useful comments. The image is a reduced-size scan from the negative. The original scan is 5.81 MB, so for me that is a relatively "high resolution" scan (plenty of detail for printing 8x10), although I think that many enthusiasts would consider it medium resolution.

Can you suggest instructions or settings I might ask the lab scan operator to use, to minimize the corrections and let more of the actual negative appear in digital form? Can the "sharpening" tool setting be reduced to zero?

I shot that roll outdoors in freezing temperatures (about 0 degrees C) so I think the shutter speeds in the old Leica were dragging, and all the negatives were about 2 stops overexposed (quite dark). I'm sure the scanner software compensated for this, producing corrected exposure scans that look perfectly exposed. Is that exposure tool a separate adjustment from the sharpening tool?

[KAD]

I have just finished of my first roll of RPX 100 this weekend. I agree with 250swb, that this is more of a scanner issue. What you see is not grain alone as such, but "artifacts" that you get from sharpening a scan. I find that you might also run into this if you scan to a raw file or a tiff, and use the wrong software to edit. As example as I use Capture One (very good raw converter) for digital raw files, but it make a "mess" out of .dng or tiff from Vuescan. 
 
Anyway... this is one of the pictures from the film with a crop. This is a 3600 dpi scan saved as jpg. The film is developed in Xtol for 10 min (1:1mix).

 

Camera was Leica MP with 50Lux 

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[KAD]

By the way if this is bright daylight you might be 1,5-2 stop overexposing. That will give you a more dence negative, and some scanner struggle with that. Results are more grain/noise.

[otto.f]

A lab just scans for the purpose of selection for final prints. But I would never let a lab do my B&W development either, you cannot judge a film like that for your own purposes. 

[250swb]

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I think the lab has over sharpened the scan because it isn't a very large file size. You could ask them not to sharpen if possible and do it yourself with finer settings. It comes back to the 'good enough' question of scanning. For an 8x10 6mb is 'good enough', but you soon come up against a brick wall if you want to do any traditional darkroom style work such as dodging or burning, or to maintain the nature of the film grain in sharpening, you run out of pixels to manipulate. A big file post processed and then reduced to 8x10 will always be better.

 

Steve

[chris_livsey]

I agree what you are seeing is not the grain it is digital sharpening, pepper effect, on a lowish resolution scan.

Sharpening on those scan sizes needs turning down to stop that effect but it may be default on the equipment, it probably looks OK until you zoom  in.

Looks like good detail in both highlight and shadow, don't blame the developer it needs either scanning properly or a wet print made, be careful though many wet prints are now made from a laser scanning the paper digitally, in the right hands, like scanning, they can be very very good, in poorer hands horrid.