Beginner!!! Plan to develop own film - Am I missing anything?

[Aryel]

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1 hour ago, Ornello said:

Well, it scored 'well' only with low-speed films, but it was still toward the bottom. But, again, low-speed films are not very sensitive to developer differences. The negatives were examined under a microscope, if I recall, and projected with Colorplan lenses.

The results of my own experiment based on photos that I liked:

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My own testing was based on aesthetics and whether I liked the film and developer combination. I love it for my everyday shots and for pretty much anything. May not suit everyone but I love it so I don’t care. I look at photos, not tables. 


 

´Worst´, ´best’ are meaningless when it comes to aesthetics and actual images. Worst than what? On what metrics? I don’t care, I have images that I like. Give me 10k scientific surveys that say Rodinal is not as good as XX or YY I still won’t care. I want to see actual photos and what the developer/films look like together in actual use. To me, Rollei rétro 400s in rodinal is beautiful. Trix in rodinal is beautiful, fp4+ is beautiful. Nobody should take my words for it, go on Flickr, see what it looks like and give it a go if you like what you see. 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Aryel

[Ornello]

57 minutes ago, Aryel said:

The results of my own experiment based on photos that I liked:

 

´Worst´, ´best’ are meaningless when it comes to aesthetics and actual images. Worst than what? On what metrics? I don’t care, I have images that I like. Give me 10k scientific surveys that say Rodinal is not as good as XX or YY I still won’t care. I want to see actual photos and what the developer films look like in actual use. To me, Rollei rétro 400s in rodinal is beautiful. Trix in rodinal is beautiful, fp4+ is beautiful. Nobody should take my words for it, go on Flickr, see what it looks like and give it a go if you like what you see. 

'Worst' refers to the usual measurable or observable properties such as graininess, sharpness, speed, etc. The LFI tests clearly show how the various developer and film combinations measure up. Rodinal is last or tied for last in almost every category.

Well, that may be the case for you, but one has to consider what to recommend to others. I think HP5+ or T-Max 400 in FX-39 are just spectacular.  The one developer that I would recommend without hesitation is D-76, even though I personally don't use it. I prefer low-solvent acutance commercial products such as Acutol FX-14 (no longer available) or FX-39 (its successor). I plan to try the Crawley FX-37 formula soon, and right now I am trying out his FX-15 formula (formerly sold as Acutol-S) with reduced sulfite. The Crawley developers give marvelous mid-tones that no other developers I have ever used are capable of. But these differences are subtle, and not everyone is capable of producing work that exploits them. I would recommend Tri-X/HP5 in D76/ID-11 for beginners, since they are reliable and easy to master. Rodinal may appeal to some people precisely because its an outlier, but the speed loss, excessive graininess with faster films, and poor definition make it far from the best choice for people who buy the best cameras and lenses and want to get the best from them. I spent more than $3000 on my 50mm Summilux-R II, and lots of $$$ on my other Leicaflex lenses, and I want to get the best results possible. I even use a Leitz 50mm Focotar-2 enlarging lens, which has the most incredible tonality you ever saw. It's simply stunning!

So, as I have repeatedly said, the question of what to recommend to a beginner, who will likely be satisfied at first with just getting a negative, must take into consideration his position and needs. Special super low-speed films with their strict processing requirements, for instance, are hardly a place to start. Even Pan-F is hard to use (only one-half stop latitude!). The Leica is intended to be a portable, quick-working camera, held in the hand. Today's high-speed conventional films (Tri-X/HP5+) are perfectly suited for that purpose, whereas T-Max and Delta films, with their narrower latitude, are more delicate and require more expertise to get best results from. Likewise, D-76 (or ID-11) is well-known and reliable, and readily available in most areas.

I was reading a 1955 Popular Photography magazine yesterday, in which an article on the then-new Adox KB-14 and KB-17 films appeared. They concluded that the films were indeed extraordinarily fine-grained, but so slow and contrasty (even with Neofin Blue!) that they really could not be recommended for ordinary work. This was what I concluded around 1970, after struggling with them  for two years. FP4 in Acutol turned out to be superb, and that became my second choice for work which did not need the speed of Tri-X, which I developed in Ethol UFG. 

By the way, for super-fine grain I would suggest Fuji ACROS. It's superb!

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Ornello

[250swb]

2 hours ago, Aryel said:

The results of my own experiment based on photos that I liked:

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

My own testing was based on aesthetics and whether I liked the film and developer combination. I love it for my everyday shots and for pretty much anything. May not suit everyone but I love it so I don’t care. I look at photos, not tables. 


 

´Worst´, ´best’ are meaningless when it comes to aesthetics and actual images. Worst than what? On what metrics? I don’t care, I have images that I like. Give me 10k scientific surveys that say Rodinal is not as good as XX or YY I still won’t care. I want to see actual photos and what the developer/films look like together in actual use. To me, Rollei rétro 400s in rodinal is beautiful. Trix in rodinal is beautiful, fp4+ is beautiful. Nobody should take my words for it, go on Flickr, see what it looks like and give it a go if you like what you see. 

Well said. And while the OP only wanted advice on film processing he isn't a novice photographer, so presumably has an image in his minds eye of what he wants from film. So proscriptive restrictions on grain are like asking a mountain biker to put the training wheels back on if they want to ride a road bike. As a retired teacher of film photography there can be nothing more demoralising for a beginner in film photography than to hear they have to pass a 'no grain' exam before they can make the images they want to make. A teacher should be able to focus in on what the photographer wants and translate it into technique.

[Ornello]

4 hours ago, 250swb said:

Well said. And while the OP only wanted advice on film processing he isn't a novice photographer, so presumably has an image in his minds eye of what he wants from film. So proscriptive restrictions on grain are like asking a mountain biker to put the training wheels back on if they want to ride a road bike. As a retired teacher of film photography there can be nothing more demoralising for a beginner in film photography than to hear they have to pass a 'no grain' exam before they can make the images they want to make. A teacher should be able to focus in on what the photographer wants and translate it into technique.

Do you, or do you not understand what 'excessive graininess' means? There is grain in every photograph. Excessive graininess is the mark of poor technique. It is not the mark of an advanced aesthetic sensibility. A well-crafted 35mm photograph on Tri-X should have barely visible grain on an 11 x 14. Anything more than that is the mark of poor technique. 35mm requires more care in exposure and processing than does 4 x 5. It's simply the nature of the beast. When I look at others' photos posted here, I am often surprised how grainy and blurry they are. The quality of photo of the child is technically a bit below what can be done. It is underexposed and (from what I can tell) excessively grainy, probably because it's underexposed. Here is a shot I took about 15 years ago, on HP5+, developed in Acutol, I believe. It is a scanned print, and the print looks a bit less grainy than this scan shows.

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The teacher should show the student the limitations and potential of the materials, so that the student doesn't get frustrated trying to do what simply doesn't work.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Ornello

[250swb]

39 minutes ago, Ornello said:

Do you, or do you not understand what 'excessive graininess' means? There is grain in every photograph. Excessive graininess is the mark of poor technique. It is not the mark of an advanced aesthetic sensibility. A well-crafted 35mm photograph on Tri-X should have barely visible grain on an 11 x 14. Anything more than that is the mark of poor technique. 35mm requires more care in exposure and processing than does 4 x 5. It's simply the nature of the beast. When I look at others' photos posted here, I am often surprised how grainy and blurry they are. The quality of photo of the child is technically a bit below what can be done. It is underexposed and (from what I can tell) excessively grainy, probably because it's underexposed. Here is a shot I took about 10 years ago, on HP5+, I believe. It is a scanned print, and the print looks a bit less grainy than this scan shows.

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The teacher should show the student the limitations and potential of the materials, so that the student doesn't get frustrated trying to do what simply doesn't work.

You only have one argument in your body, the one that says anybody other than you is wrong

. 

Edited April 14, 2022 by 250swb

[Aryel]

1 hour ago, Ornello said:

excessive graininess' means? There is grain in every photograph. Excessive graininess is the mark of poor technique. It is not the mark of an advanced aesthetic sensibility.

The relationship between ´graininess’ and aesthetics is a personal choice. 

[Doug A]

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3 hours ago, Ornello said:

Excessive graininess is the mark of poor technique. It is not the mark of an advanced aesthetic sensibility. A well-crafted 35mm photograph on Tri-X should have barely visible grain on an 11 x 14. Anything more than that is the mark of poor technique.

I disagree. Paintings by Paul Signac and Georges Seurat do not represent distant figures by decreasing the size of the dots that make up their images. The paintings represent depth in a scene by perspective and atmospheric recession. The dots remain the same size over the entire painting. Viewed from a normal distance the effect is to draw the viewer's eye into the background. The whole scene, not just the foreground, comes to life. Some people liked the technique in its day. Others derided it and coined the term "pointillism" to make fun of it. 

A similar effect can be produced in photography with grain that is perceptible on close examination with the naked eye and absolutely sharp over the entire frame. Absolute sharpness of the lens and extreme precision of focus become less important because the grain is the image and with good darkroom work or good scanning it is always sharp and always in focus. The subjective impression of the picture is of sharpness, unlike that of a technically perfect and nearly grainless 35mm photograph where the out of focus parts of the image turn to mush. 

The above is just one person's opinion. Others may differ. That's fine too. 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Doug A

[Pyrogallol]

This thread seems to have strayed way beyond the original question. I hope the original questioner skips over most of this “pixel/grain peeping” and just sticks to a well known brand of film with a developer recommended by the film manufacturer.

[Ornello]

11 hours ago, Doug A said:

I disagree. Paintings by Paul Signac and Georges Seurat do not represent distant figures by decreasing the size of the dots that make up their images. The paintings represent depth in a scene by perspective and atmospheric recession. The dots remain the same size over the entire painting. Viewed from a normal distance the effect is to draw the viewer's eye into the background. The whole scene, not just the foreground, comes to life. Some people liked the technique in its day. Others derided it and coined the term "pointillism" to make fun of it. 

A similar effect can be produced in photography with grain that is perceptible on close examination with the naked eye and absolutely sharp over the entire frame. Absolute sharpness of the lens and extreme precision of focus become less important because the grain is the image and with good darkroom work or good scanning it is always sharp and always in focus. The subjective impression of the picture is of sharpness, unlike that of a technically perfect and nearly grainless 35mm photograph where the out of focus parts of the image turn to mush. 

The above is just one person's opinion. Others may differ. That's fine too. 

Photography has nothing to do with painting. Of course, one should not view a painting so close that the brush strokes become obvious. Likewise with a photograph. You should not be pressing your nose against an 11 x 14 to try to see the grain. At 'normal' viewing distances, an 11 x 14 print from a Tri-X negative should not show obvious grain. I have some 16 x 20s made from Tri-X in which the grain is barely perceptible. It depends to some extent on the subject matter. A lot of B&W work that I see around on the internet is simply bad, by which I mean bad technique.

Here is some guidance:

https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/17835/how-to-calculate-viewing-distance-for-a-print-size#:~:text=The viewing distance of an,2 times the diagonal length.

 

[LocalHero1953]

1 minute ago, Ornello said:

Photography has nothing to do with painting. Of course, one should not view a painting so close that the brush strokes become obvious. Likewise with a photograph. You should not be pressing your nose against an 11 x 14 to try to see the grain. At 'normal' viewing distances, an 11 x 14 print from a Tri-X negative should not show obvious grain. I have some 16 x 20s made from Tri-X in which the grain is barely perceptible. It depends to some extent on the subject matter. A lot of B&W work that I see around on the internet is simply bad, by which I mean bad technique.

Here is some guidance:

https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/17835/how-to-calculate-viewing-distance-for-a-print-size#:~:text=The viewing distance of an,2 times the diagonal length.

 

I have never come across someone who is so didactic about films and processing and yet so incapable of backing it up by evidence.

Pics, or it didn't happen.

[Ornello]

6 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I have never come across someone who is so didactic about films and processing and yet so incapable of backing it up by evidence.

Pics, or it didn't happen.

I don't have a way to show you. Sorry. 

[LocalHero1953]

3 minutes ago, Ornello said:

I don't have a way to show you. Sorry. 

In which case we have no idea whether you are a genius or the world's worst photographer.

Please explain why should we accept what you post so authoritatively?

[Ornello]

15 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

In which case we have no idea whether you are a genius or the world's worst photographer.

Please explain why should we accept what you post so authoritatively?

Here are some recent photos. On the last page are some B&W from the 70s and 80s.

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Here is one that may interest you. Developed in Acutol. Film was Neopan 400, I believe.

Interestingly, I found it very difficult to get shadow detail, because the girder is under a bridge, and thus receives no light from the sky. The strong sunlight does not scatter and fill in the shadows as would normally happen. Taken with Leitz 560mm Telyt-R f/6.8. I had to give a lot of exposure.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Ornello

[LocalHero1953]

12 minutes ago, Ornello said:

Here are some recent photos. On the last page are some B&W from the 70s and 80s.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Here is one that may interest you. Developed in Acutol. Film was Neopan 400, I believe.

Interestingly, I found it very difficult to get shadow detail, because the girder is under a bridge, and thus receives no light from the sky. The strong sunlight does not scatter and fill in the shadows as would normally happen. Taken with Leitz 560mm Telyt-R f/6.8. I had to give a lot of exposure.

Please keep posting your images whenever you wish to make an argument for choosing one film or processing technique over another.

[Ornello]

28 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Please keep posting your images whenever you wish to make an argument for choosing one film or processing technique over another.

I will, when possible.

Here:

https://www.thephotoforum.com/threads/looking-into-trying-rodinal-and-have-a-few-questions.204195/page-5

Neopan 1600 in Acutol:

Neopan 400 or HP5 in Acutol:

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Ornello

[ejg1890]

8 hours ago, Pyrogallol said:

I hope the original questioner skips over most of this “pixel/grain peeping” and just sticks to a well known brand of film with a developer recommended by the film manufacturer.

I have only skimmed some of these images, not read them in detail. However, the messages have lead me to do some research on films and developers during lunch and after work. In the 80’s and 90’s i bought a roll of film, when completed I took a number of rolls to the local camera shop for development. I never gave it a second thought on film or developer type. Now that I plan to develop my own film (due to development costs) additional research and understanding of the film/developer relationship is needed. I have learned there are different types of film not just film speed as well as types of developers. For best results the needs to be an appropriate match between the film type and speed with the target group of that developer. If you prefer to shot multiple types of film then you may need to have 2-3 different types of developer depending if you shot high speed, fine grain, T-grain or push/pull your film. 

I’ve also learned many developers are unfortunately on back order and currently not available. B&H for many developers require in-store pick up only.  There doesn’t appear to be many photography stores offering development chems these days.

[Doug A]

26 minutes ago, ejg1890 said:

I have only skimmed some of these images, not read them in detail. However, the messages have lead me to do some research on films and developers during lunch and after work. In the 80’s and 90’s i bought a roll of film, when completed I took a number of rolls to the local camera shop for development. I never gave it a second thought on film or developer type. Now that I plan to develop my own film (due to development costs) additional research and understanding of the film/developer relationship is needed. I have learned there are different types of film not just film speed as well as types of developers. For best results the needs to be an appropriate match between the film type and speed with the target group of that developer. If you prefer to shot multiple types of film then you may need to have 2-3 different types of developer depending if you shot high speed, fine grain, T-grain or push/pull your film. 

I’ve also learned many developers are unfortunately on back order and currently not available. B&H for many developers require in-store pick up only.  There doesn’t appear to be many photography stores offering development chems these days.

The best bet to get started is to select a film and a developer from the same manufacturer, shoot the film at box speed, and follow the manufacturer's processing instructions to the letter. Ilford HP5 Plus film with Ilfotec DD-X developer would be one good choice. (Despite what I have written on this topic I have _never_ recommended Rodinal as a first developer.)

The best online source I have found for film and chemicals is Freestyle.

[Ornello]

For those who asked for the images from the LFI film/developer survey, I found this:

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[250swb]

1 hour ago, Ornello said:

For those who asked for the images from the LFI film/developer survey, I found this:

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

Very useful, considering many of those films don't exist now.

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Hallo,

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[Ornello]

3 hours ago, 250swb said:

Very useful, considering many of those films don't exist now.

I don't understand what your point is. Films haven't changed that much. In any event, fast films are still grainier than slow ones. Do you want to deny that?