maclaine
Well-known
Some background info: I've been shooting on film for several years now, and having a lab here in town develop it. They've always done a great job, but in an effort to have more control, save some money, and have fun, I decided to start developing at home. I bought some HC-110 from a local photo supply store, and Sprint brand for all the other chemicals I'd need. I've been taking a dark room class at a local adult ed center, and had developed a few rolls there, but it was under supervision, and the chemical measurements were tried and true. This was my first time on my own, and I was pretty nervous.
I spent some time doing the math for the ratios of chemicals to water and mixing the solutions. Here's where things went wrong. My intention was to skip the "stock solution" step and just mix up a "working solution". I was developing two rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600, which calls for Dilution B according to the Massive Dev Chart, and ended up using the developer at "working solution" strength, but undiluted, i.e. 1:7 of undiluted solution to water. According to Kodak's tech sheet, it should have been 1:31 if prepared straight from the concentrate. On top of that, I did the math wrong for how much total solution I would need for my developing tank. It should have been 580ml, and I used 480ml for every chemical bath, all the way up to the photo flo.
Yikes.
So, for the developer, it ended up being 60ml of straight HC-110 to 420ml of water. This raised a red flag when I was mixing it, because it seemed like way too much, but I thought I might have just been second guessing myself, and decided to plow forward. The two things that were consistent were my temperature (20 C) and time. The developer time was 7 minutes, with the first minute being agitated constantly, then 5 seconds of agitation every 30 seconds until the time ran out.
After the final wash and photo flo, I pulled the negatives out of the tank and they seemed totally fine. I could tell already that they were really high contrast, but I chalked that up to the film. It wasn't until after they were already hanging to dry that I went over the process again and realized my mistakes. Still, the negatives looked fine, so maybe it wasn't a huge issue.
This morning I cut them and scanned one just to see how it looked, and I think it came out great. They are extremely contrasty, and shadow detail in the darkest parts is pretty much non-existent. Grain is tolerable for such a fast film, and I think I can easily get good prints from any of the negatives.
Here's the one image I've scanned so far. I played with the levels and curves a bit in Photoshop in my usual manner for any other black and white film, but it wasn't excessive. The file straight from the scanner was not much different, but the blacks weren't quite dark enough. There's almost no shadow detail in the tire areas or the darker parts of the wheelchair, but there's a surprising amount of highlight detail in the white car.
Click on it to go to the Flickr page and see larger versions.
For those interested, the camera was a Zeiss Ikon and the lens was a Nikkor 35mm f/2.5 in LTM at f/5.6 or 8.
It's been a long time since I shot Neopan 1600, so I can't tell if the contrast and grain are just inherent in the film or if it's a result of my wacky process. Now that I've done it this way, I might run a test roll or two and see what I can get out of it, one in this boneheaded way, and one the way it should have been.
For any of you veteran developers out there, I have a couple questions.
1. Did the fact that I didn't have enough total solution (480ml as opposed to 580ml) save me a little bit with my way-too-concentrated solution?
2. Comparing the dev times to other fast films at 1600 at 20 C in Dilution B, the times are much longer (9.25 minutes for TMAX 3200 at 1600, and 16 minutes for Tri-X at 1600), was it my comparitively shorter time that saved me?
Maybe HC-110 is just a REALLY forgiving developer. Either way, I'm really happy with the results. I was taking pictures for a friend's entry into the Boston 48 Film Project (details here for anyone interested), and the genre we were assigned was noir, so the grainy, high contrast look works perfectly. I'm going to finish scanning the two rolls tonight, but again, just from a cursory glance, they all seem just fine.
Thanks.
I spent some time doing the math for the ratios of chemicals to water and mixing the solutions. Here's where things went wrong. My intention was to skip the "stock solution" step and just mix up a "working solution". I was developing two rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600, which calls for Dilution B according to the Massive Dev Chart, and ended up using the developer at "working solution" strength, but undiluted, i.e. 1:7 of undiluted solution to water. According to Kodak's tech sheet, it should have been 1:31 if prepared straight from the concentrate. On top of that, I did the math wrong for how much total solution I would need for my developing tank. It should have been 580ml, and I used 480ml for every chemical bath, all the way up to the photo flo.
Yikes.
So, for the developer, it ended up being 60ml of straight HC-110 to 420ml of water. This raised a red flag when I was mixing it, because it seemed like way too much, but I thought I might have just been second guessing myself, and decided to plow forward. The two things that were consistent were my temperature (20 C) and time. The developer time was 7 minutes, with the first minute being agitated constantly, then 5 seconds of agitation every 30 seconds until the time ran out.
After the final wash and photo flo, I pulled the negatives out of the tank and they seemed totally fine. I could tell already that they were really high contrast, but I chalked that up to the film. It wasn't until after they were already hanging to dry that I went over the process again and realized my mistakes. Still, the negatives looked fine, so maybe it wasn't a huge issue.
This morning I cut them and scanned one just to see how it looked, and I think it came out great. They are extremely contrasty, and shadow detail in the darkest parts is pretty much non-existent. Grain is tolerable for such a fast film, and I think I can easily get good prints from any of the negatives.
Here's the one image I've scanned so far. I played with the levels and curves a bit in Photoshop in my usual manner for any other black and white film, but it wasn't excessive. The file straight from the scanner was not much different, but the blacks weren't quite dark enough. There's almost no shadow detail in the tire areas or the darker parts of the wheelchair, but there's a surprising amount of highlight detail in the white car.
Click on it to go to the Flickr page and see larger versions.
For those interested, the camera was a Zeiss Ikon and the lens was a Nikkor 35mm f/2.5 in LTM at f/5.6 or 8.
It's been a long time since I shot Neopan 1600, so I can't tell if the contrast and grain are just inherent in the film or if it's a result of my wacky process. Now that I've done it this way, I might run a test roll or two and see what I can get out of it, one in this boneheaded way, and one the way it should have been.
For any of you veteran developers out there, I have a couple questions.
1. Did the fact that I didn't have enough total solution (480ml as opposed to 580ml) save me a little bit with my way-too-concentrated solution?
2. Comparing the dev times to other fast films at 1600 at 20 C in Dilution B, the times are much longer (9.25 minutes for TMAX 3200 at 1600, and 16 minutes for Tri-X at 1600), was it my comparitively shorter time that saved me?
Maybe HC-110 is just a REALLY forgiving developer. Either way, I'm really happy with the results. I was taking pictures for a friend's entry into the Boston 48 Film Project (details here for anyone interested), and the genre we were assigned was noir, so the grainy, high contrast look works perfectly. I'm going to finish scanning the two rolls tonight, but again, just from a cursory glance, they all seem just fine.
Thanks.
Juan Valdenebro
Truth is beauty
When a negative is not perfectly exposed and processed, it produces an image that can be of some use anyway: too flat or too contrasty, but it can let you see your shot to check how you composed it... Next time, your shots will be just as you want them... And no, developers are not forgiving... HC-110 developed your nice shot way too much, just as much as you indicated it to act...
Cheers,
Juan
Cheers,
Juan
Ranchu
Veteran
Don't have any expert advice, but very interesting picture!