Tips for Developing HP5+ / Developing in General?

[PatrickCheung]

Hey Guys 🙂

I began developing film today, and well... the results were terrible. I have never developed my own film, mostly because my parent's didn't want me pouring chemicals into our sink. I've been living out of town for a year now, and I figured I'd make use of my school's darkroom. So I brought in some old exposed rolls of HP5+ I had found while cleaning my room as test rolls. I was given a short little rundown of how to extract the film, what to do with the chemicals, etc. They gave me a little instruction sheet to follow... and I followed it through.

When I retrieved them from the film dryer, I noticed that the images and the film border (where it says Ilford HP5+ and the frame number) were incredibly faint. I asked around, and they said that I probably under/over developed it.

As I said, the images look rather faint and have a lot of grain. The film border is barely visible unless you put it infront of a light. Ontop of that, the chemicals seem to have dried on, you can see rings of chemicals/water and little splotches here and there... like maybe the final wash wasn't clean enough... or the dryer dried it badly. The water here is full of calcium.

I followed the instructions directly... I don't really remember them all, but off the top of my head they were:

Pre-rinse in water for 1 minute

Developer (D-76): mix in 1:1 ratio, agitate for the first 30 seconds, then 10 seconds per minute for a total of 13 minutes

Stop: I don't remember... I think it was 45 seconds, agitate throughout.

Fixer: I think it was 3 minutes, agitate for first 30 seconds, then 10 seconds per minute

Wash: Run under running water for 15-30 minutes, dump and refill water every minute

Photo Flo: 30-60 seconds, do not agitate

Then leave it in the dryer for 15 minutes.

I followed these instructions exactly... and the film came out poopy. Any tips for developing HP5+?

Thanks for your time!
I'm scanning the images now... maybe I'll post them if that's needed!

 

[Katie]

Those times should be adequate for HP5, so development was not your issue. Did you mix up fresh developer yourself or use what was there? Perhaps you used old spent developer... I would say it could be gross underexposure, but that wouldn't affect the film rebate. Do post something do that we might help you!

 

[filmfan]

Old rolls? How old? Maybe that's your problem...
Something must be amiss, for D76 + HP5+ is a pretty bulletproof/user-friendly combination.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

To eliminate gunk on dried film, use distilled water to make the photo-flo, and NEVER re-use the photo flo. Hang film to dry naturally and do not use heated or blown-air dryers, they also cause dust and crap to stick in film as it dries.

As for the faint images, if the film was exposed a long time ago, that will often be the result. Latent images fade over time if not developed soon after exposure.

 

[PatrickCheung]

Humm, Alright, I'll have some photos up by the weekend.

I can scan them okay, the images seem fine, just grainy, like it was underexposed... so I'm guessing they're underdeveloped.

I used what was there, the stop, flo, and fixer are all old and have been used before. I doubt I can convince them to change the chemicals though. The Developer I mixed myself... I think... D76 + water 🙂

I figured it might be an issue with the chemicals... 'cause they're used by pretty much everyone in school and might not be treated so well.

As for drying, I'll leave the strips in the dryer next time, and not turn it on 🙂

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

When I was in school I bought my own chemicals and didn't use the shared stuff. Fixer CAN be reused a certain number of times with no problem, so long as it isn't used too many times....and stuff provided in a school darkroom is unreliable because you do not know how many films have gone through it.

Photo Flo should never, ever, ever be reused. Ever. It gets dust in it just from sitting around, and gets more gunk in it from each roll of film its used on.

 

[crispy12]

How fresh is your school's stock D76? My feeling is that the developer has gone bad or has been overly used, as the film edge text should be clearly visible regardless of exposure.

I use one-shot developer from a long lasting concentration Rodinal or HC110 so I rarely face this problem.

Did you use a thermometer? What temperature did you dev at?

 

[Argenticien]

Sounds like very weak developer to me. When I was a n00b, I had a similar result when using a mostly oxidized, old bottle of Ilfosol. How was your school's D-76 stock solution stored?

Shared chemicals=bad. It's not just that you don't know how many films have gone through it and it might be spent; you also don't know how much developer has gone in the fixer bottle, fixer in the PermaWash bottle, etc. The facility I formerly used (The Light Factory) is serious about their mission to introduce people to photography, so they always have quite young classes of kids passing through from the local schools, using the communal Holgas and communal chemistry. Seriously, hats off to them, wonderful institution, great work, glad they're getting kids into film; but I doubt the kids are being careful about cross-contamination! I develop at home now and would recommend that. You can start up in it for cheap, and if you live where chemistry shouldn't go down the sink, you can probably bottle and cart off the worst of it to your local waste transfer facility. (I do this for dev and fix -- not rinse water etc. -- as I have a septic tank, not a city sewer connection.)
--Dave

 

[thegf]

question about photoflow - how much should be used per roll? what's the mixture ratio?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

question about photoflow - how much should be used per roll? what's the mixture ratio?

The bottle has mixing direction on it. I use half the amount of stock solution that the directions say, because using it the strength they recommend sometimes leaves residue on my film.

 

[PatrickCheung]

Thanks for all the replies 🙂 I'm gonna take a deeper look into the chemicals at school... seems like they've been left there uncared for... for quite a while. There ARE a few negatives that turned out well (not mine) lying around in the lab though... of course, at one point in time the chemicals must've been good.

The water temperature is set using a temperature control built into the sink, it's set at 20 degrees, but I'm not sure it's accurate.

Photo-flo definitely has been... contaminated... if that's the right word. It's been re-used multiple times! I'm starting to think it might be a good idea to invest in my own chemicals from now on. If that's the case though, how many times should I be re-using the re-usable stuff?

I'll have negative scans up in a bit... the weekend has proven itself to be rather busy. The photos honestly seem to come out fine when scanned, though I'm sure it's just the scanning software fixing the issues of the negative... I'm sure the increased levels in grain are due to the underdevelopment of the film, not underexposure.

Once again, a big THANK YOU to all you guys for clearing this up so fast 🙂

 

[PatrickCheung]

Also, the chemical stains/goop left on the negative... some of it/most of it seems to be excess calcium from the calcium-heavy tap water used to wash the film. A bit of wiping cleaned it off really well, but of course it left scratches.

 

[Murchu]

Sounds like very weak/ almost expired developer, one area not to cut corners on. Even if you have to bring your own small bottle of liquid developer with you in future, at least you can be assured it is fresh. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and one of the harshest, but most valuable lessons I learned when shooting & developing my own film, is that consistency is king, and you need to aspire to making everything as consistent as possible, from metering in camera to the myriad of variables during developing and printing. On the development side, aim for consistency with fresh chemicals, accurate dilutions, consistent temperatures, timings and agitation. The endpoint needs to be one where you are happy with your negatives, something I have been personally reminded of that quite harshly, as I return to starting over with wet printing, and see some of the sub-optimum negatives I have from when I was not so considerate with my workflow and process.

Contact sheets will be a good measure of the quality of your negatives, and tell you quite quickly if your metering is adequate, or if your film development is optimum. I found the following article from Barry Thornton very helpful (http://www.awh-imaging.co.uk/barrythornton/unzone.htm). It is important to learn as quickly as possible if your are capturing the required amount of shadow detail in your negs, as if it is not there from the exposure in the camera, no amount of darkroom magic can create it. Likewise, it is important to discover if you are over developing your film, as doing so, will condense your highlights, and ensure you are constantly fighting against your negs when it comes to printing (or scanning them).

The flexibility of negative film is a great boon, but it can encourage sloppiness. Its best not to fall into that habit, and instead let yourself be pleasantly surprised by the flexibility of b&w when you may really need it.

Good luck with it all. The b&w process can be very enjoyable, especially if you print. The above will help you ensure your darkroom time is not spent entirely on wrestling with problematic negatives.

 

[Murchu]

Also, the chemical stains/goop left on the negative... some of it/most of it seems to be excess calcium from the calcium-heavy tap water used to wash the film. A bit of wiping cleaned it off really well, but of course it left scratches.

Mix your photo-flo with distilled water, and keep it in a spray bottle, for spraying over your negs as soon as you have hung them to dry. Doing so, should ensure calcium and mineral deposits from hard water are not an issue. You can use hard water to mix your developer, stop and fix, but just ensure to use distilled water for your photoflo, and you should be in a better place.

EDIT: re scanning, scanners prefer low contrast negs without any dense highlights. Such negs are bread and butter for your average film scanner, but the same negs in the wet darkroom will be a much different matter, forcing you to print on higher grades of paper, to get the contrast back in your image, and you only have so many grades to play around with.

 

[Argenticien]

I'm starting to think it might be a good idea to invest in my own chemicals from now on. If that's the case though, how many times should I be re-using the re-usable stuff?

With any chemistry, read the instructions, but generally I'd say this:

• Many developers are single-use ("one shot"). Using these simplifies your life as you need not muck about with replenisher &c.
• If you use acid stop bath, get the indicator kind. Its color changes to tell you when it's spent.
• For fixer, which is reusable, you can get a product called Hypo Chek to test it. Drop a few drips into a graduated cylinder of fixer; if the drips turn milky, the fixer is spent. If the drips stay clear and disappear, it's OK. Do this after each use of the fixer so that you know you need to go buy new, BEFORE you are in the middle of processing your next roll.
• If you use Perma Wash or similar after fixing, I believe the convention is to replace it whenever you replace your fixer. There is a school of thought that this stuff is not needed and you could just use the "Ilford method" (Google it) for washing film with water.

I've not stated any of these as "you may reuse it n times, because very technically, I think manufacturers will say the chemicals are good for use on a certain total area (square centimeters or inches) of film. Therefore how fast you reach that limit depends on whether 120, 4x5, or 35 mm (etc.) film, and for 35 mm whether 24 or 36 frames, &c. It's a lot easier to let the indicators and tests just tell you empirically.


--Dave