Basic Film question. Exposure? Chemistry or Scan?

[Talus]

Hello all. I'm new to developing my own film and there aren't many resources around me, nor any of my friends are into photography.

So I ask the wise RFF family for the answer to a hopefully simple question.

I shot this roll of Tri-X @800. Developed in Diafine @80F. Scanned on a Pakon F135.

Why do some of my images come out crisp and contrasty (appearing properly exposed) and the other super hazy like this? Am I not exposing properly? Or is it a bad scan? Chemistry issue?

Thanks in advance.

Clearer:

Hazy:

 

[John Bragg]

Looks like the second image is very underexposed. How are you metering ?

 

[02Pilot]

It's probably underexposed, and the scanner is struggling to pull an image out of a negative with limited information. Setting black and white points and messing with curves might make it better, but in the end it's most likely an exposure problem.

 

[Dwig]

Looks like the second image is very underexposed. How are you metering ?

+1

The Christmas tree shot is very underexposed and the scan is attempting to compensate which results in the greyish "blacks". When metering a subject with exposed light sources, you need to compensate. The intense light sources will "fool" the meter into thinking that the subject is brighter than it actually is, leading to underexposure.

 

[Talus]

Thank you!

I was thinking it was an exposure issue. I usually shoot on a DSLR in RAW and underexpose 1/3 to 1/2 stop. Then I pull it back in Lightroom. Probably a bad habit. I've been under exposing mostly with the film camera. Obviously it was back in Christmas and I'm not very methodical or meticulous about keeping track of my exposures or settings. Time to slow down and see what the heck I'm doing.

Thanks again for the info. I'm going to focus more on my metering from now on.

 

[Tom R]

The second image is a classic case of underexposure; the shadow areas are irretrievable. I used Diafine and Accufine for a while, but soon grew weary of the kinds of results it provided. In the case of Tri-X, anyway, I found +1 to be easily achieved using fresh D76 at +20% time, and sometimes a different dilution (2 + 1, for instance. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but I really did use two parts developer to one part water for 10 minutes at 20 degrees C, if I recall correctly.) For +2, little that I did ever gave me "good" consistent results. Back in the day, I'd reach for the Kodak Recording Film (2475?) if that was really needed and process it HC-110 or ID11 (instead of D-76 because ID11 is phenidone-based and maybe gave more detail in the shadows ... or so one might have thought).

I am certain that somewhere in this Forum someone might have a good recommendation for Tri-X (the modern emulsion) @+2.

Have fun ... I assume you're playing with grain/texture?

TR

 

[philosli]

Thank you!

I was thinking it was an exposure issue. I usually shoot on a DSLR in RAW and underexpose 1/3 to 1/2 stop. Then I pull it back in Lightroom. Probably a bad habit. I've been under exposing mostly with the film camera. Obviously it was back in Christmas and I'm not very methodical or meticulous about keeping track of my exposures or settings. Time to slow down and see what the heck I'm doing.

Thanks again for the info. I'm going to focus more on my metering from now on.

The 2nd one suffers under exposure. For negative films, you need to reverse your digital habit: negative films don't like underexposure, but are very tolerant to over exposure. If you use in-camera meter, the meter was probably confused by the light sources from the tree and the ceiling, which would lead to under exposure by itself and thus compound the problem.

 

[Dwig]

The Christmas Tree image can be greatly improved with either better adjustments in the scanner's app or with a curve adjustment in Photoshop.

 

[Talus]

The second image is a classic case of underexposure; the shadow areas are irretrievable. I used Diafine and Accufine for a while, but soon grew weary of the kinds of results it provided. In the case of Tri-X, anyway, I found +1 to be easily achieved using fresh D76 at +20% time, and sometimes a different dilution (2 + 1, for instance. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but I really did use two parts developer to one part water for 10 minutes at 20 degrees C, if I recall correctly.) For +2, little that I did ever gave me "good" consistent results. Back in the day, I'd reach for the Kodak Recording Film (2475?) if that was really needed and process it HC-110 or ID11 (instead of D-76 because ID11 is phenidone-based and maybe gave more detail in the shadows ... or so one might have thought).

I am certain that somewhere in this Forum someone might have a good recommendation for Tri-X (the modern emulsion) @+2.

Have fun ... I assume you're playing with grain/texture?

TR

Thanks for the info! So my first go at developing at home was using D-76 and the results were pretty good (@400). Then I rated some of my Tri-X at 1600 and tried the D-76 and got some pretty bad results, which led me to Diafine. After developing a few rolls with Diafine (more Tri-X at 1600) I was getting decent results. And Diafine is considerably faster and easier to use than D-76...and it lasts longer. I don't shoot that much, so the Diafine seemed like the way to go for me. Then I started looking at my scans of the D-76 developed film and I can see a difference in the look I'm going for. It seems sharper and less grain when shooting at the box rating. So I may go back to D-76 or maybe try some different developers. I really like the silky smooth, very little grain type of B&W images..at least for now. Perhaps I'll play around with slower films.

The 2nd one suffers under exposure. For negative films, you need to reverse your digital habit: negative films don't like underexposure, but are very tolerant to over exposure. If you use in-camera meter, the meter was probably confused by the light sources from the tree and the ceiling, which would lead to under exposure by itself and thus compound the problem.

That's what I was thinking. I'm about halfway through a roll now, and I've been more careful and erring on the overexposure side. I'm strongly considering getting a handheld meter so I can really get a grip on lighting. I don't mind doing small things in post, but ideally I'd do everything in camera so I don't have to spend any time in post processing on a computer. I'm trying to limit screen time.

The Christmas Tree image can be greatly improved with either better adjustments in the scanner's app or with a curve adjustment in Photoshop.

Thanks for the input, Dwig. I'll play around with it as you demonstrated and see what I can get out of it. These shots are just around the house to get a feel for the camera/film, so thankfully I didn't lose a shot that I was really hoping for.