beginner's agitation questions

Maybe this addition to the density/contrast issue will help:

  • The longer you develop, the more silver is developed in the frame in overall terms i.e. more dense.
  • The longer your develop, the more the highlights in the print (the dark bits in the negative) will keep growing in density.
  • With development time, the shadow areas (the thinner areas on he negative where there is only a little silver developing) will also increase in density, but only very slowly and a little.
  • The above two comments are why the longer you develop, the more contrast you get. This is because the dense/highlight areas keep building quite quickly and the thin/shadow areas build only a little bit. The 'scale' of the negative is therefore stretched with time.

places within the negative where you can see no density i.e. the same as the film margins outside the negative frame area which has not been exposed to light, will not grow in density in real terms no matter how long you develop as there is no image density here to develop. This will therefore remain relatively clear.

Al films differ in terms of how clear the the film base is outside the image area. Some are very clear and some quite dark and almost frosted looking. Generally the slower the film the more crystal clear the film base. Faster films, like HP5, TriX and Delta 3200 tend to have more of a density here. Thats normal.
 
I think I've started to get the image, and hopefully it'll get clearer with time and experience.

I will mostly practice TRIX in DDX. I was mostly relaxed while developing the 4th roll last night, I think eventually I may even be able to have some fun.

Big thanks.

Best Regards,
Tony
 
Hi Ulrich,

It gets more and more relaxed... Last month I was doing one of my pushed Tri-X developments (one hour in Rodinal 1+50 with some inversions every 5 or 10 minutes), and I couldn't believe what happened: for the first time in my life in 25 years of doing it, I forgot I was in the middle of a development!

That day and the day before I had developed several rolls, and as that kind of development has such a relaxing agitation, I'm used to do things in the middle of it... I was answering emails, then I received a call, started cooking something, and a few hours later I thought "wasn't I developing a roll?"... I couldn't stop smiling... Shots came out just fine because nothing happens after 40 minutes with that kind of development...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Tony- I'm glad you're getting to where you can imagine this being fun. Once you get past the initial nerves and relax, it becomes very enjoyable. Experience will teach you more than we will in this venue.

Turtle's explanation of density and how development works is absolutely correct, and quite clear. Thanks for posting that!

As for stand developing- I have forgotten about film in the tank several times during stand processing. Once I came back to my studio the next morning and found a roll still sitting- it was in the developer for more than nine hours! Of course it was fine- Juan is right; after a certain point, not much else happens.

BTW- the old adage "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights" is a reasonable approach to film in general, both shooting and processing. The expression "time controls density, agitation controls contrast" refers only to processing, and that at a pretty advanced level. It was taught to me by a very accomplished darkroom tech, and I've discovered it to be absolutely true. Give it a shot; you'll find greater control of your negatives- which will make for easier printing- if you take complete control of your agitation, rather than simply apply the same technique to all your film.
 
drewbarb said:
Tony- I'm glad you're getting to where you can imagine this being fun. Once you get past the initial nerves and relax, it becomes very enjoyable. Experience will teach you more than we will in this venue.

Turtle's explanation of density and how development works is absolutely correct, and quite clear. Thanks for posting that!

As for stand developing- I have forgotten about film in the tank several times during stand processing. Once I came back to my studio the next morning and found a roll still sitting- it was in the developer for more than nine hours! Of course it was fine- Juan is right; after a certain point, not much else happens.

BTW- the old adage "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights" is a reasonable approach to film in general, both shooting and processing. The expression "time controls density, agitation controls contrast" refers only to processing, and that at a pretty advanced level. It was taught to me by a very accomplished darkroom tech, and I've discovered it to be absolutely true. Give it a shot; you'll find greater control of your negatives- which will make for easier printing- if you take complete control of your agitation, rather than simply apply the same technique to all your film.
Click to expand...

Hi Drew,

I understand your point completely. But that's not absolute... Agitation is not enough alone, and it's not always reliable either... Agitation CAN work for fine tuning SOMETIMES, depending on the developer, and of course ONLY after setting the best possible development time for a given scene's contrast.

My finding is, after controlling negative's contrast with development time, it's graded papers and filters what give us a lot more precision than varying agitation from film to film or from time to time or from developer to developer or scene to scene. By the way, I did what you say when I was a student. That's the way our teachers taught us why development time is a lot better than agitation... Since then, for me, no matter the film used, just two kinds of agitation for soft / hard scenes' developments (once a minute / once every three minutes) is the whole space my mind has given to agitation. This is more than enough, and it's relaxing... All this reminds me of another thing: people taking a look and interrupting paper development at a given point with stop bath, instead of letting paper develop all it can... It's with a previous step (enlarger exposure and filtering) how we define results, so we can make several identical prints... By the way, I don't use stop bath and I don't like red light or green light, so I use my darkroom in total darkness, listening to Billie Holiday and Bob Dylan, but YMMV...🙂

Cheers,

Juan
 
Greetings Juan-
I think you may be reading too much into what you think I'm saying, rather than reading my posts. First, I never said agitation was "enough alone" nor did I imply it should be the primary means of controlling processing. Obviously, time is the main thing- I said as much. I only spent time addressing agitation in the way that I have because the OP asked specifically about agitation- in the title of the thread! Your admission that "Agitation CAN work for fine tuning SOMETIMES, depending on the developer and of course ONLY after setting the best possible development time..." is exactly the point I have been trying to make- again, in answer to the OP.

As for your conclusions about printing being the main place to control final image contrast, you are quite correct- and I said the same thing at least once already in this thread. Again, I think we agree on our approach to the craft, if not our use of words.

As for Dylan and Billie Holiday in the darkroom, I'm right there with you!
 
Last edited:
Hi Drew,

A last thing... I use Rodinal only, many years ago, but I think I remember with ID-11, the developer we had to use for years with HP5 while studying, agitation could change things more drastically... I know nothing about chemistry, but that's why I said it depends on the developer used too...

Isn't it amazing that the same man (John Hammond) discovered Holiday and Dylan with decades of difference?

Cheers,

Juan
 
Hmm. I mostly use Rodinal, too- and I do so with fairly minimal agitation.

As for John Hammond- I had no idea he discovered Billie Holiday, too- far out! Next time you're in midwest US, let me know- I'll buy you a beer. Cheers.
 
If you are ever using Tmax films, make sure you aggitate for that full 5 seconds every 30... otherwise you will be another person claiming that Kodak was making a defective film (never mind that they cannot follow directions!).

Stand developing is also really nice... even Tmax for some reason.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom