anitasanger
Well-known
D76 1:1 Testing @ 3 different times with 1 roll
First I would like to thank all of you who have been gracious enough to offer me advice and share your own trial and errors. Secondly, I'd like to say that this took FOREVER. But that's okay because I am willing to ask, learn, test and work hard in hopes of achieving the best results I am capable of producing. In response to this thread http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99467 I have performed an experiment to test the varying results of D76 at different times. This was not my idea, but advice suggested to me by several forum members here.
I started by shooting an entire roll of Tri-X 400 36 exposure throughout the duration of 15 minutes in my front yard with a Leica M6 classic and a Summicron 50. I focused carefully on performing the correct exposure with the internal meter and shot 12 photographs. Most all of the shots were shot at 1/1000th of a second with varying apertures to compensate for proper exposure. After the 12th shot, I started all over again and tried to recreate the first 12 exposures as best as memory could serve me. After that, I shot the last 12 in the same area, but deviated composure slightly to include my son.
When the Oklahoma sun disappeared in the west, I locked myself in the bathroom with the lights out, popped the film canister and felt my way across the length of negatives and did my best to cut the rolls into 3 even lengths. I then loaded the film rolls into separate development tanks and took to the kitchen.
These are the logistics I used for my rolls.
1st roll - D76 1:1 @ 68° 9 minutes 45 seconds (Kodak Recommendation)
2nd roll - D76 1:1 @ 68° 8 minutes 30 seconds
3rd roll - D76 1:1 @ 68° 11 minutes
I loaded each tank with the film roll on the bottom and one empty roll on top. Since I plan on throwing my current batch of D76 out and remixing a batch with distilled water, (I have very harsh well water with a little sediment, but it tastes good) I took Chriscrawfordphoto's advice and filled the tank up as if I were developing 2 rolls. The mixture was 10oz of D76 full solution to 10oz water, giving a total volume of 20oz. I agitated all rolls a whole lot.
After my first roll came out of the photoflo and was hung to dry, I could tell that it looked really good. As far as a negative hanging to dry looks, it looked dang near perfect. The second roll looked very acceptable with perhaps a bit more contrast. The last roll looked significantly darker and was thicker feeling, but looked capable of achieving acceptable prints with an enlarger. Well there is an exception. Somehow in my super precise controlled experiment, I ended up screwing up the top of the negatives of roll 3. I didn't have an extra reel to put on top and I guess it floated up. Who freaking knows. It's very possible that my ADHD played a part in this mistake. No Adderall today my friends.
As soon as the negatives were dry, I scanned them into my Apple with an Epson Perfection V500 flatbed scanner. No levels, colors or manipulation of any kind was done to the negatives. Please bare in mind that I was not striving for photographic composition or moving anyone to tears with my technique etc. I was merely trying to snap up a bunch of similar exposures so I could test the developer. Science is pretty fun. The results are as follows:
These are the photos from the first batch. 1st roll - D76 1:1 @ 68° 9 minutes 45 seconds (Kodak Recommendation) I was very pleased after viewing the results of the scanned negatives. Skin tones looked very nice, awesome contrast and I finally got those Leica sharp images I've been pining for. Technically, they were everything I had hoped for.

img443 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img444 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img445 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img446 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img447 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img448 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img449 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img450 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img451 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img452 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img453 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img454 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img455 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img456 by saveamerika, on Flickr
First I would like to thank all of you who have been gracious enough to offer me advice and share your own trial and errors. Secondly, I'd like to say that this took FOREVER. But that's okay because I am willing to ask, learn, test and work hard in hopes of achieving the best results I am capable of producing. In response to this thread http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99467 I have performed an experiment to test the varying results of D76 at different times. This was not my idea, but advice suggested to me by several forum members here.
I started by shooting an entire roll of Tri-X 400 36 exposure throughout the duration of 15 minutes in my front yard with a Leica M6 classic and a Summicron 50. I focused carefully on performing the correct exposure with the internal meter and shot 12 photographs. Most all of the shots were shot at 1/1000th of a second with varying apertures to compensate for proper exposure. After the 12th shot, I started all over again and tried to recreate the first 12 exposures as best as memory could serve me. After that, I shot the last 12 in the same area, but deviated composure slightly to include my son.
When the Oklahoma sun disappeared in the west, I locked myself in the bathroom with the lights out, popped the film canister and felt my way across the length of negatives and did my best to cut the rolls into 3 even lengths. I then loaded the film rolls into separate development tanks and took to the kitchen.
These are the logistics I used for my rolls.
1st roll - D76 1:1 @ 68° 9 minutes 45 seconds (Kodak Recommendation)
2nd roll - D76 1:1 @ 68° 8 minutes 30 seconds
3rd roll - D76 1:1 @ 68° 11 minutes
I loaded each tank with the film roll on the bottom and one empty roll on top. Since I plan on throwing my current batch of D76 out and remixing a batch with distilled water, (I have very harsh well water with a little sediment, but it tastes good) I took Chriscrawfordphoto's advice and filled the tank up as if I were developing 2 rolls. The mixture was 10oz of D76 full solution to 10oz water, giving a total volume of 20oz. I agitated all rolls a whole lot.
After my first roll came out of the photoflo and was hung to dry, I could tell that it looked really good. As far as a negative hanging to dry looks, it looked dang near perfect. The second roll looked very acceptable with perhaps a bit more contrast. The last roll looked significantly darker and was thicker feeling, but looked capable of achieving acceptable prints with an enlarger. Well there is an exception. Somehow in my super precise controlled experiment, I ended up screwing up the top of the negatives of roll 3. I didn't have an extra reel to put on top and I guess it floated up. Who freaking knows. It's very possible that my ADHD played a part in this mistake. No Adderall today my friends.
As soon as the negatives were dry, I scanned them into my Apple with an Epson Perfection V500 flatbed scanner. No levels, colors or manipulation of any kind was done to the negatives. Please bare in mind that I was not striving for photographic composition or moving anyone to tears with my technique etc. I was merely trying to snap up a bunch of similar exposures so I could test the developer. Science is pretty fun. The results are as follows:
These are the photos from the first batch. 1st roll - D76 1:1 @ 68° 9 minutes 45 seconds (Kodak Recommendation) I was very pleased after viewing the results of the scanned negatives. Skin tones looked very nice, awesome contrast and I finally got those Leica sharp images I've been pining for. Technically, they were everything I had hoped for.

img443 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img444 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img445 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img446 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img447 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img448 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img449 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img450 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img451 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img452 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img453 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img454 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img455 by saveamerika, on Flickr

img456 by saveamerika, on Flickr