Freshly developed negatives: What should I look for.

[gb hill]

I just developed some b&w (Tri-X) shot at a wedding a few weeks ago. Used D-76 1+1 @ 10 mins. after reading Tom A's Back to Basics thread. As I was holding up the finished strip of negs to hang & looking at them I wondered what exactaly should a good negative look like. I never had any scooling in developing film besides reading the net & a few books. I'm sure that different films as well as developers have a certain look, but whatever is used, is there anything you look for to give a hint that those negs you are holding are special to you?

 

[DNG]

Look for a good dynamic range from light to dark,
medium dark areas should not be washed out looking, these are your middle tones (shows lack of contrast...under developed usually -- not enough developer time and/or under agitation)

 

[benlees]

Well, a good neg shouldn't jump out at you as block of darkness (too much density) or a smear of hard- to- distinguish details (too thin). Of course, it all depends what you are looking to do. Middle of the road (meaning a balance of densities) should give all the tones you would want.

 

[ChrisN]

I think this is difficult to communicate, without seeing your negs, and showing you examples of what I consider to be good negs. It depends in part on what you want to do with them - scanning or wet printing - and if wet-printing what sort of enlarger (diffusion or condenser) you have. Since I took up wet printing (after several years of scanning negs) I've learned to develop for a particular level of density/contrast in my negs. When I was only scanning I could get away with much less precision, as scanning seems to be more flexible in achieving acceptable results.

 

[charjohncarter]

Well, a good neg shouldn't jump out at you as block of darkness (too much density) or a smear of hard- to- distinguish details (too thin). Of course, it all depends what you are looking to do. Middle of the road (meaning a balance of densities) should give all the tones you would want.

Right, but what suprises me after thousands of B&W negatives is how little I can still read into a negative. Sometimes I look at a negative and think 'wow' this is going to be great and it is not. Also, the opposite. You do get so you can see if their isn't enough shadow detail, or the highlights are blown beyond repair. One, thing we all have now is being able to scan and then adjust. Before it was good or bad.

This is a recent goof of mine that by looking at the negative I knew it would not hold the highlights:

And this also from the same roll was done with my Instamatic lens on my IIIf, the negative looked poor but came out better than expected:

Maybe a totally poor lens is the answer.

 

[mathomas]

Right, but what suprises me after thousands of B&W negatives is how little I can still read into a negative. Sometimes I look at a negative and think 'wow' this is going to be great and it is not. Also, the opposite. You do get so you can see if their isn't enough shadow detail, or the highlights are blown beyond repair. One, thing we all have now is being able to scan and then adjust. Before it was good or bad.

This is a recent goof of mine that by looking at the negative I knew it would not hold the highlights:

And this also from the same roll was done with my Instamatic lens on my IIIf, the negative looked poor but came out better than expected:

Maybe a totally poor lens is the answer.

+1

I've found the same thing in my negs.

(nice shots, too).

 

[filmfan]

I find it hard until I see the contact sheet.

 

[filmfan]

Oh yeah, use a loupe. It helps a lot.

 

[skibeerr]

Very small traces of clear base, tiny tinkles of pure black and lots of everything inbetween.

 

[Roger Hicks]

A 'good negative' depends to some extent on what you're doing with it, too. A neg for scanning will normally be somewhat thinner than one for wet printing; a medium format or LF neg for wet printing can afford to be a bit denser than 35mm; condenser enlargers are easier to use with lower contrast negs than diffuser enlargers...

The simplest definition of a good negative is one that prints well, but I agree with others who say that you need to see others' good negatives before you can judge your own.

Cheers,

R.

 

[charjohncarter]

It is funny that with all this great new technology, we still don't have a way to 'see' negatives of others successfully on our computers. I have a friend that we have agreed to share negatives when we meet for coffee. That really helped me.

Also along Rogers idea: when we saw the Robert Frank exhibit at SFMOMA some negatives were displayed. I went with the above friend; we both looked at each other and said, 'these don't look so good.' So, you win some and you lose some.

This is a hint that I read but never have been successful at using, maybe because of the first part of Roger's post, but it goes: if you can read a newspaper though your negative it is OK.

 

[gb hill]

This is how a lot of my photos look scanned when I use HC-110.

My negs tend to be a dark block but the image is clear & prevalent. Not thin at all. I can adjust digitally but I'm gonna start wet printing soon. I guess then I'll know more of what I need to look for. Thanks everyone for your comments.