HP5+ Grainyness Issues?

[jbf]

Hi all,

I finally started to scan some of my film negatives today and I noticed just how grainy my film stock was. I dont know if this is normal for HP5+ in Sprint Developer or what.. but it seems extremely grainy to me.


As far as the developer goes, I am stuck using Sprint right now. Im taking a 35mm photo class and this is what is provided for us (The sprint developer that is).

Oh and this was scanned with a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED.

This might not be a great example but, no worries I will post some other examples tomorrow. I still have to finish doing some digital spot toning on the film scans before i can post up more shots.


btw, the reason it seems so odd to me is that I've never noticed the grain when doing wet printing, etc... so Im guessing that scanning really makes the grain stand out... compared to when wet prints are made in the darkroom, etc.


Anyway hopefully you guys have some ideas, etc...

Oh and if you guys need some 100% crops of the scans to see the grain of the scans just let me know...

 

[Nachkebia]

Well well well... I think there is new wave of people with "grainphobia", reasons of developing this evil syndrome is digital photography, as we all know digital files or you might call them digital photos are very very clean and plasticy 😀
btw also depends how you developed it and how you scanned it 😀 😀

 

[Toby]

there are three things that could be at work here:

Firstly, HP5 can increase in graininess with certain developers, particularly acutance developers like Rodinal.

Secondly, over exposure or over development can increase grain size so double check your workflow.

Thirdly, scanning can increase the appearance of grain in a negative. This is through 'grain aliasing' where the pattern inherent in the scanners CCD interacts with the grain in the negative making appear bigger in the scan. Try altering the scanner setting as sometimes it is more emphasised at certain scanning resolutions. Alternatively, you could scan from a wet print.

 

[DavidH]

Toby summed it up well - there are many variables. 🙂
And it's hard to tell from your shot - 100% crops would be good to see.
I've also found that an image can look grainy on the monitor but nowhere near as grainy when printed (either on an inkjet or via commercial digital printers).

You should maybe try a different dev at home on one of your rolls of film as a comparison. The shot linked below was HP5+ pushed to 800ISO and dev in DDX then the neg was scanned using a KM5400.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=48106&ppuser=7366

 

[jbf]

Wow... Your negative is so much smoother than practicaly all of my shots...


My shots definately suffer from the "much less grain from wet prints versus scanned".

Now Im wondering if anything about the scan that I did could have caused the negatives to appear more grainy.


Hm. I think I'll definately try my own developer.

I guess my next question would be... If I buy Ilford DDX developer... what stop baths, fixers, hypo clears, etc should I use? Ive never had to buy chemistry on my own, etc so Im curious as to what would be easiest for me to use, handle, etc and give good results with HP5.

 

[Pablito]

Sprint is a good developer, similar to D76. My students use it exclusively and the results can be great but also vary according to some of the criteria discussed by others above. I suspect your problem is with scanning, though your sample does not look bad to me.

 

[sienarot]

I'm also leaning more towards your scanning technique.

 

[mr_phillip]

Are you letting the scanning software apply sharpening to the image? In my experience that's the number one cause of grainy scans. If so, you'd be much better off turning all the automated trickery of the scanner off, and applying the unsharp mask post-scanning in Photoshop.

 

[keithwms]

Try to avoid overexposure and, separately, in another test, you might also try to cut back on development time a few percent and see if that helps. With hp5+ and ID11 I felt that my negs were a little bit overdeveloped at the times given by Ilford.

In terms of scanning and grain, what you might try is to go ahead and enlarge and then scan your print. If you print onto RC then you might very well see less grain in the print scan than you see in the neg scan.

(Another stray thought: I guess that scanning in fluid may also reduce the appearance of grain somewhat. But I haven't tried it yet in my scanner. Perhaps an afficonado can comment.)

Actually I really love the grain of hp5+ and fp4+. That image looks great to me!

 

[Bryce]

Here's a way to eliminate the scanning noise and grain aliasing- scan a print with a flatbed. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
HP5 tends to be pretty grainy stuff, by the way. If you're bothered by the results in low sharpness/ fine grain developers, stay away from Rodinal such- you won't like the results!

 

[Glenn2]

The Nikon Coolscan 5000 acts like a condenser enlarger when it comes to making grain obvious. There are diffusers made for Minolta scanners to address this problem, but unfortunately not for the 5000..... http://www.scanhancer.com/index.php?art=15&men=15

I use Corel Photopaint to tweak scanned images and find that running their dust and scratch removal at lowest setting seems to tame excessive grain without destroying detail. I suspect that it gives a tiny bit of diffusion similar to what you would get with a scanhancer. The attached shot is with HP5+ (400asa) souped in DDX, scanned with CS5000.

Glenn