Minimizing film grain- your technique

In my case, carefully-tweaked (and scanned) chromogenic film:

Scan-100805-0025.jpg

Skyline Pose, Staten Island Ferry, July 31, 2010 (from Adventures in Modern Photography).

Technical: Contax Tvs, Kodak BW400CN


- Barrett
 
srtiwari,

Grain is part and parcel of film photography.
Little or No Grain is more of an exception than the rule.
Having said this, everyone's opinion here is a little different,
eg. in terms of film type (fast vs slow), format (large or small).
Here's a chart I found and like.

film.jpg



Here's a recent picture developed in Microdol-x,
purchased from freestyle online,
Roll #173 Fuji Acros100 developed in Microdol-x ei200
for 7mins Stock no dilution at 30c, Leica M3 with Hektor 135mm

lisaswing.jpg
 
Give minimal exposure -- more exposure with a conventional (non-chromogenic) film ALWAYS means more grain -- and use a fine-grain developer, though this can easily halve the true ISO of the film. HP5 is about 250 in Perceptol, 400 in ID-11, 650 in Microphen. And (surprise!) the higher the true speed, the bigger the grain.

Avoid Rodinal. It has three advantages: long shelf life, low cost per film and (with most films) good tonality. But it gives big grain and low speed.

Of course the best way to get less grain is to switch to a larger format.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Give minimal exposure -- more exposure with a conventional (non-chromogenic) film ALWAYS means more grain -- and use a fine-grain developer, though this can easily halve the true ISO of the film. HP5 is about 250 in Perceptol, 400 in ID-11, 650 in Microphen. And (surprise!) the higher the true speed, the bigger the grain...
R.
Click to expand...

So, wouldn't you expect it to be slower than 400 in Microphen ??
 
Roger,
Here is a part of the Ilford Product write-up

"ILFORD MICROPHEN is a fine grain film developer which gives an effective increase in film speed whilst retaining much of the grain characteristics associated with fine grain developers. MICROPHEN is particularly useful when using extended development times to push process fast films such as HP5 Plus, Delta 400 Professional, Delta 3200 Professional and SFX200."
 
Dear Subhash,

The part you quote is entirely accurate in marketing-speak. Translated it means 'more speed, but the grain isn't as bad as you might expect'. Note the weasel words 'much of'.

Cheers,

R.
 
Just to repeat, if you are scanning B+W film you will always exagerate the grain. Some scanners are worse than others. You have ommitted to say which scanner you are using.
 
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tlitody said:
Just to repeat, if you are scanning B+W film you will always exegerate the grain. Some scanners are worse than others. You have ommitted to say which scanner you are using.
Click to expand...

True for conventional films, which is why I always recommend XP2 for scanning.

Cheers,

R.
 
well yes but I just wanted to make the point to the OP that it's quite possible that the "grain" he is seeing is scanner induced and not the fault of the film dev combo. It should be possible to use any of those combos and get relatively grain free prints upto about 12x8 print size. And judgement should be made from the print and not screen or neg.
But having said that if he wants really smooth grain free then delta 100 and perceptol will do it. Stock if you want miniscule grain or 1+2 or 1+3 if you want it a bit sharper.
 
I use a Nikon 9000ED.
Other than a wet darkroom print (or a digital camera image, of course), there is no way to avoid scanning. (I am referring to conventional B+W film.)
I am now closer than ever to buying an enlarger:bang:
 
To go back to my original question, many members here have fine grain images here, from conventional B+W film, and common developers. I am largely trying to minimize grain within the limits of the stuff I use. I am referring more to improving technique rather than changing materials.
 
Xtol 1:1 (as per Keith) is all I use except when I'm shooting Agfa APX; then it's Rodinal. I've used Perceptol as well - both seem to produce very nice fine grain results.

Film ISO, of course, impacts the size of grain, so go for a low ISO film - 20, 25, 100 tops - that said, you thereby limit yourself to what you can shoot with "available light" (unless your available light is a flash :D ).

The complete lack of grain as Raytoel has mentioned is more an exception. I would have to agree with both of his posts to this thread if you're looking to get "no grain" from your images.

Cheers,
Dave
 
srtiwari said:
I use a Nikon 9000ED.
Other than a wet darkroom print (or a digital camera image, of course), there is no way to avoid scanning. (I am referring to conventional B+W film.)
I am now closer than ever to buying an enlarger:bang:
Click to expand...

A nikon 9000 is certainly one of the better scanners. Since you are always scanning and not wet printing you will have no idea if your development is optimised for printing. That means it is entirely possible you are over developing your negs which would create more grain in the mid to highlights. Your scanner would easily cope with scanning that as it will scan pos film which is much denser than neg film but no silver grains. That means that all you may need to do is pull the development to see reduced grain. But you may need a little extra exposure to give the shadows a boost. A 1/2 to one stop extra exposure and reduce dev time by upto 50%.
 
Shortening your dev. time will reduce grain.
This will also reduce contrast which could be good or bad depending on the subject contrast. However, it's easier to boost contrast later than to reduce it.

Cheers,
Gary
 
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