Newbie souping film - looking for tips and dev recommndations

[markbrennan]

Hey everyone -

Finally souping my own film. I am renting a darkroom and not souping at home (my pregnant wife forbids the chemicals), so I am using the "house" developer this rental darkroom provides: T-MAX.

I am still getting my temp/time/agitation technique down. I've gotten some decent results, but need a lot of work.

I shoot Tri-X at 400 mostly, and usually shoot street, so i'm stopping down, pre-setting exposure and focus. I probably over-expose most of the time.

I am also NOT doing wet printing! I hope to learn, but for now I only scan using a Coolscan V w/ Vuescan. So my understanding is that I want pretty thin negs for a good scan.

I'm used to seeing my TX negs souped in XTOL when I paid to have them processed. The TMAX is not as smooth, but seems to have good shadow detail.

But still, I think I'd like more acutance.

What do you folks recommend? Should I stick w/ T-MAX for a while? What about Rodinal, or HC-110? Will I get more acutance w/ Rodinal?

I am definitely drawn to liquid developers for the ease of not having to mix from powders - at least at the beginning this seems best for me. Although I know the "standard" is TX in D-76 1:1.

Any suggestions much appreciated!

(I'll try to upload a recent sample from one T-MAX neg.)

Regards,
-Mark

OK - upload did not work - d'oh! If you're interested in a sample, you can see one here, sorry for the link:

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6478944

 

[drewbarb]

Greetings Mark-
I use Rodinal and HC-110 a lot, and can recommend either developer for use with Tri-X. Yes, Rodinal will give higher acutance, and longer tonal range, but the grain will be more evident. It's grest for that vintage reportage look. It seems to be less grainy with modern emulsions, and anyway, it's so sharp and has such long tonal range that I will happily use it, and I can print my Rodinal negatives easily to 16x20. I orefer to use it at higher dilutions- I use 1:50 and 1:100 most often, and I find these both look better than the 1:25 dilution. HC-110 is great, too, and does a very nice job with Tri-X. It gives a great balance of characteristics, and makes a fine all-purpose developer. When clients send me film and have no idea what developer they want used, I run it in HC-110.

Don't be afraid of mixing stuff from powders- it's easy. You just need hot water from the tap and something to stir with. As long as you pour the powder from the packet carefully to keep the dust down, and don't stick your nose right in it, it's a piece of cake. There are plenty of very nice developers available in liquid concentrates, but don't let powders stop you from using developers which only come that way. Xtol, for instance, is a great developer, and you might want to stick with it if you are happy with the results you have been getting from your lab. As for D-76, it's a fine developer, but not so special that you should kill yourself or get into trouble with your wife for it.

Anyway, congraulations on the baby, and good luck with your photography and parenthood.

 

[markbrennan]

Hi Drew -

Always nice to hear from you - you give great advice, clearly from experience; most appreciated! And thanks for the kind words.

I will try to get some Rodinal and/or HC-110 and see how my negs come out. I guess a lot of it is trial and error.

I'll keep you posted!
-Mark

 

[eli griggs]

Try rating your Tri-X at half box speed and using HC-110 dilution 'H', http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/

A lot of people really like that combination and at half speed, you don't have to stop down so much.

Also use a plastic syringe , as suggested in the link above, to measure/take directly from the HC-110 bottle just enough to do the tank at hand. You can split up a bottle of HC-110 between several smaller brown glass bottles, filling each all the way to the top to exclude air, so your developer shelf life is extended.

I also suggest you use some Photographers Formulary TF-4 http://www.photoformulary.com/DesktopDefault.aspx to cut down on fix and washing time since your working in a rental darkroom.

Cheers

 

[drewbarb]

Hi Mark- I'm glad you find my posts useful. Yes, there is some trial and error involved in processing, but it should be minimal. You may try a couple of different dilutions before you hit upon the one which gives you results you like best; and you will probably have to tweak your developing times a bit to get it just right. There's virtually no way you will pick up a new developer and instantly get the best results from it, so don't be discouraged if your first roll doesn't display the fabulous results others rave about that developer for. I strongly suggest you pick one developer and really work it until you get consistent results that make you happy- or at least till you feel you know the soup. If you are at all experienced, you should get printable negatives from the first time out, but you'll probably have to experiment to find the optimal results. Do your homework and read up about your developers, and never judge a new soup from the first roll you run in it.

Keep in mind, too, the differences in printing vs. scanning. You'll want somewhat thinner negatives for scanning. All that said, you should like both Rodinal and HC-110. Eli's suggestions of a plastic syringe for HC-110 and TF-4 fix are both good ones. I use the syringe for small quantities of HC-110, and it works great. For large volume processing, I just pour it out and then pour my water into the small beaker several times to make sure I am getting all the syrup out of it.

If your lab charges you by the hour to do your own processing, TF4 fix will definately save you money, since it fixes film fast and washes very fast compared to regular acid fixers. Some people are alergic to it, or are bothered by the strong amonia smell, but it's no more harmful than an acid fix. If your lab charges by the roll rather than time, or doesn't charge for washing time, then use whatever fix you like. (I think you are in NYC- Do you use Printspace? Do they still provide chemistry? If so, use whatever they have and don't worry.)

Good luck, and if there's anything I can do to help, please feel free to ask or PM.

 

[BigSteveG]

Rodinal is readily available at Freestyle.

 

[ibcrewin]

Hi Mark,
First of all congrats! My wife is pregnant too and is due at the end of January. I am forbidden to have chems at home too!! I usually go to Printspace, but when I went there, they said they temporarily discontinued the Self service b/w developing. So I went to photo manhattan. Not too far from union square. it's 11 bucks and hour 2 hr min for the darkroom. (if you ever want to go halvsies on printing.)

Anyway, my .02 from using rental darkrooms is make sure you check the fix before using it. Clip a small piece of the leader and dip it in the fixer to see if it's fresh. Also, If you are using the house stuff, make sure it's the right dilution corresponds with the time you are developing for. ie. 1+1 15 min or 1:0 9 min etc

 

[markbrennan]

Thanks Eli, Drew, Steve and ibcrewin -

Eli - appreciate the Covington link - most useful.

Drew and ibcrewin - indeed, PrintSpace in NYC no longer supports souping BW film - only prints. So I am using PhotoManhattan, like Ibcrewin. Happy w/ the space and the rates and nice people. But again, they only have T-MAX dev on hand, but I don't mind buying some other dev, and they'll probably let me leave it there. My last session I wasn't able to get 68F temp, so I did T-MAX 1:4 at 70F for about 5 minutes.

If I dip a small piece of film in the fix what indicates it's fresh?

Also, Eli - thanks as well for the TF-4 recommendation, but how is this faster than something like Ilford rapid fix, which is what I believe this lab uses?

Eli - I also wanted to mention that I actually PREFER to stop down, because I am mostly doing zone focus (f8, f11), so need the fast speed. I'm reluctant to shoot slower than 400 for this reason.

I'm starting to like the sound of HC-110 dilution H (there is another thread on this). At 1:63 dilution my understanding is that HC-110 should provide nice acutance, right? Again, T-MAX has been ok for me, but not as much acutance as I'd prefer.

Steve - I did find Rodinal (the "new" Agfa formula) at Freestyle, but am leaning towards using HC-110 for a while. Which do you prefer?

Drew - agree w/ you that sticking w/ one developer is the way to go and what I plan to do; but I need to choose which one!

For HC-110 can I get it out of the bottle w/out a syringe? And then, once I get the quantity I need into a beeker and pour in water, I assume I should stir well w/ a stirrer, right? Apologies if these seem like dumb questions, but I'm just starting out. I am using a 3 reel Paterson tank, which takes something like 870 ml of fluid, so w/ the 1:63 dilution I estimate I should put in about 13.5 mls of the syrup. Sound right?

And regarding time, I see a lot of variation reported (see the thread on HC-110 in this forum), so based on my film speed of 400, I'm assuming I should be able to soup in Dil H for about 10 minutes, given the slightly higher water temp and given that I'd prefer slightly thinner negs for scanning. Feel free to disagree or suggest alternatives, however.

Thanks, everyone!

Regards,
-Mark

 

[drewbarb]

Mark- bummer about PrintSpace. I moved out of NYC two years ago, but I still go there to print when I'm in town and need to print (about once a month!); the self serve dev'ing was great when it was $3/roll- but I still did it at home.

The bit of film leader in your fix trick is a good one to know. Once your fix is to temp, drop in a little piece of film clipped off a leader. It should clear completely in under 30 seconds. If it doesn't, or takes longer, mix fresh fix and recycle the old stuff. The TF-4 alkaline fix is faster than rapid fix because it washes out faster. You'll really need only three minutes in the fix for film, then a five minute wash, with no fix-remover/permawash step neccesary. With regular rapid fix (I use Heico NH-5, with hardener added- this is great stuff, cheap, and easy, and works for film and paper, at different dilutions), I fix for 5 minutes (a little longer than neccesary for some films, but not long enough to hurt any films), then a two minute wash, then three minute perma wash, then a ten to fifteen minute final wash.

The new Rodinal behaves exactly like the old stuff, in my experience; since you hadn't used the old stuff, if you want to try it you'll just be testing, not re-testing. I'd start with 1:50 at 68 degrees for 12 minutes for Tri-X at 400. Agitate for the first 45 seconds, then give three inversions in 5 seconds each minute. Rodinal is great stuff, and gives really beatiful negs- you should try it, whether now or later. You'll see some grain, but the tonality and sharpness are both really good.

HC-110 syrup is very thick and viscous. It can be tough to pour accurately- especially in the small amounts you use for dilution H- so the syringe trick is handy. Just open the bottle, stick the syringe in and draw out the right amount, then squirt it into your container of water. I then draw some of the mixed dev into the syringe and squirt this back out- this rinses the inside of the syringe, although it's not neccesary if the syringe is really air-tight (which it should be to work properly). Just about any pharmacy will seel you a small plastic syringe for oral liquid medication- these come without needles, and are perfectly legal, cheap and easy. If you want to pour it, get a very small graduated cylinder (you'll need small one if you want to use Rodinal, or pretty much any liquid concentrate developer, anyway) and pour your chem, measuring out the right amoutn of concentrate. I then pour some of my water into this to rinse it out, and then in turn pour this into my grad which I use to measure my dev amount. HC-110 will require a few rinses to get all the syrup out of the small beaker, but this works just fine, if you can't find a syringe. HC-110 is a great all purpose developer; I use it for medium and large format a lot, and sometimes for 35mm. Dilution H is more economical, and it helps if you have times that are too short to trust at dilution B. (The rule of thumb is any developing time under 5 minutes is suspect- it's tough to ensure even, repeatable development with any film/dev combination at such shrt times.) That said, the look of the negs is not significantly different from dil. B to dil. H. They are both nice. 10 minutes should be a good starting point for your process with dil. H.

Good luck!

 

[han1953]

I use Acu-1 with TX, and get a REAL speed improvement of two stops. I mean i still get good shadow detail at 1600 ASA, and a 10 stop straight curve!
Acu-1 is a powder that you dissolve to make one liter of stock solution. The stock is diluted 1:5 for one-time developing, so you have to dissolve the powder only once every 10-15 films (depending on size).
If you take care of your lightmetering and exposure, the grain is a lot less than with Rodinal.

 

[eli griggs]

Mark, if you use the TF-4, use a water only stop. Simply fill and dump your tank six times and move on to the fix.

I also suggest you simply mix up a liter of developer each time, instead of trying to be so precise as mixing for tank size. Because the developer syrup is so thick, I would stick to the syringe as you are dealing with a very small amount of concentrated chemistry and you could end up with an extra 10-20% of syrup running down the sides of a measuring graduate, which, IMO, would throw off your desired chemistry.

Eli

 

[MikeCassidy]

Use stop bath or start pouring 30 secs before the end time; the film will still develop a few secs in water. Personally I never understood pulling film unless you had no other film on you; if you want 125 or 50 ISO buy the film.

The new Rodinal on my first three rolls matches the old Rodinal; but it is more grain than you are use to.
You could try Microdol X; less grain great tone. you would need to mix it: Use it 1-3 .

As for one developer; unless you use several on several rolls of film you wont be able to choice. In fact as someone new to photography try several different films in different developers: Tri X, Plus X, HP4, PanF, etc. See what they do.

Mixing powders is easy. It just powder and hot hot water stirred.

Agitation, temperature, dilution, and time are not writen in stone; you need to decide what YOUR negatives need to look like and then use consistent technique.

Do you want lower mid-level or high contrast? that can be the difference from about 6.5 to 9.5 to 14 min. at 20 deg.

Personally I dont like fast developers like HC becasue they are fast and you can not mess with the temperture and time to get closer to the results you want. If you developing for 3.75 minutes and it takes 15 sec to empty your tank then another 15 sec to fill with water or stop ......

also you've shot on the beach and want to knock down the contrast you're going to need to stop around 2.25 min. so taking away dumping and filling time you're doing 1.75 min. and if the water is 70-74 degrees even less.

 

[markbrennan]

Hi Michael - great to hear from you - I think I still owe you some email!

Thanks for all the pointers - good tips.

I have not been back in the lab and my wife is due imminently, so this whole project may have to wait. But nevertheless, I've gotten the bug and hope to make some progress.

Hope to speak soon!

Thanks everyone else for the replies.

-Mark

 

[nightfly]

I used to use HC-110 1:50 straight from the bottle for 7 minutes. Easy to measure and judge times. All the odd ball Kodak dilutions gave me a headache. I prefer just going metric for developing. HC-110 is easy to use and works well.

However I really prefer Rodinal 1:25 a little warm to increase grain. I tend to like contrasty, grainy negs. I find that 1:50 doesn't give me as much punch as I like. At 1:25, I don't have to do much with levels or curves in Photoshop to get to what I like (more of a Daido Moriyama or Ralph Gibson look than HCB).

Just out of curiosity which chemicals are harmful for pregnant women and why? Or is it more out of caution than science?

 

[kmack]

Ask any 10 photographers about developers and film and you will get at least forty answers

To a certain extent it depends on how you will be printing your negatives and the kind of look you want.

Many here are quite enamored of Rodinal at various dilutions. I like rodinal only for my medium format and large format work, and only when I am going for a particular look. I just do not like the grain it delivers and I have found other developers that deliver tonality just as good.

I use HC-110 a lot at high dilutions (1:100 semi-stand) but at higher dilutions it also can accentuate the grain particularly when pushing. HC-110 1:32 (Dilution B) is really nice and for me delivers full box speed, but the developing time is short and difficult to control consistently with my equipment. Dilution H (1:63) works very well for me and is the dilution I use when not pushing film.

The best overall developer I have found so far for 35mm is Clayton F76+. It is a liquid, it stores well, is fairly non-toxic (as far as developers go). It delivers fine grain and good tonality but with a loss of film speed (for me, your mileage may vary) I shoot HP-5 and Tri-X at about 250 to get really good shadow detail. F76+ is very easy to use and while not as economical as HC-110 is still a good deal. F76+ may be able to get you a similar negative to what you have been seeing with Xtol.

Diafine and Tri-X is also a good combination. You can do a search on Diafine here and get lots of opinions and examples.

The only developer that I have used that delivers box speed, the appearance of fine grain and good sharpness is Pyrocat-MC. If you are not going to be machine or rotary process then Pyrocat-HD may be a better bet. Pre-mixed pyros are available at the Photographers Formulary and DigitalTruth. In your case the pyros may not be a good fit, they are a bit more toxic than some of the others.

In addition, I can not emphasise enough that you should do some testing to, at least, determine your personal EI with any film and developer combination.