Plustek 7500i & Silverfast Gamma Gradiation

[Yuphorix]

Hi all,

I'm quite a newbie to film photography and I've recently setup a workflow that consists of developing BW negatives myself (Arista Premium 400 in Ilfosol 3) and scanning them using a Plustek 7500i & Silverfast SE.

In the beginning, I found that my scans were coming out quite overexposed. I eventually found out that by reducing the Gamma Gradiation from the value of 2 to 1.4-1.5 was I able to get scans at the right range of colors.

What I find odd is after googling about Gamma Gradiation, it seems that the standard range seems to be from 1.8-2.2. Obviously, my 1.5 is somewhat decently outside of that range. I also dug up some C-41 negatives and scanned them as well and found that the value of 1.5 gave the best results (whereas 2 would overexpose the scan).

I guess my question is do you guys have any idea what is going on, and if this should be a cause for concern? Thanks!

 

[Chris101]

Are your negatives over exposed? If so, they will scan over exposed as well. I don't use Silverfast, so the settings are foreign to me.

But I am curious about your choice of developer and film. I assume you picked Arista P400 because you wanted trix at a discount. Buy why use Ilfosol as the developer - it's a low speed developer, and while it will work with any film, it works best with slow films.

For AP400, I like HC110b the best, followed by D76 (or it's Ilford equivalent, I forget the name.) I could also see developing it in caffienol, just to keep the whole alternative thing going (45 min, semi-stand.)

 

[Yuphorix]

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the response. Yeah, I figured out I've been overdeveloping it by over-agitating during the development process. Explains why my pictures turn out contrasty, grainy, and overall ugly 🙂

Anyways, I'm using Ilfosol 3 because at the time I couldn't get a smaller quantity of D76 to make myself, so I actually just went with a complete ilford chemical setup. Seems like some people like Ilfosol 3 and some don't, but I've only just began developing film, so I don't really have a preference. I do plan on giving D76 a try in the future, but for now, I might as well use up the Ilfosol 3 I have left.

Again, thanks for the response.