Slow film low contrast

Beemermark

Beemermark

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Slow film, low contrast - not exactly a possibility. Seems everyone is shooting Tri-x and pushing it 2 stops but I live in the opposite universe. I live in the sunny south were (even in winter) days are the sunny 16, so ISO 100 film 100 is ~ 125 @ F16 with deep shadows. I grew up with ASA 32 films and would like to find a slow film and corresponding developer to tame the contrast. I no longer have a darkroom but scan my negs on an Epson V700 scanner.
 
Beemermark said:
Slow film, low contrast - not exactly a possibility. Seems everyone is shooting Tri-x and pushing it 2 stops but I live in the opposite universe. I live in the sunny south were (even in winter) days are the sunny 16, so ISO 100 film 100 is ~ 125 @ F16 with deep shadows. I grew up with ASA 32 films and would like to find a slow film and corresponding developer to tame the contrast. I no longer have a darkroom but scan my negs on an Epson V700 scanner.
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I think perhaps you've touched on a possible solution above. The opposite of what you've mentioned may be worth considering. Ie starting with a slower film type and rating it at a lower exposure index. Contrast is partly a product of development time. For instance some of the Ilford films such as Delta 100 or HP5 Plus can be reasonably low contrast processed in ID-11 or D-76. Rating Eg Delta 100 at EI 50 or even EI 25 with reduced development time would moderate contrast even further. No doubt there are some more specialised film/developer combinations others may suggest, but don't overlook simple and cost effective possibilities.
 
Along with Sarcophilus' post, I shoot Tmax 100 at 50 EI, and develop in HC110h. I use a minimal agitation scheme (ala Donald F. Cardwell), which is 30 seconds of intitial agitation and then 3 easy inversions each 5 minutes. This seems to allow the shadows to completely develop while holding down the density of the highlights.

This is recent (November 2019 in California at the 38 degree latitude), I didn't really do much with the negative after my normal scan:

Tmax100 HC-110h by John Carter, on Flickr
 
charjohncarter said:
Along with Sarcophilus' post, I shoot Tmax 100 at 50 EI, and develop in HC110h. I use a minimal agitation scheme (ala Doug Cardwell), which is 30 seconds of intitial agitation and then 3 easy inversions each 5 minutes. This seems to allow the shadows to completely develop while holding down the density of the highlights.

This is recent (November 2019 in California at the 38 degree latitude), I didn't really do much with the negative after my normal scan:
Click to expand...

Made me think on how HC110 might not get the full speed off Tmax. I shot a bit of 35mm TMX and developed in HC110B at the Kodak time of 6 min and while negs look rather good... I got rather low contrast anemic prints without resorting to dodge/burn and playing with grades. Perhaps underdeveloped/underexposed.
I ought to try with the remainder at EI 50 and perhaps HC110h.

Developer wise, acutance/fine grain developers ought to cost a stop.

A thought I had is colored filters, but, oh, those are for contrast so it wouldn't help to stick a yellow #12... or would it? In some types of light the darkened sky actually sort of lowered contrast. But that scene was with white buildings filling in shadows.

Despite having grown up and shot much in the Mediterranean, ISO 400 always was welcome. I tended to avoid noon however and then on one side shooting Medium Format and stopping down helps.
 
I would say that HC110h does create a slight lose of film speed. But not a complete stop. I also gain shadow detail with the 50 EI. My development time is not really shortened.

If you want to avoid noon shooting go to Panama.' It took me a year to rethink/retool my development when I lived there.
 
I’m a big fan of slow films as well, and have tried most all of them. PanF+ is wonderfully consistent, so working out an exposure/development scheme that will get you the results you need will remain reliable. And PanF+ at 25 or 40 is quite doable without home mixed developers. Lots of developers work well with PanF, DD-X is my favorite.

The Rollei Ortho 25 is another one I shoot a lot of, and while it can get contrasty more easily the emulsion has remained consistent as well. I use Rodinal 1:50 with this and use pretty minimal agitation.
 
I shoot tmax 100 at 50 and Panf+ at 25, so you can still get those. I still have a stash of APX 25 in 120 which I shoot at 12. with those above, add in a dark yellow filter for an additional 1.3 stops or orange for 2 stops slower and you are in business.


I use Pyro-M as my developer with minimal, not stand, development. I get great tonality with the developer film combo.
 
In harsh contrasty light, overexposing (or, exposing for the shadows) and then developing normally seems to get me better results. This is with Tri-X. The negatives are dense but are more easily printed with rather nice tonality, without grading even, because they have less contrast.
 
I love PanF, living in Texas. Sure enough if I have a half-roll of PanF in the camera, I'll get an idea to go shoot in the evening. The curse of the one-film, one camera discipline.
 
Note that PanF requires prompt development. If you are one who holds onto exposed film for a few months before development PanF will not be a good choice as it has the worst latent image keeping properties of any current emulsion.
 
Thanks for reminding me of that, though a couple of weeks is normally the longest time a roll resides in the camera. Currently 5222 is the "one film" of choice, it seems to have a quite wide exposure range.
sepiareverb said:
Note that PanF requires prompt development. If you are one who holds onto exposed film for a few months before development PanF will not be a good choice as it has the worst latent image keeping properties of any current emulsion.
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And then there is Adox Silvermax - really great tonal range. If you care for low contrast it can be a good choice, especially in combination with some developers.
 
A year or so ago I pulled two rolls of HP5 for a college course I was taking. Shot it at 100 and pulled two stops in development and it came out quite nice. Not the look I would normally go for, but I did really like it.
 
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