Testing Neopan400 with DDX

wintoid

wintoid

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I'm trying to test Neopan400 with DDX to find the best combination of film speed and development time. I'm a scanner not a printer, so I've been trying a shorter-than-recommended development time in order to try to keep the contrast down. I'm also keen on low light, but don't want to lose shadow detail.

My goal is to find the fastest speed with decent shadow detail and contrast my scanner can handle. My results are recorded here http://www.flickr.com/photos/wintoid/sets/72157603985265888/ and I would be grateful for any input, whether just saying which image looks best, or even telling me that my test is a waste of time (because....).

Hopefully, someone else might find this interesting too...
 
Interesting test - the 200ISO 5 min shot looks very good indeed, but even the 800 ISO shots are useable. What I am not crazy about is the grain, which appears slightly too big for my liking - after Prescysol one gets spoiled for fine grain...
Thanks for sharing the results.
 
None of these is absolutely perfect, but 6 minutes at 250 seems like the best compromise to me. Shadow detail is lost too much in all the shots where the film was rated normally or higher.
 
OK, after a night's sleep I can see a small potential flaw in my test. I metered using the internal meter of my Zeiss Ikon. I varied the film speed by using the ISO setting of the camera. I am not sure whether there's enough grey in the shot for the centre-weighted metering of the Ikon to have been accurate. Given that there's a light-coloured wall in the background, it may have underexposed a little (although the wooden table also takes up a fair amount of space and will bring the exposure up a bit too). So, the speeds need to be taken with a grain (no pun intended) of salt.

To answer titrisol's question, all images have been scanned for full dynamic range in Vuescan, and then I have used Photoshop's Autolevels function on them. That's it. No sharpening certainly.

Frankly, I am a bit horrified. DDX is a developer that is considered to be speed enhancing, and I was expecting the "true speed" (or whatever you call it) of the film to be greater than 400. In fact, I am seeing that even going from ISO250 to ISO320 is losing shadow detail in the boot.

I've always liked Neopan, and have pushed it to 800 frequently. I've also often thought how black the blacks were, and how contrasty the film seems. Somehow I never put 2 and 2 together and worked out that for me it needs to be rated slower.

In the cold light of day, I now find myself wondering what to do next. I don't really have a great need for an ISO250 film. I was hoping for ISO640+ really. I don't know whether to try a different film, or to try a different developer.
 
According to a thread here a month or two ago, the "center" of the Ikon's center-weighted metering pattern is actually somewhat off to the left and slightly down of true center. Which means that, if anything, it was metering more off the black boot -- and thus overexposing rather than underexposing.
 
wintoid said:
OK, after a night's sleep I can see a small potential flaw in my test. I metered using the internal meter of my Zeiss Ikon. I varied the film speed by using the ISO setting of the camera. I am not sure whether there's enough grey in the shot for the centre-weighted metering of the Ikon to have been accurate. Given that there's a light-coloured wall in the background, it may have underexposed a little (although the wooden table also takes up a fair amount of space and will bring the exposure up a bit too). So, the speeds need to be taken with a grain (no pun intended) of salt.

To answer titrisol's question, all images have been scanned for full dynamic range in Vuescan, and then I have used Photoshop's Autolevels function on them. That's it. No sharpening certainly.

Frankly, I am a bit horrified. DDX is a developer that is considered to be speed enhancing, and I was expecting the "true speed" (or whatever you call it) of the film to be greater than 400. In fact, I am seeing that even going from ISO250 to ISO320 is losing shadow detail in the boot.

I've always liked Neopan, and have pushed it to 800 frequently. I've also often thought how black the blacks were, and how contrasty the film seems. Somehow I never put 2 and 2 together and worked out that for me it needs to be rated slower.

In the cold light of day, I now find myself wondering what to do next. I don't really have a great need for an ISO250 film. I was hoping for ISO640+ really. I don't know whether to try a different film, or to try a different developer.
Click to expand...

WINTOID

We all wonder about the above. But since you don't want a 250 EI/ISO, something will have to give. Probably, the developer.
 
What about shooting Portra 400NC (new version) and converting to B&W in PS? This is a true 400 ISO speed film. I just did some scans from it last night on my Coolscan 5000 and the results exceeded my expectations for grain.
 
I'm swimming in a sea of information, or should that be misinformation? Following my test, I headed out with the intention of seeing just how good Neopan was at ISO200 when used for real world photos. The results were dismal! OK, so the negs are full to the brim with detail, but it required drastic work in Lightzone to get the negs to look anywhere near acceptable to me. The highlights were completely washed out (not whited out... the detail is there, but they're just too bright by a long chalk), and there was virtually no contrast to speak of.

So the current situation is:

Neopan 400 @ ISO400 or 800 in DDX - like the look but the test makes it seem to lose quite a lot of shadow detail
Neopan 400 @ ISO200 in DDX - hate the look but the test makes it seem perfect

I guess it's more important that I like the look. Perhaps messing around with development times would make it look glorious at 200. Have ordered BTZS to try to understand... I feel rather overwhelmed with choices.

@charjohncarter - what developer would you suggest? I thought DDX would be the most likely to increase the speed. I have a selection of developers ready to try.

@jplomley - Thanks for the advice on 400NC, but part of the appeal is developing my own film. If I was going to go C41, I'd probably go XP2Super or BW400CN.
 
My Neopan 400 has had really great histograms, containing a wide tonal range and no camel humps anywhere, yet really underwhelming results on the screen and my wet prints. It's all too flat and gray for my liking. I realized after using Neopan that I like the peaks and valleys in my histograms 😉

Using a developer like DDX or Xtol, you're just asking for something even more gray and cloudy day looking. However, this film plus developer would be a winning combo if you were shooting in the dark and pushing this film because I think it'd retain shadow detail in high contrast situations pretty well.

My solution is (currently) to just keep using Kodak TX and TMY.
 
wintoid, I'm not the one for that question. TomA, probably, has used more developers than anyone I know. He would be a good start. I PMed him on something and he was great with answers. Or possibly Kaiyen, he seems to have a handle especially on speed increasing and decreasing developers.
 
wintoid said:
I was hoping for ISO640+ really. I don't know whether to try a different film, or to try a different developer.
Click to expand...

Could this be a job for Diafine? Not with the Neopan, by all accounts, but my first few experiments with HP5 are looking OK. Otherwise have a quick try with HP5 at 400 or 640 in DD-X; it's served me well, though I've found it a little flat and grainy.

All very much IMHO, of course!

Cheers
Jamie
 
Yes, I'd wondered about Diafine.

I'm currently souping another test in Aculux 3, to be followed shortly by a Diafine test. Watch this space!
 
Wintoid,

I've only shot one roll of Neopan 400 (in D76) and it was definitely a slower film than Tri-X.

I think your test shots with the DD-X are underexposed because the scene is too bright. In those shots, 250 looks best, but I would expect you to get more speed than that, especially in DD-X. Your subject for the aculux 3 test shots looks better, and in that series, I think 400 or 500 looks best. But you should try metering off a grey card to eliminate that variable.

I just started experimenting with DD-X and some high speed (or pushed) films, and I'm amazed at the shadow detail I'm getting. I'm also getting smoother grain than what I've gotten with D76 and Diafine (scanning with a Coolscan V). I think the grain looks better with Tri-X at 1600 in DD-X than what I was getting with Tri-X at 400 in D76 1:1 or at 1250 in Diafine. Shadow detail is less of course, but not nearly as much less as I was expecting.

I think you should keep trying with DD-X. I've been going by the digital truth times but I stop agitating at the end and let it stand for the last 3-4 minutes. Not sure how much it helps, but my theory is that will lower contrast. So far I'm very pleased with it.

That's just my 2 cents. Hope it helps.

Paul
 
The short development times and the use of auto-levels could be masking the true shadow detail captured at ISO 400.

But, my first questions are about your scanning technique. Is the scanning exposure constant for all shots? If so, how are you determining scanner exposure?

I am very interested in your results as I shot my first roll of Neopan 400 last week and was happy with the results using DDX.
 
@photoporous - thanks for your input Paul. I double-checked my exposures against an incident meter this time, so I believe the Aculux 3 test is properly exposed.

@Quinn - no, the scanning exposure wasn't constant for all shots. What I did in Vuescan was to set it to capture all data, which in practice means that the left levels slider is all the way to the left, and the right levels slider is as far right as there is data (which is often further than it looks from the histogram). Auto levels has then made the shadow detail *more* apparent than it would have been.

The strange thing is that I started all this with quite a few rolls of Neopan in DDX under my belt, and fairly happy with this film/dev combination. I wanted to make some improvements, and thought it would be smart to find the true speed. After the testing, somehow I am less happy than I was before, although I'm quite sure I could go back to shooting it without thinking too much, and just be happy (with an additional niggle now!)
 
I've finally calibrated my displays, with good calibrator.
I like the 320 and 400 pics from second set - Neopan 400 and Aculux. (200 and 500 is usable, too). Even at 640 there's some detail in shadows and I like the contrast.

I think the first set is not suitable for judging the film speed, I'd repeat it again like the second set.
 
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