Troubleshooting, con't; Scans

[mike goldberg]

So what is a "thin" negative? Umm... one that is not fat? 😉 I know there are instruments that measure density and contrast, etc., yet most of us eyeball it.

Frank is absolutely right; if I'm trying to establish personalized development and QC, why throw in dated film in the equation?

tetrisattack [Connor] suggests my Agitation is insufficient or too gentle.

Tom A had some good words on Time & Temp in flickr.

And, alexz shared with me, his development scheme.

So, a "thin" negative is underexposed, underdeveloped... or, Heaven forbid Both 😱
As you can see from the scans, contrast is way low. The pix were shot on Tmax 400 [dated] and exposed in a Bessa R with a J8 modified to the Leica standard. Development time was 17 minutes in HC-110, 1:50 at 70f, with 2 inversions of the
tank per minute.

Except for Resizing, there is no editing whatsoever on the images below. Editing was done on the smiley, to show how a "bad" negative can be saved.
Continued below...

 

[mike goldberg]

Troubleshooting HC-110 continued...

The kid on the slide in the playground was captured in late afternoon, fading light.

The edited smiley was improved with a modest crop, and brightness-contrast controls.

Further feedback is very welcome. BTW: Today, I shot a fresh roll of HP5+ and bracketed. Cheers, Mike

 

[titrisol]

I also see uneven development in your negatives.

 

[mike goldberg]

Hi there titrisol,
Assuming that I do have uneven development, what would cause that?
Mike

 

[varjag]

Mike, for scanning purposes a "thin" neg means one that is low in contrast and with low average density. It should not be underdeveloped, otherwise you'll lose shadows, but the contrast shouldn't be too "snappy".

A dull gray scan is a good scan. It holds all the range of tones, and from that point you tune the contrast and shadow threshold to your liking in post processing. I took the liberty to tweak the Benz scan of yours, a little bit of curves and small-radius USM (has to be done after scaling image down to bring the snap back). The histogram of original file displayed good range of tones from shadows to highlights without clipping or empty areas to the sides, which normally means a good scan.

 

[titrisol]

It might be uneven exposure or uneven development
Do you see this in a lot of frames or just in afew?

Uneven development can be avoided if you agitate well at the beginning so that developer has access to all of the film.
Pre-rinsing with water for a minute or three also helps.