What works well with Delta 3200?

[BJ Bignell]

DD-X and a beer! 😀 A 0.5L bottle of Fuller's London Porter, to be exact. Mmmmmmmmmm....

I finally got around to developing some film tonight. I did two rolls of Delta 3200, taken at a wine-and-cheese party back in April. For the party, I didn't feel like focussing or using a flash or even trying very hard, so I took the CV21 and preset the camera to f5.6, 1/30s (or maybe 1/15s, I think the wine destroyed my memory), focussed to 1.5m, and didn't even bother taking the viewfinder!

I guessed that this would require a push to 12500-ish, so I dev'ed in DD-X 1+4 for 18m with very gentle agitation for 10s once every minute. Everything turned out really well! There are a handful of negatives that are almost see-through, but most came out very well, and I was suprised at both the range of tones and the nice grain size. (Keep in mind I'm basing my observations on what I see through the loupe, and off of the scanner. A real print might look a lot different.)

I've scanned a few samples, and placed them here for your perusal. My flatbed scanner does a good job of mashing up anything I scan, but I've done the best I can with curves and a bit of sharpening to make it look decent. Number three is full-frame, the rest are cropped: It's amazing how much ceiling/floor/blank wall a person can capture when not using a viewfinder!

BJ

P.S. I did some light toning using Color Balance. +6 Green in the shadows, and +10 red in the highlights. Does it look good on your monitor, too? Do you like the effect? Tell me what you think...

 

[rover]

Well done. I tried to buy some DD-X this week but the shops I went to were out. Looks like successful low maintenance photography to me.

 

[TPPhotog]

I used to use DD-X until about a year ago and those are very nice captures. Some of us have found that if you soup at twice the shooting speed with Delta 3200, you will get much better negatives. So shooting at 3200 means soup as for 6400, etc.

 

[BJ Bignell]

I used to use DD-X until about a year ago and those are very nice captures. Some of us have found that if you soup at twice the shooting speed with Delta 3200, you will get much better negatives. So shooting at 3200 means soup as for 6400, etc.

That's usually what I do as well. There's not much room past 12500, so I just added a minute to the time from the massive dev chart, and all was good.

Looking at the pictures on my monitor at work, I can see that the toning I tried doesn't really show up quite as much as I hoped. I was trying to keep it subtle, but it's perhaps a bit too subtle...

BJ

 

[back alley]

everyone looks so...young...

joe walks away wondering just where his misspent youth has wondered off to...

joe

 

[Roger Hicks]

More agitation will normally give you maximum speed for a given contrast, but from the evidence of the pics, I'd be happy enough if I were you. Though my wife and I have taken to using just 3200 even if the exposure ends up longer, in the interests of tonality. This is one of her shots of some Transylvanian dancers in Hungary last year @3200 in DDX, maybe 1/60 at f/2 (90 Summicron wide open on a Bessa-T). It is about 2/3 to 3/4 of the negative, taken from a 'wet' print, not direct from the neg.

Cheers,

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

 

[BJ Bignell]

Roger, you're right about the speed increase with agitation, but I chose to use less agitation and just add a minute to see if I could keep the grain smoother. By agitating less, I was also hoping to get a little bit more local developer depletion, hopefully reducing contrast a bit (like using a higher dilution, but without the increased grain).

I originally was looking to do this with DD-X at 1+9 to really keep the tonal range under control, but was unable to find anyone who had experience pushing with the higher dilution. I didn't have the time or patience to do a test roll, either.

I suppose that if I had processed for 17m and agitated normally, I could have gotten the exact same results. I haven't tested, to be sure. But, I like the way they came out, so it's still a success.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear BJB,

I have to confess that I have not tested this personally, but Ilford tells me (and I have no reason to doubt them -- why would they lie?) that you get more speed at a given contrast (hence my original post) with more agitation. Grain, I don't know about: we didn't discuss it.

But as you say, it's a success anyway, so why worry?

Cheers,

Roger

 

[BJ Bignell]

I totally didn't catch "for a given contrast". It makes sense, though.

I shouldn't have beer at lunch; it makes me a little groggy! Or alternately, I shouldn't go back to work if I've had beer at lunch! 😀