Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/04/29

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Subject: [Leica] OT - Wet Darkroom Wizards
From: mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:43:00 -0400

Larry! It's rare I see a post on the lug which agrees with my position on
film developing and yours here really does.
What should kept in mind is this person of course did not expose this 400
film at 100 on purpose. As if  they did they'd not be asking for advice on
dev times.

1. The first culprit as I see it is the long ongoing attitude since the
Speed Graphic days that in black and white neg shooting a little more
exposure is never  a bad idea. When in doubt give it another stop. In roll
film this turns out to be not just not so great advice it really is just
really bad advice.. An under exposed neg can still get you a gallery quality
image. In the darkroom an over espoused neg will have you going through a
full box of paper and you'll never get it right.
In these days of scanning though I think you  make a raw scan of such an
over exposed neg and you are in the no problemo department as far a crafting
a quality image from that negative. As the crushed high areas can be
separated out without much problem in Photoshop and I'd think even
Lightroom.
The modern way this problem appears is not a retro over exposure ideal;
but a smug value held by photo intermediates.  These are The Pullers. Their
manifesto is that most films are over rated and need to have their ISO's cut
in half.  They know that Tri x is really iso 200 and so on and they feel
sorry for all the dumb masses rating it at 400 as they'll never no what
quality results are all about. They know not what they do. They are the
modern day ascetics. Winning through shooting at f 30th when a 60'th is all
it needs.
The result make for over exposing everything .
As Tri x really is 400 and most films have ratings on the box fairly right
on the money with most developer dilution combinations.
Pulling is over exposing with some under developing to keep the contrast
manageable. You've crushed the high tones. And the only way to un crush them
is with some intermediate scanning technique.

2. A second culprit is The Massive Dev Pie Chart...
Who are providing information not misusing it. But its format seems to lead
to that. Misused by a typical internet photo geek not someone who had taken
real world photo classes or read real photo books its like:
"Gee I'll shoot Tmax 100 today rated at 400 and shoot Tmax 400 tomorrow and
rate it at 100 and read the times off the times in this chart!"
Its not the charts fault that it leads to this.
But if you dumped a lot of dollar bills on the sidewalk somebody's going to
come along and pick it up.



--------------------
Mark William Rabiner
Photography



> From: Larry Bullis <kingfisher at halcyon.com>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:29:05 -0700
> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] OT - Wet Darkroom Wizards
> 
> If the roll has any importance, I'd sure shoot and process a test roll
> first if you are going to alter your time a lot.
> 
> No amount of "pull" is going to compensate for the fact that your roll
> is overexposed. For some strange reason, there seems to be a
> misperception out there that exposure and development are somehow
> interchangeable. They're not. Your shadows will be firmly placed in the
> region on the curve that is appropriate for middle tones and the middle
> tones will be moved into the highlight region. Maybe you can pull the
> highlights down, but it doing so, you probably won't save the print from
> looking odd.
> 
> I suppose one might experiment (word chosen deliberately) with adding
> bromide, or even better, some benzotriazole to inhibit development in
> the areas of least exposure. What's working for you is that box iso is
> usually a bit overstated anyway, so your overexposure may not be all
> that serious.
> 
> That happened to me once; I shot a roll of tri-x on a job and noticed
> that I hadn't changed my iso setting from Kodachrome 64. I used an old
> developer that I knew cost about that much in speed, pyro acetone. It is
> an ancient glass lantern slide developer. The acetone doesn't harm the
> current film bases, but in old books it was not recommended for films
> since acetone dissolves some plastics. The results were absolutely
> amazing. Most beautiful ordinary pictures I can imagine of a guy digging
> a hole in the ground! Come to think of it, I wonder why I'm not using
> that now.
> 
> Unless you like the darkroom a lot, I don't think this sort of stuff is
> likely to happen for your one roll.
> 
> 
> 
> On 4/29/11 9:46 AM, lug-request at leica-users.org wrote:
>> Message: 33
>> Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:00:03 -0400
>> From: Chris Saganich<csaganich at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Leica] OT - Wet Darkroom Wizards
>> To: Leica Users Group<lug at leica-users.org>
>> Message-ID:<BANLkTik-rSABvkSU-v0Q7fZ77UzkeE2Y7Q at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>> 
>> My experience with HC110 was very very light agitation with no twisting.
>> The twisting part can cause uneven development with dilution.  I would
>> dilute 1:42 4 minutes at 20C with 1 min continuous agitation and then 2
>> inversions in 5 seconds every minute.  You will have nice shadows and
>> compensation in the highlights.
>> 
>> Pretend something inside is fragile.
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:47 PM, Photo<charcot at comcast.net>  wrote:
>> 
>>>>  I bought a new used camera and I shot HP5+.  I failed to notice that 
>>>> the
>>>>  ISO was NOT set to 400 but instead to 100.  Now for the interesting 
>>>> part -
>>>> I
>>>>  only have Kodak HC110 to use ( no I am not stranded on Kodiak Island) 
>>>> but
>>>>  this is what I have.  What dilution, temp and/or time do I use to 
>>>> "pull"
>>>>  process this film.  There is no prize to the wizard that helps me out 
>>>> but
>>>> I
>>>>  will post pictures.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>  ernie
>>>> 
>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>>  Leica Users Group.
>>>>  Seehttp://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug  for more information
>>>> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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Replies: Reply from kcarney1 at cox.net (Ken Carney) ([Leica] OT - Wet Darkroom Wizards)
In reply to: Message from kingfisher at halcyon.com (Larry Bullis) ([Leica] OT - Wet Darkroom Wizards)