Checking my understanding

[Kev M]

Afternoon all. I just wanted to check my understanding to try and figure out what has happened.

I was shooting some sailing the other night and the light was crap. Only had 400 film so decided to rate it at 800 to give me a half sensible shutter speed, never pushed a film before.

I developed the negatives at home with a new developer (DD-X, normally use Ilfosol3) and instead of my usual see-through negatives they were dense, really dense. They did however have areas which were see-through still.

Despite my pushing the development one stop (and maybe a bit more as temperature didn't fall away as quickly as I thought it would) are the see-through areas see through because there simply wan't enough exposure to record the detail and so increasing the development would have made no difference to that particular area?

I started printing from one of the negatives at the weekend and even at Grade 0 it was hard work. These are going to be tricky:bang:

 

[EdMoss]

Sounds like overdevelopment or overexposure? Can you take a pic of the neg and upload it?

 

[freecom2]

What fixer are you using, and how fresh is it? And what film is it?

 

[Happy_medium]

Afternoon all. I just wanted to check my understanding to try and figure out what has happened.

I was shooting some sailing the other night and the light was crap. Only had 400 film so decided to rate it at 800 to give me a half sensible shutter speed, never pushed a film before.

I developed the negatives at home with a new developer (DD-X, normally use Ilfosol3) and instead of my usual see-through negatives they were dense, really dense. They did however have areas which were see-through still.

Despite my pushing the development one stop (and maybe a bit more as temperature didn't fall away as quickly as I thought it would) are the see-through areas see through because there simply wan't enough exposure to record the detail and so increasing the development would have made no difference to that particular area?

I started printing from one of the negatives at the weekend and even at Grade 0 it was hard work. These are going to be tricky:bang:

Yes - very tricky. When the light is crap, as a photographer, you soon get to know how the images will turn out!

 

[Kev M]

Sounds like overdevelopment or overexposure? Can you take a pic of the neg and upload it?

I'l try and take one tonight. They're dense but the detail is in there (just), if you hold them up to the light you can see the image but when I scanned the negatives they came out like **** so I gave up and made contact sheets instead. As an example my normal exposure time for contact sheets (with my more typically thin negatives) is 6sec @ F11. These were more like 40sec @ F5.6 I think.

It's probably a combination of both of your suggestions. Under exposed giving my the slightly see-through areas in the black wetsuits and over development everywhere else due to temperature not falling away as quickly as I thought (started at 22degs for a 10 minute development).

What fixer are you using, and how fresh is it? And what film is it?

I'm using Ilford rapid fixer and it's reasonably fresh, the images aren't fogged so I don't think it's a fixing issue. Film stock was Neopan400 and Delta400

Yes - very tricky. When the light is crap, as a photographer, you soon get to know how the images will turn out!

I can normally guess how the image will turn out, it's whether the negative turns out how I want that I can't get right.

 

[AlanSmithee]

Bear in mind, too, that some films like 400TX can be shot at EI800 and developed normally with good results due to their latitude. If you're going to push in a situation like that, I'd go for a 2-stop push with most 400 films.

 

[fixedimage]

Sounds like overdevelopment or overexposure? Can you take a pic of the neg and upload it?

Sounds more like overdevelopment or UNDERexposure to me.

@OP, what mode were you shooting in? What shutter speed and aperture?
You say you were shooting sailing, which sounds like a daytime activity so with iso800 I wouldn't imagine you'd have much trouble getting a good exposure even on a cloudy day.

 

[Kev M]

Bear in mind, too, that some films like 400TX can be shot at EI800 and developed normally with good results due to their latitude. If you're going to push in a situation like that, I'd go for a 2-stop push with most 400 films.

So push it straight to 1600? Why would you do that and skip 800?

Sounds more like overdevelopment or UNDERexposure to me.

@OP, what mode were you shooting in? What shutter speed and aperture?
You say you were shooting sailing, which sounds like a daytime activity so with iso800 I wouldn't imagine you'd have much trouble getting a good exposure even on a cloudy day.

I was shooting in manual taking incident readings with a handheld meter. It was about 8pm, the sun was setting but it was a cloudy evening. If I remember rightly I was getting somewhere around 1/250 at F5.6-F8. Max aperture on the lens was F5.6 (Bronica 250mm PS).

 

[fixedimage]

Double post.

 

[AlanSmithee]

So push it straight to 1600? Why would you do that and skip 800?
.

Two reasons:

• You said you needed shutter speed.
• Not knowing your 400 film, you possibly could have been shooting 400TX and right on page 6 of the Kodak's Data Sheet it says you don't have to push for one stop because of the film's latitude. So if you're going to push it, pick a EI worth pushing.

And if you're scanning, it is so much more forgiving than wet printing that you can probably scan any BW 400 film developed normally metered for EI800 with good results.

I forgot to put the camera on bulb for this shot. It was metered for 1 minute at f19 with a green filter and red car and it was exposed at 1 second. It is 100 Acros and that makes it EI6400. If I didn't use a green filter, the car would have had less black. But I was able to salvage this much due to scanning. And I conclude 1-stop under exposed would have been a piece of cake.

​

 

[Knikki]

As an example my normal exposure time for contact sheets (with my more typically thin negatives) is 6sec @ F11. These were more like 40sec @ F5.6 I think.

I have been printing some stuff at college and run into the same issue as you. Scanning the same negs were relatively easy but when I was printing I had a real nightmare and so gave up.

However I was doing another neg and spoke to the tutor and he suggested that instead of doing 40 sec @ f11 to try f5.6.

So I did and the same negs printed ok f5.6 @ 70 secs. Oh and all mine were printed on grade 3 or 3 1/2

Maybe you just need to make the exposure longer :shrug:

 

[Happy_medium]

So what did the OP get eventually?