Film development...Advice needed

wil

wil

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Will
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I have a small darkroom for developing and printing black and white film,

I mostly using ilford 100 b+w.

Recently developed a reel in a paterson tank and the results were....strange. It looks like maybe over developed ? The contrast is way too high ! So does this mean the film was in the developer too long??

See pictures here:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsknExSUn

The only one that seems to be of a good contrast is the teddy with the pint glass. Odd, as the pictures are all off the same reel. Printing was done correctly with timings and so on......
 
Easier to say if viewing the actual negatives! My impression is, like yours, of too high a contrast; but along with that, blocked shadows. So I'd go with over development and under exposure as a first stab. If conventionally printed, you can control the contrast through choice of paper grade and development. Are the flickr results from a scan of the negative or the print? If the former, there's another source of high contrast.

Overdevelopment could come from too long in the developer, but also too high a temperature or too much agitation.

Edit for typo.
 
wil said:
.......Printing was done correctly with timings and so on......
Click to expand...


There's a bit more to it than that
As Stephen points out, contrast control in a print is made by paper grade and development.
Also if using a b/w enlarger and VC paper, by filter grade.
Or if using a colour enlarger and VC paper, by filtration mixing....so "timings and so on" doesn't give us much to go on..:)
 
Bit more detail:

I was using multigrade ilford paper to print on. 7.5 seconds on the timer on the enlarger, then standard develop, fix and stop times.
No filters used. The enlarger is a paterson colour enlarger, so can use the filters built into the enlarger. All timings and solution mix ratios were done to the letter according to an ilford manual I have... found here:

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/webfiles/200629163442455.pdf

The pictures are scans of the prints, not the negatives. I had exactly the same problem with some other pictures I took if some shells a while back. There were virtually no midtowns, just black and white.

One thing - The developer, fix and stop solutions I use in the developer tank are all at 20/21 degrees. However I am using cold tap water to rinse the negs off - could this affect the negatives in some way?
 
Yeah, always do that.

Going on the portrait pictures of the model in the gallery, and then looking at the teddy, it must be lighting, as the teddy has midtones, whereas the model doesn't. I'm thinking it must be lighting in the actual shot perhaps?
 
a few of them have mid tones of sorts

without seeing the negs its tough to say whether they are abnormally contrasty or not, so looking at the filtration set on the enlarger

7.5 seconds isn't very long, tough to dodge and burn anything in that time, you could try stopping the lens down a bit to extend time and have a more gentile gradual exposure than a 7.5 second flash bang wallop, but it depends what size you are printing at, have you tried printing with less magenta.

the grades you are likely to see using the mixing values on the enlarger differ from one enlarger to the other, for instance G3 is M25 and G1 is Y50 on my LPL (supposedly)
I say supposedly because I never really nailed that for truth.
perhaps you are using some duff filtration values for your particular machine..:)
 
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What Joxby said.

Based on years of darkroom working I always find it better to aim for around 30 seconds exposure in the enlarger, that way you get lots more control. Even half a second is over 7% of 7 seconds, In any case the darkroom needs as much effort as taking the original shot!

I am less confident when using Multigrade paper, I try to use conventional graded papers if at all possible.

When you are wet processing you could try using a first rinse at the same temperature as your solutions but instead of just tipping that first rinse away try displacing a small proportion with cool water, say at around 7deg. C. and then add more and more of your tapwater until the tank has only cold in it. This is easy if you have a hose on the tap as after the first rinse you can just plonk the end of the hose down the centre of the spiral. This is easiest if you put a short length (150mm) of copper tube on the end of the hose, as this acts as a weight to keep the outlet in the centre of the spiral and enables the fresh water to mix a bit at the bottom of the tank.
 
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wil said:
One thing - The developer, fix and stop solutions I use in the developer tank are all at 20/21 degrees. However I am using cold tap water to rinse the negs off - could this affect the negatives in some way?
Click to expand...
That has the potential to cause reticulation. Expansion/contraction of the silver gelatin layer at a different rate to the base material which causes the gelatin layer to ened up with an almost crackle finish. It won't make a difference to your contrast problem, but at smaller enlargements it will look like stronger grain. At bigger enlargements it'll show the crackly appearance.
 
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Kei said:
That has the potential to cause reticulation. Expansion/contraction of the silver gelatin layer at a different rate to the base material which causes the gelatin layer to ened up with an almost crackle finish. It won't make a difference to you contrast problem, but at smaller enlargements it will look like stronger grain. At bigger enlargements it'll show the crackly appearance.
Click to expand...

Thanks
 
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