What went wrong?

[chunky71]

Since getting back into film i've shoot many rolls. A lot of it has been expired, because that's what i like to shoot with. I recently shot with a roll of in date Kodak Tri-X 400.
I shot this with a Nikon EM, at the right ISO but this is one of the resulting shots.

Reece by Dave Gilbert, on Flickr

Every shot from that roll is the same. Worst grain i have ever seen, and that beats the roll of 19 year old film i shoot earlier in the year.
Any reason why it would be so bad?

 

[StephenM]

You can increase grain (or the apparent look of grain) by:
Overexposure
Overdevelopment
Too high a developer temperature
Thermal shock due to chemicals suddenly changing temp (e.g. hot dev, cold stop)
Developer choice

All seem to depend on factors not mentioned (apart from the exposure one).

 

[Kei]

It does look a lot like reticulation, which is what @StephenM describes above as thermal shock. The washing temperature at the end can cause this too. I've done it once when I had a cold water pressure drop whilst washing the film which caused the temperature to rise from about 18 to 35 degrees.

 

[medwaygreen]

I think this has happened to me in the past the EM has metered for the background and overexposed the subject.

 

[chunky71]

Thanks guys. I use Photo Hippo in Burnley for my developing, and i've never really had an issue. But this is one wasted roll of film.
Maybe i should use someone else?

 

[RaglanSurf]

One of the joys/failings of expired film is its unpredictability. Not all expired film reacts the same way all of the time. If you're looking for consistent inconsistency you'll never find it.

 

[chunky71]

One of the joys/failings of expired film is its unpredictability. Not all expired film reacts the same way all of the time. If you're looking for consistent inconsistency you'll never find it.

Nick, this wasn't a roll of expired. This was in date Tri-X 400. I've seen some great results with this which is why i decided to try a roll of it, but it came out awful.

 

[RaglanSurf]

Nick, this wasn't a roll of expired. This was in date Tri-X 400. I've seen some great results with this which is why i decided to try a roll of it, but it came out awful.

Sorry, my mistake. I didn't read your post properly. In that case it's probably a dev'ing problem. Shoot another roll and process it somewhere and see if you get the same problem.

 

[chunky71]

Thanks, Nick. I'm just going through the list of labs on a thread here. But they all seem a lot more expensive than the one i currently use. Is 1 roll C41, negs and a disc at £5.50 about right or is that cheap? Everywhere else seems to be about £5.50 for negs and a further £12 for burning to a disc. That seems really excessive to me for just one roll.

 

[ChrisR]

Try Filmdev.co.uk, £5 for process C41 and medium scan, free return postage for the negs and you get the images via download the day they are scanned (and you pay!). Sometimes get my images less than 24 hours after posting!

 

[chunky71]

Try Filmdev.co.uk, £5 for process C41 and medium scan, free return postage for the negs and you get the images via download the day they are scanned (and you pay!). Sometimes get my images less than 24 hours after posting!

Thanks, Chris. I'll give them a try. Just bought 5 rolls of Agfa Vista for a fiver at Poundland, so i'll try them and a couple of others to see who i like best. Cheers

 

[excalibur2]

Thanks, Chris. I'll give them a try. Just bought 5 rolls of Agfa Vista for a fiver at Poundland, so i'll try them and a couple of others to see who i like best. Cheers

Well you could also try Asda to see if you like em...just get dev and scanned to cd for about £3. But phone first to see if they still do film.

 

[chunky71]

Well you could also try Asda to see if you like em...just get dev and scanned to cd for about £3. But phone first to see if they still do film.

I live on the Isle of Man. We don't have an Asda. I think Boots still develop over here but not sure of the quality yet.