underexposed fomapan 100

Mark Kononczuk

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Hi,
I have some underexposed negatives. one batch was with aperture too small by one stop , they are close up flash shots(1m from subject), they should have been f32 but were done on f45. second batch are done with flash too far away from subject(5m).
should i increase development time or temperature of the negative developer to compensate? would that increase contrast? the developer is ID11 diluted 1:1 with water.
thanks
 
Increasing time or temperature with a conventional developer will give you some slight speed increase in the shadows, but it will also tend to blow out your highlights. So, if you have a full brightness range on the negative, that wouldn't be my first goto.

Thanks to the people here, of late, I have been experimenting with Extreme Minimal Agitation and Semi-Stand development with highly dilute Pyrocat-HD developer. The idea is that you do a very long (up to an hour) development with highly dilute developer with just a very few short agitations after an initial 90-120sec of continuous agitation. This causes the highlight development to exhaust and no longer progress (because highlight development is much faster than shadows) while the shadows continue to develop for essentially the entire development time.

This sort of development would likely give you the best results BUT ... you have to learn to do it and experiment with it. Depending on how important or urgent it is to get these processed, I'd take the time to learn the basics of semi-stand and Pyrocat-HD and then see to these negs.

Many here helped me climb this hill, and I'm happy to share what I have learned as well, but I am not an expert.
 
thanks,
i went for a compromise and diluted the developer 1:2 with water, with very slight increase in temperature, to about 22 C, and a slight increase in development time. the negatives look nice, haven't scanned them yet.
i did a photography degree a few years ago and the wizened old darkroom professor used to only believe in acutance developing, which was minimal agitation for one hour with 1:7 stock to water. he was, however, expecting all the students to make up their own chemistry from the formulas he provided.
 
Other developers used very dilute for a long time will be similar. Pyrocat seems to be greatly favoured by the experts on this forum. They should have much more detailed and better advice than mine.
 
Mark, your negatives were underexposed by one stop. So they needed pushing, by giving them more development. If your standard dilution with ID11 is 1+1, then I wonder why you opted for a dilution of 1+2 which would give less development, not more. I see you increased the temperature to 22 degrees, presumably to increase development activity. I would have tackled this by sticking to a standard temp. of 20 degrees, sticking to a dilution of 1+1, if that is what you normally use, and just extending the development time.
If extending the development time is a problem, you could opt to develop in ID11 stock solution, not 1+1. This, of course, will give more development (for the same time). Ilford give good information about all this in their technical data for FP4+. You could use this as a starting point, bearing in mind that Foma 100, which you are using, needs slightly less development than FP4+. About 10% less, in my experience.

Alan
 
Mark, your negatives were underexposed by one stop. So they needed pushing, by giving them more development. If your standard dilution with ID11 is 1+1, then I wonder why you opted for a dilution of 1+2 which would give less development, not more. I see you increased the temperature to 22 degrees, presumably to increase development activity. I would have tackled this by sticking to a standard temp. of 20 degrees, sticking to a dilution of 1+1, if that is what you normally use, and just extending the development time.
If extending the development time is a problem, you could opt to develop in ID11 stock solution, not 1+1. This, of course, will give more development (for the same time). Ilford give good information about all this in their technical data for FP4+. You could use this as a starting point, bearing in mind that Foma 100, which you are using, needs slightly less development than FP4+. About 10% less, in my experience.

Alan


As a point of interest - and in no small measure due to the writing of David Kachel - I would suggest that you actually cannot "push" film. Increased development activity will give you a slight increase in speed but it doesn't truly raise the effective ASA much. What passes for "pushing" is actually significant underexposure followed by considerable overdevelopment. The effect of this is more grain, bad shadows, and - often - blown out highlights.

No developer can fix underexposure. What's not in the shadows will not show up with more development. What extended development can do it fully develop the shadows to completely reveal what is there. The benefit of Semi-Stand/EMA is that it allows this extended development to take place without destroying the highlights. The combination of high dilution and low agitation leads to developer exhaustion in the highlights.

Pyrocat-HD isn't remotely the first developer to exploit this. But it has many other virtues to commend it, which is why I started fiddling with it a couple of months ago.
 
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As a point of interest - and in so small measure due to the writing of David Kachel - I would suggest that you actually cannot "push" film. Increased development activity will give you a slight increase in speed but it doesn't truly make raise the effective ASA. What passes for "pushing" is actually significant underxposure followed by considerable overdevelopment. The effect of this is more grain, bad shadows, and - often - blown out highlights.
so why did you choose pyro?


Pyro developers have many virtues. They produce a negative stain that acts as a highlight restrainer and mask grain. They also promote apparent edge sharpness. Many of us started with PMK Pyro years ago. Pyrocat-HD is a more recent brew that is more stable, oxidises less, and is very inexpensive to mix yourself (noting that you do need to wear a mask, nitrile gloves, and eye protection while mixing since catechol isn't very good for you). If you prefer, it's also possible to purchase it pre-mixed.

Sandy King - the guy who invented Pyrocat - has a nice summary of the history of staining developers here:

 
As a point of interest - and in no small measure due to the writing of David Kachel - I would suggest that you actually cannot "push" film. Increased development activity will give you a slight increase in speed but it doesn't truly raise the effective ASA much. What passes for "pushing" is actually significant underexposure followed by considerable overdevelopment. The effect of this is more grain, bad shadows, and - often - blown out highlights.

No developer can fix underexposure. What's not in the shadows will not show up with more development. What extended development can do it fully develop the shadows to completely reveal what is there. The benefit of Semi-Stand/EMA is that it allows this extended development to take place without destroying the highlights. The combination of high dilution and low agitation leads to developer exhaustion in the highlights.

Pyrocat-HD isn't remotely the first developer to exploit this. But it has many other virtues to commend it, which is why I started fiddling with it a couple of months ago.


I used the word "push" because everyone understands what it means, i.e. giving extra development to film that has been underexposed. I would never recommend pushing as a good thing to do. In fact I usually do the opposite and give my films extra exposure and reduced development. But Mark had accidently underexposed by one stop , and knew he needed to give more development to try to put things right. I was simply suggesting a basic way to do this as Mark seems a bit unsure about developer times, temperature and dilutions. (he has asked about this in another thread)
You say that the shadow detail lost by underexposure can't be recovered by extra development. This, I think, is common knowledge. But underexposure also results in a lowering of mid-tones and highlights. So a SLIGHT increase in development probably works by putting these back up to where they should be. I have some doubts about whether your idea of extended semi-stand development is the best way to deal with this. As you say it is designed to hold back the highlights. But it also holds back the mid-tones as well, which is probably not what you want if the mid-tones are already too low in value.
All this is rather theoretical. In practical terms, I have only "pushed" film a few times, when I was photographing inside a farmer's barn at lambing time, and needed to rate 35mm HP5 at 1200. I followed Ilford's instructions, used ID11 as a stock solution and actually got a series of photographs that had very nice tonality. Slightly down on shadow detail. Maybe slightly up on grain. But the mid-tones (the key to good tonality in a print, as far as I am concerned) looked really good.

Alan
 
“Pushing“ is used where any sort of image is acceptable, such as low-light surveillance. This is mostly done digitally nowadays.
Increased development time will increase negative density, so that the thin shadows will be denser and consequently easier to print. It will also increase the highlights much more, making them impossible to print. A more diluted developer will exhaust itself in the highlights if it’s not agitated too much, and that reduces the highlight problem. Extended time allows whatever density there is in the shadows to develop normally, and even more time will increase their printable density. By balancing dilution, time and agitation (and temperature, perhaps) a more acceptable negative can be produced.
Different people will have their own favourite developers, as we see on this forum, but the principle remains the same.
 
I've got some negatives to develop.they are Ilford FP125
I've taken some shots of some white curtains in a window.
There are:
1. the walls of the interior room - underexposed by 4/5 stops.
2. the curtains- exposed correctly
3. the sky outside, overexposed by 3/4 stops.

I want to blow out the sky outside and get maximum detail in the white curtains- creases etc.
I'm not too bothered by the dark walls, but some detail in the blacks would be nice but not essential.
My question is this: how do I get maximum detail in the curtains (I suppose the tonal range of the curtains is from white to light/medium grey) without it all going horribly too grey?

By diluting the stock? (ID 11)
By agitating more at the beginning?
Thanks
 
By exposure
You need to place the brightest tone in the curtains to zone 8 , spot meter off the bright area and add three stops more exposure-to the spot reading , you could also reduce dev time by 30% to stop density building to high, as regard the exterior at only 3/4 stop difference your going to struggle to blow that out completely by exposure,
 
It's not quite clear what you're saying.
Does 4/5 stops actually mean four-fifths of a stop or is it really 4-5 stops; four-to-five stops.
Does this mean four-to-five stops below the meter reading? If your reading was Zone Five, then the film will be five stops below Zone Five and more-or-less blank unless there's some texture or pattern on a higher Zone.
If the curtains are properly exposed, perhaps placed on Zones 6-7-8, (we haven't seen the curtains) and you don't care about the highlights, there doesn't seem to be a problem and normal development should suffice.
We would normally expect to control the appearance of the curtains while printing, But if you want to increase contrast in the curtains, then increased development, either for longer, warmer, with more agitation, or increased concentration should do the trick. As we've seen here, the usual procedure is to change the time.
Is it impractical to redo the shot, placing the walls on (let's say) Zone 3?
If 4/5 and 3/4 are really fractions of a stop you should be able to get a decent print from a normal development. There is much advice on split-grade printing on the web.
 
I meant 4 to 5 actual stops, not fractions thereof. I'm not quite sure what zones are. I seem to have buggered it up anyway.

Previously, I was using a 1:1 dilution of ID11 and water at 22ish degrees C for 11 minutes with about 10 seconds agitation ( per minute) in a tray and it was working fine. (first image)

This time I tried a dilution of 1 part ID11 stock to 3 parts water, developing for 20 minutes, agitating 15 seconds in every minute at exactly 20 degrees C in a spiral tank.(medium format). The results are a horrible grey. (second image).

It might be that the stock solution is 2 weeks older (it is actually not pure stock because my measuring jug, it turns out, has faulty measurements- so my stock is 1.5 litres not 1 litre , but that is irrelevant because it worked fine earlier) or maybe my film is old - probably 5 yrs old at least.
 

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So this is my curtains picture. which is ok, but i was aiming at greater detail in the curtains that i could work with in the darkroom. the sky outside is almost blown out, so that's ok. no blacks, though. if i remember correctly, the spot reading was something like 1/8th or 1/30th second for the curtains. 1/250th for the sky and half a second for the walls, all at f/16.
 

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I think you're right, but your two images don't look badly exposed. the tree could do with a ;title more contrast, but that's easily done in the darkroom.
The Zone System is a way of tuning your exposures to get the kind of print you want. It can be used as a simple and convenient way of getting better exposures while in the field or as a brain-numbing, heart-dessicating farrago of over-numerate nonsense.

Briefly then, it gives you a way of describing tones of grey, with Zone Zero being total black IN THE PRINT, NOT IN THE NEGATIVE and Zone Five Is a middle grey. Depending on your mentor, either Zone Nine or Zone Ten are pure and unsullied white – the whiteness of the paper.
They are usually written in Roman numerals so Zone Five is Zone V, and so on. (abbreviated to ZV.)
Each of the Zones is one stop different from the ones next to it. That's deliberate and makes things easier.

Meters are designed on the assumption that a scene will have roughly equal amounts of dark and light in it and so the average brightness will be a middle grey. That's Zone Five (or ZV).
When you have a tricky situation, like dark walls, lightish curtains and a bright sky, a general reading will not give you what you want.
You look at the dark walls, and you want to see a little bit of detail in them. That would be Zone Three (ZIII) to give you a little detail, or Zone Four (ZIV) if you wanted a bit more. You will want the curtains to be bright but not pure paper-white and you'll want them to show some shadow detail. So, as Martin says, you'd put (we say "place") the brightest parts of the curtain on Zone Eight (VIII).

This is how you go about it.
You measure the wall with your meter. The measurement you get would give you a middle grey (XV)if you followed it, but you want it to be darker, so you must give it less exposure. To get Zone Three in the print, you need to give it two stops less exposure.
Now you measure the brightest pat of the curtains. If you simply used that measurement, you'd get medium grey curtains, which you don't want. To get Zone Eight (ZVIII) you would need to give it three more stops.
Now you have two measurements. You will need to do a bit of mental arithmetic. If the difference between the two readings is seven stops, just like the scene, then you expose for the dark wall and the bright curtain will come out where it should, on Zone Eight (ZVIII).
You always have to give enough exposure for the shadows because if the film doesn't record them, then you can't print them.
If the difference is bigger, then you will need to give less development to reduce the contrast and conversely you can give more development if you need more contrast. There are ways of deciding how much to change your development, some simple, some intricate.
This means that you have to have some idea of what kind of print you think you'll want to see in the end. That's called "visualisation".

I'm afraid that this is a hasty version of the Zone System and no doubt it contains errors and confusions. There are others on this forum who will be able to tell you more and correct my mistakes.
At it's simplest, it's just a way of giving names to different tones of grey.
 
Your curtain picture looks fine as far as exposure goes. On my screen, there seems to be no true black anywhere. Most prints seem to need at least a small patch of true black somewhere to act as a key for the other tones.
Are you printing wet or dry?
 
hmmmm,
thanks for that.
what does wet and dry printing mean?
yes, there is no black in the curtain picture, similarly there are practically no more than one or two shades of grey in the tree picture. I was wondering why? I've done acutance 1 hour developing 7:1 (7 parts water to 1 part stock) before at 21 degrees C and it was fine; less contrast but lots of shades of grey. but this tree picture is horrible - i can't even get anything out of it in photoshop.
 
I meant: are you printing in a darkroom or on a computer? The reference to Photoshop suggests a computer.
This is only a first thought, as I haven’t seen the file.
Open Levels. Drag the outer triangles inward until they are very close to the ends of the histogram. You can then shuffle the middle triangle back and forth to change the distribution of the middle tones. This should make a difference.
You can make more subtle changes in Curves, if you prefer.

Always wise to try this on a copy, rather than the original, when taking advice from a stranger.

Another thought comes to mind. Perhaps you could make some adjustments in your scanning process. That’s a different subject.
My apologies if I’ve been over-simplistic.

Other members may have more, and almost certainly better advice.
 
Hi,
I do wet printing in the darkroom.
I scan negatives and open them up in photoshop first just to see if the negatives are worth doing anything with. Most aren't because either the picture is crap or I've technically done something wrong in the developing. Here, however, I think the film is old.
 
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