Adjusting film development

[schrochem]

I'm using PanF+ and developing in rollo pyro. Unfortunately, I haven't found a recommended time for this combo. I went with 7 min as a decent guess based on the book of pyro and times for pmk. I develop Delta 100 at 8min and I'm good there. I'm new to enlarging and just had my first session with contrast filters. To get the look I liked, I had to use a #5.
Say I wanted the whole roll of film to have that level of contrast. Is there an adjustment I could do during film development?(longer, shorter). It stains so much differently (less) than the delta so it's hard (for me) to judge.
I will be using more filtration when taking the photos and do some tests there.
Or is it just better to do the contrast while making the print?
Thanks for the help!

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Scott,

To get more contrast out of the negative, you develop your film longer. This is one of the basic controls of photography you should learn, because it comes in handy as you shoot in different lighting situations.

If you have to print at Grade 5 to get what you want, and want to get down to something like Grade 2-3 instead, start by increasing your development time about 30%. See how that works. Do a test roll, so you don't muck up something important.

It is not a good idea to go by visual inspection to judge whether you negatives will print well or not. That is something you learn with time.

Good luck!

 

[schrochem]

Thanks Thomas. I appreciate the help. Ok, I'll take it up to 9 mins on a test roll.

I know this is apug and all but when we scan our negatives to share isn't the histogram helpful in this? All the negs I scanned had the pixel population in the middle, far from 'black' 0 and 'white'255. So I had to pull the sliders in quite a bit to 'make' the black and white points. This is from a variety of diiferent negs/scenes. To me that means I'm giving up a lot of latitude.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I don't know how to answer that. Sorry.

All I know is to not mix up how well a neg scans compared to how it prints in the darkroom. In the past I have found that to be a poor indicator of how well a negative is going to print. The only thing I check with the scanner is to see that the negative is sharp where it needs to be, and that there are no major defects in the emulsion.

 

[schrochem]

Well I piddled around throughout the day. I was taking a normal exposure, one with a red filter(curious) and one 2 stops over exposed. I developed for 9 mins this time.
Looking at the film against the light the 2 stops over exposed is waaaaay better....Much better blacks. But like you said, it's what it prints like. I'm guessing it will give me much more latitude. Stay tuned ;-)

 

[schrochem]

Much happier with this combo.
This is a straight print no contrast filter. My scanner is making the blacks a little darker than they are, but I have nice black and whites. With a little dodging and burning I can work with this. As far as a histogram goes, yes you can see that the blacks never made it to black on the normal exposure but did on the overexposure.

 

[Terry Christian]

When you made your "normal" exposure with a red filter, did you open up two or three stops to compensate for filter factor? If not, this could be why your contrast was lacking: you effectively underexposed your film.

 

[schrochem]

HI Terry. Yes I was metering through the filter and it was 2 to 2.5 stops.

 

[schrochem]

Scanning these things seems tough but I think I got it down finally. These are from the test roll of panf+ shot two stops longer (EI 12) and processed with rollo pyro for 9mins. I like the tonal range I'm getting. Excited about shooting more meaningful subject matters. Also, I might try to enlarge these tonight to see how they print.

 

[paul_c5x4]

I would recommend reading Barry Thornton's guides to finding your personal Dead Link Removed & Dead Link Removed