Any advice to develop a film shot with guessed exposure?

Emilro · Jul 31, 2020

Hi guys, I have been shooting my camera for a while guessing the exposure and I wanted to ask you if you could give me any advice or a tip to have in mind on developers choice and development processes for guessed exposure films?

I usually use tri x developed in d76 1 + 1, but due to the high prices, I can no longer afford it, so I have a couple of rolls of pancro 400 left, i also very used to the classic hp5 and fp4. my work is mostly street photography and documentary

regards

Pieter12 · Jul 31, 2020

If you guessed your exposure based on the sunny 16 rule, then just process normal.

MattKing · Jul 31, 2020

What developers are reasonably easy for you to buy at prices you can live with? If we know that information, we can help you choose between them.

Donald Qualls · Jul 31, 2020

I agree. If you used Sunny 16 based on box speed, then give the manufacturer's recommended development, just as you would with Tri-X, HP5+, or FP4+.

voceumana · Jul 31, 2020

Two-solution (or divided) developers are always a good option. D-23 for the 1st bath and an accelerator solution (sodium metaborate, sodium carbonate, or borax) for the 2nd bath. It's an inexpensive developer considering you only need 3 checmicals (metol, sodium sulfite, and the accelerator). It provides compression--i.e., reduced highlight development and increased shadow development.

Emilro · Jul 31, 2020

normally i shoot f11 and guess the speed.
And for developers, I have access to almost all that ilford does like id11, microphen, perceptol etc.
and there is a guy who makes home-made developers like diafine, beutler, pc-tea, parodinal, hydrophen, fx-37, d-19, d-23, d-96, and a version of xtol that uses d76 times.

voceumana · Jul 31, 2020

By the way, 2-solution developers are extra economical because you can reuse them with virtually no reduction in quality.

Pieter12 · Jul 31, 2020

Emilro said:
normally i shoot f11 and guess the speed.
And for developers, I have access to almost all that ilford does like id11, microphen, perceptol etc.
and there is a guy who makes home-made developers like diafine, beutler, pc-tea, parodinal, hydrophen, fx-37, d-19, d-23, d-96, and a version of xtol that uses d76 times.

Guess the speed based on what?

MattKing · Jul 31, 2020

Ilford ID-11 is functionally equivalent to D-76. It just comes in two bags, rather than Kodak's one.

pentaxuser · Jul 31, 2020

I assume that your camera has no metering at all so a guess is all you have but as others have said what do you base your guess on, just out of interest? In terms of your results it sounds as if you have been exposing and developing film for a while so if the negs look right then you must have been guessing correctly If you have done this in different light conditions and at different times of the year and all negs are good then just carry on. If you want to check that how much better than your negatives can be based on measurement of light then try and get a simple light meter. If you intend to do photography for the long term then the cost of a secondhand, simple reflection meter or even an incident meter is quite low in relation to how many exposures you are likely to take in say the next 10 years

pentaxuser

Emilro · Jul 31, 2020

I usually guess the exposure for the shadows and I have quite a few good results, over time but I have never tried any other developer than d76,
I recently bought a sekonic l208 lightmeter and i am very happy with it, so that's why I was asking for some recommendation on developers an developing tips.

Emilro · Jul 31, 2020

voceumana said:
Two-solution (or divided) developers are always a good option. D-23 for the 1st bath and an accelerator solution (sodium metaborate, sodium carbonate, or borax) for the 2nd bath. It's an inexpensive developer considering you only need 3 checmicals (metol, sodium sulfite, and the accelerator). It provides compression--i.e., reduced highlight development and increased shadow development.

I would love to try this combination but unfortunately here in Chile it is very difficult to get raw chemicals I can get d-23 already mixed but not the activator (sodium metaborate, sodium carbonate, or borax)...
Do you think d19 could be used as a second bath? How do you estimate the times in each of those baths for hp5 for example?

pentaxuser · Jul 31, 2020

Sorry Emilro I based my reply on what I thought was a question on how to estimate exposure accurately but I had paid too much attention to the early replies and not enough to what your question was really about which is clear from your opening post.

pentaxuser

Donald Qualls · Jul 31, 2020

Sodium carbonate is sold for swimming pools or spas for pH control, or as a laundry product (that's the form I've used).

voceumana · Aug 3, 2020

D-19 would not be suitable as a 2nd solution. It is a complete high contrast developer.

Helge · Aug 3, 2020

If you are unsure about exposure, just use stand, preferably with Rodinal.
One part to a hundred for two hours.
Agitate gently the first minute and a gentle turn the tank a quarter turn after the first half hour.
For Tri-X it's probably best for 120 film, but I've had good results even from 135.

Emilro · Aug 4, 2020

voceumana said:
D-19 would not be suitable as a 2nd solution. It is a complete high contrast developer.

thanks!
i'm definitely going to give d23 a try i was seeing their results and they are really beautiful

Emilro · Aug 4, 2020

Helge said:
If you are unsure about exposure, just use stand, preferably with Rodinal.
One part to a hundred for two hours.
Agitate gently the first minute and a gentle turn the tank a quarter turn after the first half hour.
For Tri-X it's probably best for 120 film, but I've had good results even from 135.

I have never tried the static developed on rodinal I would love to try it too thank you!
best regards

Alan Johnson · Aug 6, 2020

I used Pyrocat HD with Delta 400 and guessed exposures on an old folder.
This one was badly underexposed but Pyrocat gives a long scale and it was rescued after a fashion:

Grim Tuesday · Aug 6, 2020

If you end up in this situation again, you might want to try Diafine. I've never tried it myself because of the price, but it claims to develop all films at all speeds, in the same amount of time. So if your exposure is off, it doesn't matter. I am sure someone here has tried it and can chime in to if it meets that claim but I've only heard good things about it.

Donald Qualls · Aug 7, 2020

The potential downside of Diafine is that it develops any given film to the same speed all the time -- for instance, Tri-X will always be about EI 1000-1250. If you exposed it for 400 it'll give dense, hard to print or scan negatives. IMO, Diafine is a poor choice when you don't know how your film was exposed or if you didn't know the ISO speed when you exposed it.

NB23 · Aug 7, 2020

My honest advice, based on the mathemarical probabilities principle, is this: look at the manufacturer’s recomended time and then guess your time around that. One or 2 minutes up or down.

From balkpark, to ballpark, to ballpark guestimations it usually ends up with an acurate result. The average of an average of an average leads to exactitude.

Any advice to develop a film shot with guessed exposure?

Emilro

Pieter12

MattKing

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Donald Qualls

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Emilro

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Pieter12

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pentaxuser

Emilro

Emilro

pentaxuser

Donald Qualls

voceumana

Helge

Emilro

Emilro

Alan Johnson

Grim Tuesday

Donald Qualls

NB23

Any advice to develop a film shot with guessed exposure?

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