B.B King Pictures with TRI-X@3200 and HP5@3200

[Ricardo Nechar]

Hello everyone!
I would like to ask you about your sugestions on film development for TRI-X pushed at 3200 and HP5 pushed to 3200 too. I took some pictures of B.B King show here in Brazil and I really don?t know what is the better developer product and correct time for this situation. I look at past posts but my problem is that I only have Microphen and D-76 developers.

Could you please help me on this matter?

Thanks!

Ricardo

 

[Kevin Caulfield]

You would be best advised to shoot a test roll of each at the same ISO, and then try them in the developers before doing tests on your important B.B. King shots.

 

[timeUnit]

I did HP5+ at 3200 in XTOL 1+1 for 22 minutes in 20°C. Agitation first 1,5 mins, then 10 secs at 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 and 21 minutes. The light in the pictures was really bad, so I can't say the pics were _good_ but the development looked allright. That said, Kevins advice is the one to take. Don't take chances with important pics.

 

[Ricardo Nechar]

Thanks for the reply Kevin and timeUnit!
I will get TRI-X (very easy to find here in Brazil instead of HP5 that disapear) and make some push/developement tests, before I go to the real one...

Regards,

Ricardo

 

[Donald Qualls]

If you can get Diafine developer, one method I've used that gives a nice EI 3200 on Tri-X is to develop normally in Diafine (3 minutes in Bath A, then 3 minutes in Bath B), followed by a thorough water rinse (I gave 3 changes of water with 30 seconds agitation in each, followed by 30 seconds with acid stop bath, and one more 30 second water wash to wash out the acid -- all of this to ensure that no Bath B got into the Bath A, which would lead to failure of the Diafine), then another cycle of Diafine at 5 minutes for each bath (in Bath A, to compensate for the film being already wet and thus slower to take up the developer, and in Bath B to give longer for the developer to work on the tiny amount of silver yet available).

The end result was nicely exposed images done with an automatic camera that thought the film was ISO 3200 because of a mistake in fooling the DX sensors.

HOWEVER: you'll probably find your stage images will look better at a lower development level, EI 1600 or even 800, if you used any kind of averaging meter; the subjects are generally pretty well lit at a concert, but there's commonly a large dark background that fools your camera's meter into overexposing the subject, so when you test, it would be best to shoot the test roll in the same kind of lighting (i.e. stage lighting in a dark theater) as the original.

I'd suggest testing a conventional two stop push first, which (for Tri-X, in most developers) can by had by simply doubling your normal development time. If that works for the Tri-X, it will most likely work fine for the HP5+ as well.