Can I salvage some dense TMax 400?

[NortheastPhotographic]

A couple questions about 120 TMax negatives. I shot them when my wife and I walked the Cotswold Way, a 102 mile hike through the English countryside. I took my Rollei 2.8E the whole way and shot a LOT. A few of my favorite images are fairly over exposed. Not exactly sure how that happened, I rated the film at 320 and used a Sekonic L308...but oh well, here we are.

Can I use a reducer of some kind of salvage some of these? They have 2 problems. Higher than normal grain, and a phenomena I've noticed from very dense negatives developed in a Jobo, streak marks along one side. I'm not sure what causes these, but I see them exclusively on very over exposed film.

Above is one that is slightly less horrifically over exposed (and I've done some processing to the scan), but you can see the very faint streaking in the lefthand sky area. It's faint here, but more pronounced on other images. If I can't make these suitable for silver printing, I can scan them and do Piezography prints...but I'd prefer silver.

Thanks!

 

[Bill Burk]

I’d simply print them. TMAX has such a long straight line that you would be able to get a decent print.

 

[Sirius Glass]

What Bill said and additionally select a few negatives to see it split grade printing helps.

 

[koraks]

They have 2 problems. Higher than normal grain, and a phenomena I've noticed from very dense negatives developed in a Jobo, streak marks along one side. I'm not sure what causes these, but I see them exclusively on very over exposed film.

Trying to use a reducer would probably help tone down the grain a little. But it's risky and frankly I wouldn't bother; the risk of overdoing it and ending up with ruined negatives wouldn't be worth it. As @Bill Burk says, just print them. As to the streaking: it's plausible you see this more on high-density frames since more development activity takes place there. But the fundamental problem is related to agitation and flow patterns of the developer. I find with 120 film in a Jobo tank it helps to do a pre-soak. If you already do so, then try a different agitation scheme. For me, a few inversions every 30 seconds works OK, with constant agitation the first 30 seconds of development.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

I second Bill Burk's suggestion. Just print through the density (and get the light meter and camera shutter checked out).

A reducer will increase the negative's contrast - it will reduce the shadow areas to black blobs before it does anything appreciable with the highlights.

There are bleach & redevelop scenarios that will have less effect on contrast and may even reduce contrast. As a downside they often involve bleaching with P. Dichromate, a rather nasty compound. I suppose a P. Permanganate bleach could be used but I have never had good luck with P.P. bleaches.

 

[Paul Howell]

I like the grass and tree, nice contrast, as suggested split grade print, or just pring grade 2 and burn in the sky a bit.

 

[npl]

High grain, dense negatives, film rated close to it's box speed .. are you positive the film is overexposed and not overdevelopped ?