Canon FTBn Kodak Tri-x Kodak HC110 Dilution H 9 minutes. Advice Needed.

Hello All,

Sorry to bother you but I have a, is it the camera, camera operator or bad film developing question.
I understand there are a lot of variables and to get everyone just right is the challenge but as a total novice I thought I'd throw myself in at the deep end and just try everything and see how it went.

Just another note before I get into my questions, I've just bought (but not read yet) Ansel Adams "The Negative" as I had read it's a good way to start.

I have a situation I hope you can help with.
I have used a Canon FTBn (It is slightly off shutter speeds due to a different battery being used) and rated the 400 film at 200 as suggested (half way through the film and it seems to have made no difference) on here on other links and threads. I have also bought the shutter speed tester app and it seems OK. Plus I took the camera into Luton Camera repairs and they slightly adjusted the meter FOC and said the camera fine (though this was after I took these shots)

I also bought Kodak HC-110 and used the Dilution H at 9 minutes with Agitation for the first minute then 3 agitations every minute there after.
By agitation I mean turning the Patterson tank (not sure if that's correct or not) instead of just turning the knob.

Here are the shots with notes, if you can give me an idea of what I am doing wrong then I would be most grateful.



Now I don't understand the relationship between underexposing/overexposing and under and over developing film.
Though I do know what the terms mean.

My understanding is, though this could be completely wrong.
I underexpose a shot then develop correctly I assume that shot comes out dark.
I correctly expose a shot and overdevelop it comes out light and maybe a bit grainy.
Over agitation means over development.

What I don't understand or know is.
If I leave the film in the developer for longer using dilution H will over expose?
If I develop for less time the film will be contrasty and dark?
Should I even be using Dilution H as my first attempt in home developing?

Any help will be gratefully received. Thank you.

Oh BTW. I have Rodinol and Ilfotec HC110 but have not used them yet.
Sorry for the long post.

Hard to say without seeing the negatives "in person". Several factors might come into play.

For instance, in the second image, the face coming out "too dark". You don't give details about your s*n*g (prohibited word here) process, but what the software typically does is adjust (stretch or shrink) the range of tones to match the shadows and highlights present in the frame. So, if you have highlights (on the hair), to accomodate their reproduction in the output d**l image, the other tones will be pushed down; an experienced s*n*r user (or darkroom printer) might "sacrifice" (or not, artiisitc decision) those highlights for the sake of reproduction of intermediate tones.

Second, do yourself a favor: buy a hand meter. With a little patience, for £10 (you seem to be in UK) you can have a decent basic meter, like a Gossen Sixtino, and for a little more a Weston Master (with bragging rights as a Zone System expert). Without going into all the complexities of the Z.S., think tone placement. Getiing good shadow tones is one nice thing, but don't overdo it, like, e.g. setiing your meter at 200iso for TX400 and metering the shadows to Zone V.

Finally, 9 minutes for HC-110 Dil.H seems on the low side, from memory I'd have thought more like 11min.

Good luck

Your camera has a very good meter if it's metering correctly. Almost a spot meter. You want to meter what is essentially a middle tone and let the rest of the tones fall where they may (this will get you in the ballpark w/ Tri-X). When I owned your camera, I generally put that central metering spot on whatever I thought was most important to me (like the young lady's face) to get my readings. The portraits seem to have come out pretty good. They should print well w/ just a little adjustment. I had one of those little twirly knobs with my tank and I threw it away. I was getting all sorts of surge marks. Better to give the tank a gentle, sorta swirley inversion than use that. D76 is your classic developer for Tri-X, although people here like HC-110. Never used it, so maybe someone else can help w/ the times. Over development means developing the film for too long, or at too high a temp. Agitation is simply inverting the tank, but it's possible you could get over development if you went crazy w/ agitation. There are some good examples of over and under developing on the web if you spend some time googling it. Seeing the examples is easier than trying to explain it. Here's 2 links at the bottom to a couple that I like. Over/under development and exposure will affect the whole neg, not just parts of it. Most of the time it is impossible to get all the ranges of light captured in a shot, so focus on what is important to you. I'm not sure what you have there on the 2 shots. May be a little light leak.

If you are using a 1.5V battery instead of the called for 1.35 or 1.4V (I forget which it calls for), then that could be a problem. Just buy the proper voltage hearing aid battery. They are dirt cheap, and you don't need a washer to make up for the small size, it will stay in place fine w/o one.

What I would recommend is shooting a test roll to see how your particular camera exposes. Shoot one frame of the same shot at 100 ISO, another at 200, and another at 400. Pick several types of lighting to do this, and keep the light the same for each 3 exposures. While rating Tri-X at 200 to 250 is what I recommend, that doesn't mean that's optimal for your particular camera, so see what gives you the best exposure and write it down for future reference. There are a lot of ways to get exposure dialed in, but this one is simple and fast, and will not require buying anything else. Make sure you are exposing on the right area in your scene!

For what it's worth, everyone should own a small, accurate hand held exposure meter because it often comes in handy.

http://www.aregeebee.net/negs/eneg.htm


http://www.ephotozine.com/article/assessing-negatives-4682

The pictures with the trees and the bridge are possibly light-struck. Check the negatives. If they have dark areas corresponding to the light-struck areas on your scans, then start looking for the problem. It could be a camera light leak or a problem loading/unloading.

As for your dissatisfaction with the more contrasty portrait: you just need to recognize contrasty situations and handle your lighting better. If I were analog printing that print, I would simply burn in the bright areas.

As for underexposure/underdevelopment issues, it is hard to make an evaluation without seeing the negatives. You say you "lightened" a print in the scan... That could point to underdevelopment or underexposure.

As you delve into Adams' "The Negative," keep in mind that his approach and the Zone System in general was designed for sheet film. The advantage is, you can develop each negative individually to optimize it for the brightness range of the subject.

This is rarely the case using roll film. I shoot sheet film and use the Zone System and a spot meter. I recommend to roll-film users the following:

Use your camera meter intelligently to get a good average mid-tone reading (many camera meters do this just fine by themselves, but with many, you have to avoid having a lot of high values in the metering field). Then, expose and develop "normally" for average and low-contrast scenes. For high-contrast scenes, overexpose by a stop and develop normally (this seems unintuitive to many, but will be clear after you've read and digested "The Negative"). Then use paper grades to adjust for the different contrast negatives on one roll.

Best,

Doremus


www.DoremusScudder.com

Older SLR cameras often suffer from the light sealing material breaking down. It can be easily fixed in most cases by cleaning out the old seals and replacing them. Materials and kits are available and generally inexpensive. Try searching this forum for a start and you should get some information. It's worthwhile doing this(if it hasn't already been done) if you intend keeping and using the camera.
Alex.

Adams "The Negative" is a good book, but not the easiest place for a beginner to start.

It might help you here if you talked more about how your negatives appear, rather than the results of your scans. When the variables of scanning are introduced in these discussions, it can make it very confusing and complex.

The battery in the FTbn won't affect the shutter speeds - just the meter readings.

The most important thing to remember is this:

- exposure affects how much detail shows in the shadows
- development affects how much contrast is in the negative and how the highlights appear in relation to the shadows

So generally, you use your meter to determine how to expose for those shadows, and then consider adjusting the development to make sure that the highlights render appropriately. Of course, as Doremus points out, with roll film you often have a variety of different scenes on your film, so you often have to choose a developing time that will give you typical results.

If you increase development, it won't have much affect on how your shadows appear, but it will increase the contrast, and therefore how the highlights appear.

This site may give you some hints on how to evaluate your negatives: http://www.ephotozine.com/article/assessing-negatives-4682

It isn't perfect, but it isn't bad.

How much developer do you have in the tank? When you are using dilution H, you need to be careful that you have enough - generally at least 384 ml (if Kodak's numbers are to be followed).

I normally incident meter 400TX at 250 and use HC110 Dilution H at 9 minutes, so that seems reasonable.

The one of the bridge seems possibly light struck -- or maybe under fixed? Any milky effects seen in the negative? (If so, refixing could correct that.)

Do any of the light areas seen in the scans (dark on the negative) extend outside the frame area? That would be light striking for sure. Some of the problems could be the -- uh -- digitizing process, especially if done with software that likes to be "smart" and automagically determine settings.

My 2 cents!

My guesses, and a few comments:

If you suspect a light leak, set your shutter speed to a slow value, load a roll of film, go out on a sunny day and shoot the roll of film with the lens cap on. Composition is not very important, but try to get shots with the camera at different angles to the sun.

Develop the roll of film. If it has anything on it other than the edge markings, then you have an issue with light leaks, and you want to take the camera in to a camera repair shop and have it looked at.

Film has limited dynamic range - much more limited than your eye, so the image on the film will come out different from what you see. The composition in the first image that you post has a very wide range between the brightness of the sky (sun?) coming through the trees, and the darkness of the shadows under the trees. Decide what you want the final print to look like - if you want detail both in the sky and in the darkness of the woods, you are going to need to compress the dynamic range - The book you have will help you with that.

In the second image you have a similar issue -the difference in brightness in the sunny spot on her face and the hair and the normal skin tone is too much for a successful portrait. Try moving the subject to a place where her whole face is in the shade. Direct sun is generally not going to help a portrait - the dark shadows will overtake anything of interest in the face.

Not sure what is going on in the third image - is the negative density similar to the fourth image? If the image is very thin, then it may just be a case of underexposure, if the negative is very dark then it might be overexposure...