Delta 400 exposed at iso 100 ???

hakans · Mar 30, 2011

Hi,

I've accidentally shot a roll of delta 400 at iso 100. I use ID 11 (stock) for developing. What do you recommend? Should I pull it to 50% of developing time.
Or what development time should I consider to get the best result?

thanx in advance...

hakan

bwrules · Mar 30, 2011

You'd probably get very flat negatives. I would use one of the speed-reducing developers instead. Perceptol, Microdol, etc.

Robert Hall · Mar 30, 2011

Don't pull it 50%, that would be a bit too much.

Try 25% less and see what you get. Otherwise use something like PMK developer as it looses a good stop or so on speed.

Regardless, if you don't cook your highlights, you will be able to print what you have. You might even like it.

markbarendt · Mar 30, 2011

Delta has a fair amount of latitude, extra room on the film curve; if the scene lighting was fairly normal, then all you have really done is move what you want to print a bit further up the straight line on the film curve.

Simply put you may be just fine at normal development. You will probably just need a bit more enlarger exposure to place the subjects on the paper where you want them.

RalphLambrecht · Mar 30, 2011

hakans said:
Hi,

I've accidentally shot a roll of delta 400 at iso 100. I use ID 11 (stock) for developing. What do you recommend? Should I pull it to 50% of developing time.
Or what development time should I consider to get the best result?

thanx in advance...

hakan

Reduce development by 10% and enjoy the shadow contrast. Your friends will envy your technique and will ask you what your secret is.

hakans · Mar 31, 2011

Thanks a lot for all contributions. ı will develop 25% off the time and share with you the results...

RalphLambrecht · Mar 31, 2011

hakans said:
Thanks a lot for all contributions. ı will develop 25% off the time and share with you the results...

Slightly flat negatives that will print well at grade 2.5 to 3 with great shadow contrast, is my bet.

Rob Skeoch · Apr 1, 2011

I would go ID-11 mixed 1:3 for 17 minutes at 68 degrees. I've used the film for years and have run all the tests with ID-11 since it's my developer of choice.

-Rob

BetterSense · Apr 1, 2011

I would develop normally and not worry about it.

Richard S. (rich815) · Apr 1, 2011

You won't get flat negs since you over exposed by two stops. Develop in d76 and reduce time by 25-30%. Developed normally they'll be way too contrasty.

markbarendt · Apr 1, 2011

Your choice for development sets up the possibility of a very specific film curve.

A typical print does not use that whole curve.

Exposure simply places where certain subjects land on that curve, the contrast rate remains.

Some extra exposure does make more density but it's normally proportional, you can still print the same print most times just by adjusting the enlarger.

What will normally change is shadow separation improving.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 2, 2011

rich815 said:
You won't get flat negs since you over exposed by two stops. Develop in d76 and reduce time by 25-30%. Developed normally they'll be way too contrasty.

Exposure does not change contrast, development does. So, normal development gives normal contrast.

2F/2F · Apr 3, 2011

You picked a good film to mess up with. It can recover very well from exposure mistakes because it does not shoulder off as quickly as some other films. Developing normally and then printing through the thick negs in the darkroom would work fine. You could also underdevelop if you want. I would not do that unless you shot in contrasty light, though. You will probably get a bit more grain than normal, but that film is already pretty low in grain, so it is probably not a deal killer.

Usagi · Apr 6, 2011

2F/2F said:
You picked a good film to mess up with. It can recover very well from exposure mistakes because it does not shoulder off as quickly as some other films.

Isn't funny how these T-grain films (especially tmax) bashed so much after they came. They had a reputation as really hard, unforgive films that had no room for mistakes during exposure or development.

It took really long until people realized that straight or almost straight curve is actually easier than old style film curve with a big shoulder.

Perhaps it was only fear of the new. But the reputation still lives.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 6, 2011

Usagi said:
... It took really long until people realized that straight or almost straight curve is actually easier than old style film curve with a big shoulder. ...

What old-style film has a big shoulder?

Usagi · Apr 6, 2011

RalphLambrecht said:
What old-style film has a big shoulder?

Perhaps big shoulder was wrong term?
I tried to describe the typical shoulder of S-shaped curve.
Some traditional films has very similar linear curve like tmax. Fp4+ is one of them (at least when developed by me).
Most have more or less shoulder.
The Adox/Rollei Pan 25 curve is in attachment, I call this a big shoulder - but is it?

BetterSense · Apr 6, 2011

I shoot tmax specifically because it's extremely forgiving of exposure. Actually, 'traditional' films like tri-x have been improved so much that they also have a very linear curve. It's only films like Foma that encourage me to actually pay attention to exposure and development.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 6, 2011

Usagi said:
Perhaps big shoulder was wrong term?
I tried to describe the typical shoulder of S-shaped curve.
Some traditional films has very similar linear curve like tmax. Fp4+ is one of them (at least when developed by me).
Most have more or less shoulder.
The Adox/Rollei Pan 25 curve is in attachment, I call this a big shoulder - but is it?

A normal brightness range has about 7 stops. All films I'm familiar with show no curve to speak of up to a range of 10 stops (N-3), including your graph. Consequently, there is no significant difference between TMax and 'traditional' films as far as a shoulder is concerned. You have to 'starve' your developer to get the highlights to roll off into a shoulder, and I recommend against it, because the straight line of the characteristics curve produces much better highlight contrast.

bwrules · Apr 6, 2011

RalphLambrecht said:
Exposure does not change contrast, development does. So, normal development gives normal contrast.

Though bright contrasty light results in contrasty negatives.

bwrules · Apr 6, 2011

Usagi said:
Isn't funny how these T-grain films (especially tmax) bashed so much after they came. They had a reputation as really hard, unforgive films that had no room for mistakes during exposure or development.

It took really long until people realized that straight or almost straight curve is actually easier than old style film curve with a big shoulder.

Perhaps it was only fear of the new. But the reputation still lives.

I think Tmax is also more responsive to light and developer - it gives more variations in results than older films do. This can be challenging.

hrst · Apr 6, 2011

bwrules said:
I think Tmax is also more responsive to light and developer - it gives more variations in results than older films do. This can be challenging.

"More responsive to developer" makes sense, and it is true; but "more responsive to light" does not make any sense. If your phrase meant something, it would mean higher contrast, which simply isn't true for Tmax. The contrast is also very dependent on developer and development time. Both "traditional" style films available now and the TMAX&Delta have very long linear scales, but Tmax & Delta may have even a bit more.

While Tmax is very forgiving for exposure, it is known that it "responds" more easily to the developing errors. These properties have been hard to distinguish for some people and they are often mixed up even though they are opposite to each other in this case. It can be said that TMAX is easier to expose and harder to develop, if something, but I would suggest to stop this kind of simplifications; "definite rules" do not belong to photography. I had great results when I developed my first film ever, which was T-Max 400. Nothing magic there, unless you screw up so badly it would affect also the "traditional" films.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 6, 2011

bwrules said:
Though bright contrasty light results in contrasty negatives.

Sorry, but you are mixing terms. 'bright' and 'contrasty' are two different things. Bright lights do not create contrasty negatives by themselves. Contrast is the difference between shadows and highlights, and that difference does not change with exposure. Consequently, there is no need to significantly reduce the development due to overexposure. However, depending on the lighting situation and characteristics curve, reducing the development a bit (10%) may help to keep the highlights off the shoulder.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 6, 2011

bwrules said:
I think Tmax is also more responsive to light and developer - it gives more variations in results than older films do. This can be challenging.

Sorry, but you're mixing terms again. TMax is just as responsive to light as any other film of its sensitivity.

We really need to define the term 'older films'. All films, I've tested, can be developed to N-2 to N+2 or more. I see no significant difference other than that TMax100 reacts to development time changes more sensitively than many others.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 7, 2011

That must be it.

2F/2F · Apr 7, 2011

Michael R 1974 said:
I think alot of people still think about so called "traditional" films such as Tri-X, Plus-X, FP4, PanF etc as being the same as they were in the 50s and 60s when indeed they had more s-shaped curves, especially the slower films that had rather abrupt shoulders well below zone X. These films are different now. Their characterstic curves are often as straight-lined as tablular films with full separations to at least zone XII and higher. Even from an emulsion perspective my understanding is since tabular grain films use less silver and also rely significantly on dye sensitization, the manufacturers wanted to bring some that technology to the traditional films (for a variety of reasons...) and so they were mostly reformulated to be traditional/tabular hybrids, their former pebble-shaped silver crystals becoming somewhat flatter (although still not all the way to fully tabular).

That is very true. Films are incredible today. As I just mentioned in another thread a few days ago, new Tri-X is incredibly technically sound and bears practically no resemblance to its former self. I find it hard to get gnarly grain at 8x enlargements without specifically trying to increase it via "alternative" exposure and processing.

However, you can still end up on the shoulder of flat grained films without too much work. If you shoot in a very wide brightness range and make exposure errors, there is a chance that you are changing your highlight separation even when you print the negs down to normal. A two stop exposure error, like what happened to the OP, can sometimes cause that with a film like FP4, etc. if the lighting/composition is contrasty enough.

Delta 400 exposed at iso 100 ???

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