Extreme grain

Hello,

I'm trying to get extremely grainy negative like Daido Moriyama's (and other Provoke members like Takuma Nakahira) work from 60s-70s.

I use Tri-X film.

I've tried with Rodinal, but I don't get that extreme grain...
So, I'm trying with Dektol. I've experimented a bit with Dektol 1+8 at various temperatures (from 20 °C to 40 °C)
However I'm an absolute beginner to b/w development and I'd like to get some advice to get even more grain...

What are the effects of Dektol dilution on grain? Should I overdevelop even more?


I've got a bunch of expired Tri-X Pan from the 80s, could this help to get even more grain?


Some images to explain what I would like to get (especially the first one):





http://blogimg.goo.ne.jp/user_image/04/4f/38f32255b4c82d31cc41ef8e961a052b.jpg

Thank you!

P.S.: Another question... How could I get something like this: http://www.schaden.com/covers/043/04343.jpg ?

Expired Tri-X after 30 years ? Expose +3 stops for the speed loss and expect some fogging.

Try to shoot on 35mm with Tr-X or any higher film speed and use just the half-frame > the more you enlarge the more grain.

Peter

Major enlargement is an answer.

Reticulation can look like grain.

The secret here is major temperature differences.

You could develop the film normally... then insert it into an ice water bath after fixing.

Afterward, wash it in very warm water. (Too warm can cause emulsion damage, but I would think you'd be ok up to 30 C or so.)

Some experimentation will be required.

copy a high speed 35 mm film to sheet film and then print from the film to another sheet of film and so on till you get the grain you want. its like photocopying a photocopy the more times u do it the greater the grain you will get. but to achieve this ive seen the results form films like kodak recording film.

Expose your Tri-X at a high EI (say, 1600), and push process. You'll lose the low-end, but you might not mind too much? Also, try a faster developer - low-dilution HC110, undiluted D76, something like that.

And yes, enlarge the heck out of it.

Lots of agitation during development will emphasize grain and contrast.

I tried some experiments to get extreme grain with TRI-X recently. I tried several different developers, exposure regimens, and techniques including just about everything suggested for extreme grain except out of date film. I was consistently unsuccessful. Gainer suggested what may be the best idea a while back: use a wide angle lens, stand back, and enlarge a lot. If you use a developer that shows the grain sharply, like Rodinal, that should work better than trying to produce big grain in a film that wasn't designed for it. You might also want to investigate scanning the negative and using one of the Photoshop filters that imitates grain.

It could be something they achieved at the printing stage too, with lith printing. You can choose a paper that comes out grainy, like Fotokemika Varycon, or Slavich Unibrom Grade 4, bleach it back, and develop the print in regular Dektol or other concoction to get a very grainy look.

Either that, or you crop your negatives like crazy.

- Thomas

D72/Dektol isn't that grainy but D163 is.

As a naive teenager I needed some dev for the first 120 film I shot & the girl in the chemists (pharmacy)/photostore sold me this wonderful Universal developer for Films & Papers, the images were excellent - great tonality, biting sharpness and extremely grainy.

So I can highly recommend D16£

Ian

The easy way is to frame loosely in camera, then crop like mad when you make the print. Why do I say this? Several reasons. First and foremost, the Tri-X you get today is nowhere near as grainy as the Tri-X you could get 30 or 40 years ago. I don't care how you split it, apparent grain is determined more by the inherent structure of the film than by any development technique you care to throw at it. It will not look like older versions of the film.

Sure you can emphasize grain by overdeveloping the film. That's no secret. Overdevelopment bumps up the contrast more than anything else, and that emphasizes grain. Whether you use a highly active developer like Dektol, increase the development temperature or time, or use a more vigorous agitation technique; it all boils down to the same thing. But overdevelopment does not come free. You give up useable information with this technique. With normal exposure, highlights will be too dense to print. Coupled with under exposure, shadow values are lost; sacrificed to the goal of pushing what would normally be mid tone information up the curve. You can compensate for any of these things to a certain extent when making the print. One thing you cannot do is print what is not there.

Using old outdated film well past its prime is just that. It is old film and it is age fogged. You never know what you're going to get. Sometimes it's ok. Often it's not. And the worst part is that you don't know how bad it really is until you've spent the time, effort, and money to make your exposures and process your film.

Try good old W-17 Hydrofen (Foton`s N10, Foma still making it) developer. Push Delta 3200 up to 6400 and there you have grain like bean

Paul

Moriyama's work is printed with a lot of contrast but also, the film he was using for a lot of his well known work 30 or 40 years ago would have been a bit coarser than now. I'm going though a very grainy phase just now and love 35mm Delta 3200 through Adox APH09 (available from Retro and Fotoimpex), which gives a smooth negative with very sharp grain so you can keep adding more contrast in the printing to bring out the texture of the grain. I'm sure the grain with this film will be closer to what you want. Dektol is great too though you may find the negs sometimes too contrasty. Do you know the work of Masahisa Fukase Paolo? His book "Solitude of Ravens' is incredible.
Dead Link Removed
Sadly it's out of print and very expensive on the collector's market but luckily, the National Art Library in London has a copy so it's available in London for study.

One thing I didn't think of before. Check out Foma 400 film in 35mm. It is pretty grainy, and looks fantastic in Rodinal. It is probably more of an ISO 200 film than 400, but shoot it at EI 400 and agitate a lot for a lot of contrast when you develop. Rodinal 1+25 should look amazing. It's probably grainer than Delta 3200, and has a completely different inherent contrast.

Have fun.

- Thomas

Thomas Bertilsson said:

It's probably grainer than Delta 3200, and has a completely different inherent contrast.

Click to expand...

This sounds interesting!

paolo.meschi said:

Hello,

I'm trying to get extremely grainy negative like Daido Moriyama's (and other Provoke members like Takuma Nakahira) work from 60s-70s.

Click to expand...

1 You probably won't duplicate what you are seeing in the book exactly whatever you do...

2 But the suggestion I'd recommend bassed on experience is, as Mike Crawford's post says, 35mm Delta 3200 in Rodinal (or equivalent). Experiment with EI and dev time and ratio - expect to use less than EI3200 and longer than advertised times and higher than advertised concentrations. Then print with high contrast (3 or more probably). There is lots of info on this site on using D3200. Grain will be pronounced and sharp. Example:
http://www.pbase.com/mononation/image/65663434/medium

just to put this out there does anyone here use grain masks? what where are is peices of film delta 3200 for example just slightly fogged and developed to produce a grain base in the film. you then use this grain blank and sandwich it with a finer grained negative and print from that. The resulting image which would have otherwise been fine grain now takes on the heavier grain of the film it has been sandwiched with. the advantage of grain masking is that if you ever want the image with less grain its possible.

Mike Crawford said:

Moriyama's work is printed with a lot of contrast but also, the film he was using for a lot of his well known work 30 or 40 years ago would have been a bit coarser than now. I'm going though a very grainy phase just now and love 35mm Delta 3200 through Adox APH09 (available from Retro and Fotoimpex), which gives a smooth negative with very sharp grain so you can keep adding more contrast in the printing to bring out the texture of the grain. I'm sure the grain with this film will be closer to what you want. Dektol is great too though you may find the negs sometimes too contrasty. Do you know the work of Masahisa Fukase Paolo? His book "Solitude of Ravens' is incredible.
Dead Link Removed
Sadly it's out of print and very expensive on the collector's market but luckily, the National Art Library in London has a copy so it's available in London for study.

Click to expand...

Wow. Thanks for turning me on to this-

How much of Moriyama's work was cropped and enlarged to fill the gap at the printing phase? I can't even believe Tri-X of that era had *that* much grain.

I am a big fan of Daido Moriyama too. I really like his work. I have tried to "copy" his work in many ways(tri-x pushed to 1600,rodinal 1+25,overdev,etc,etc), but I am still looking for the good one.
My next step will be to develop at high temperature (40c).

If you like Moriyama, you should take a look at Jacob Aue-Sobol and Anders Petersen.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gfevan/

30 or 40 years ago, the grainest b+w film on the planet was Kodak 2475 recording film, a film with an ISO speed of (IIRC) 1275 and made to push-process for low-light surveillance applications. I really don't know what happened to it!

PS: It may just be still around:
http://www.baja.org/sensuousline/sline0797/ra2475.htm

Crop and/or enlarge a lot, or use a higher speed film.

Further to above, it seems 2475 is no more. The last time I tried for grain, I used Fuji Neopan 1600 (Delta 3200 or TMZ are just too fine-grained) and pushed it a bit in Rodinal 1+50 (I wouldn't use 1+25, the contrast gain is likely to be excessive).

gfevan said:

...My next step will be to develop at high temperature (40c)...

Click to expand...

Are you sure you want to do this? Isn't 40C a bit too much?

All the above + Lith print on Varycon for example. You will get more than what you need.