Extreme High Contrast - having a brain fart...

[brokenglytch]

Hey guys, I'm hoping someone can help jog my memory from a decade ago.

In one of my early semesters taking film photography at the college, we shot a roll of high contrast shots. This project required using Tmax film when we had been shooting only Tri-X up till that point, and it had special chemistry. I can't for the life of me remember how we did it/the name of the additional chemistry/special developer because back then I didn't order my own photo chemistry, I just used whatever the darkroom at school had (D-76 / Ilford Multigrade Paper Dev). I'm taking a third semester all these years later and one of the other students is interested in extremely high contrast shots so I wanted to pass the info along to her. She normally does her contrast tweaking in the dark room during printing, but seemed interested in shooting for extremely high contrast in the first place.

Once processed, the film was essentially lithographic in nature. There was zero tonal range. Everything was either black, or white. Areas that almost appear grey are, upon closer inspection, distinct points of pure black spaced on a field of pure white, almost like a piece of pointillism.

Does anyone know how this might be achieved with Tmax film? Again, I don't remember if this was a kit with an additional chemical, or whether it was just a substitute developer/dilution that generated the extreme results. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[RobC]

you could use an ortho film such as following with a lith developer such as fotospeed LD20

http://shop.silverprint.co.uk/Rollei-Ortho-25-35mm-36-Exposures/product/26521/RF1011/

or you could use your t-max and use normal dev without diluting the stock and give extended development and/or you can print at grade 5

Bear in mind that most fine detail will be lost by going high contrast and there is a very fine line between what appears black and what appears white. For that reason I think its better to use normal film (T-Max OR Tri-X) and give some extra dev time to increase contrast a bit and then use printing time and high grade to determine where the fine line between whats black and whats white occurs. If you did it by using ortho film and lith developer, then you have to get it spot on with your image exposure at the taking stage and the division between black and white is fixed at that point.

 

[bence8810]

You could push the film 2-4 stops and over develop but like above said, not a whole lot of details will be kept.

Ben

 

[ic-racer]

High contrast developer: http://www.freestylephoto.biz/50022-Arista-Powder-A-B-Lith-Developer-1-Gallon

 

[darkosaric]

Once I developed CMS 20 in Rodinal with very very strong agitation - this is what I got (print scan - Emaks grade2 developed in Ilford multigrade):

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[brokenglytch]

Thanks for the replies.

Rob, the point is to make a lith style shot without using ortho film. I know for fact I shot it on TMY-2. Exposure control was important, and the results were black and white with no tonal range between.

bence, I do a lot of push photography and it still has midtones (not many of course) and isn't quite what I'm referring to. My best so far is Tri-X 400 with a 5 stop push, semi-stand processed in a custom soup of Rodinal and Microphen for 90 minutes. Most of the shots were too under-exposed because I need a better meter than the one in my 40 year old camera, but the ones that had enough density to print are pretty awesome.

IC, that could be what we used I suppose. I'll have to do some more digging. If nothing else, it's a promising lead, though at an initial casual glance I didn't see any recommended times on the Digital Truth Massive Development Chart for this developer.

Any other ideas out there? The more the merrier.

 

[brokenglytch]

darkosaric, now that's interesting. I know I didn't do Rodinal for that project because the instructor and I always talked about ordering some for different projects, but she never did it. I do have some as mentioned above for doing long semi-stand push processing.

Do you recall your dilution / time / agitation scheme?

 

[darkosaric]

Dilution was 1+100, agitation was constant agitation for 30s, 30s break, then again 30s agitation (and very aggressive agitation - like mixing a cocktail) ... for 10-15 minutes, not sure. The thing is that normal films will not go so high in contrast in those conditions, but CMS20 is not a normal film.

 

[brokenglytch]

Yeah, a guy in my class has been shooing a lot of CMS20 and I've seen some of the results. Very unique emulsion. He's been using the Adotech 2 developer to get some phenomenal detail with his Leica M3...street photography from 35mm that can be blown up to over 16x20 without any noticeable breakdown...pretty amazing stuff.

I'm going to try an old roll of Tmax 100 that I didn't have anything planned for and see what it does under those conditions. It might not be as extreme, but it might get close. If it doesn't work, I'll order a few rolls of CMS20 and go from there.

Thanks again

 

[darkosaric]

With Adotech developer you get phenomenal details - I printed 30x40 cm size, and no grain under the loupe!

Here is one example with adotech developer, wide open at f1.8 (nikkor 50mm):
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[RobC]

you don't need to underexpose the film. I would expose at box speed and then over develop it as though you had underexposed it by one or two stops.
Meter the subject normally.

Then you can control the graphic effect with contrast grade and time adjustments.

This assumes a normal contrast subject.

And bear in mind that by that by doing this you will lose some of either the highlights or shadow detail dependding on your print contrast grade and time. You can choose which by controlling the print.

Also note that when printing at a high contrast grade, the right print time can be a very narrow window of a fraction of a second so finding it with test strips is usually required.

 

[brokenglytch]

Pushing does help to reduce overall contrast, but makes it a little more fickle as to what bits end up on which side of the line.

Rob, I know I could use multigrade filters and do contrast in printing. Hell, I could scan them and play with contrast curves in photoshop easier than any wet process. Point is to remember the exercise in shooting for high contrast development of film so I can pass it along to someone that's interested in extreme contrast. She already tinkers with filters in the enlarger, but was curious about developing the film to be high contrast straight out of the gate.

darkosaric, I haven't had a chance to do the test run with that old roll of tmax 100, but I'll keep you posted when I do and upload some results. I think it should work. Generally speaking, the slower the film speed, the more extreme you can make the contrast from what I've seen. The tonal range gives you more options and the contrast gets 'out of control' faster than with a fast film. I normally shoot the fast stuff like 3200 Delta or pushing 400 speed a couple of stops to 1600, so this is a bit of a learning adventure for me too, trying to recreate this project.

 

[RobC]

if you want high contrast graphic look on film then get some ortho film and develop in lith developer.