A bunch of comments thanks! I don't blame HC-110 in first place! It's my favourite developer, classy! It was the first title that popped in my mind... to answer the questions... see below
Is this your naked eye looking at the negatives without any form of magnification or is it looking at a print at say 8x10 inches?
If it isn't a 8 x 10 print then try making one and then look at it. I presume that there was a time when your negatives/prints were less grainy so try making prints from the less grainy negatives or at least look at both sets of negatives with sufficient magnification to see grain and compare.
Ideally put both the less grainy and more grainy negs into an enlarger and focus with a grain focuser. This will tell you if there is a grain difference.
If you have no access to a darkroom and an enlarger then you might want to check that nothing has changed in your scanning.
Frankly if you are basing your conclusions on looking at negatives without any form of magnification or you are basing your conclusions on scanning then I don't think you can make any meaningful conclusions.
In recent months apparent faults, problems with negatives,screen prints or hard prints from a scanner have been due to scanning problems.
pentaxuser
@pentaxuser
I'm reviewing upon my scans. Which happens with the same scanner and settings. Perhaps I should put them below my enlarger and see for myself. As others already said, scanning could be also a problem. Thanks for your input!
Hello!
The temperature makes a difference, have you adjusted the time when going from 20°C to 21.5°C?
If not you are probably overdeveloping slightly (which could show up as more grain). If you have reduced the time, it might be that it is still a bit too much.
Cheers,
Franck
@Frank
Didn't adjust times, though I have a chart for it. I'll develop at 20°C again next time to rule out this problem. Thanks for your help!
A different camera means a different shutter, which most likely means a change in exposure, which could mean over-exposure, which could mean increased grain.
@MattKing
I see, it's a "new" (2nd hand) Nikon FE, before I used Leica M6, Nikon F100, Pentax ME Super, etc etc, no problems before with switching cameras. Since it's an electronic controlled shutter I think the times are correct. Or could they go bad over the years? Also thanks!
Dear Jesstr,
I have a feeling its probably you not the HC110.
Without very sophisticated testing I doubt in all honesty you could actually perceive the 'increase' in grain with the human eye, even enlarging 35mm to 16 x 12 , but that does not mean to say it isn't happening I would be almost sure its a processing problem 'overdeveloping' or it certainly could be the camera not operating to parameters you think it is.
Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :
@Simon
Maybe, as stated, I should test this deeper and investigate it. I'm only shooting film for 1.5 years now (film only) so not a pro yet. But I want to get into all the details and specifications to know what's happening, and why it's happening. Thanks for your help.
Don't rule out perception. Perhaps you should start there in fact. The suggestion to go back and revisit older negatives was a good one. Make prints of old vs. new and view them side by side. It is well known how easy it is for cooks to develop a "house mouth". If musicians never heard any music but their own they can slowly drift out of tune. Sometimes recalibration of the grey matter is necessary.
Also, scanning film completely transforms the look of the film grain. What you see is nothing like what you have, even when using a drum scanner. Film grain exists at the level of image noise and no scanning technique in existence is designed to reproduce it faithfully, which would require truly absurd levels of resolution. The closest you can get with existing technology is to make an enlargement and scan it reflectively.
Didn't knew that scanners changed the grain... (well I did somewhere, my A3 prints always look much much cleaner than the scans) so maybe it's a combination of overdeveloping and scanning... Thanks for the help too!