Thank you. I just edited my post to mention that I use a stainless steel spiral reel in a metal tank. And I also failed to mention that I am using the XTOL 1+1 as one-shot, no replenishment.Increase the time for Fuji 100 Acros II by 15% to 20%. I found that Ilford film with replenished XTOL in a Jobo processor consistently required one minute added to the 68°F [20°C] time. Some film-developer-tank combinations are just that way. YMMV.
Thank you. I just edited my post to mention that I use a stainless steel spiral reel in a metal tank. And I also failed to mention that I am using the XTOL 1+1 as one-shot, no replenishment.
I would be curious to know if the edge markings on your Ilford film were as faint as the ones in my second photo before you started adding the extra minute of developing time?
Yes, I agree, there are a few overexposed and underexposed on each roll. I often seek out "tricky" lighting and I have not yet mastered metering basics. I also usually carry two cameras loaded with two different films, and I sometimes forget to change the ISO setting on my meter when switching back and forth. I will probably give up on XTOL, as well, if I can't determine exactly what my problem is, and how to reliably fix it.It appears to me that you have both an exposure AND a development problem. If it was purely a development issue, then all the negs on the same roll would look relatively the same. Personally, I gave up on Xtol years ago for several reasons, but other photographers love it. Also, in my experience all TMax films will reveal pink(ish) fixer, if the film has been properly fixed.
Seems so to me.Can we agree that the sheet of negatives on the right side of my first photo look about right? And therefore, this batch of XTOL worked as expected at least once?
+1It appears to me that you have both an exposure AND a development problem. If it was purely a development issue, then all the negs on the same roll would look relatively the same. Personally, I gave up on Xtol years ago for several reasons, but other photographers love it. Also, in my experience all TMax films will reveal pink(ish) fixer, if the film has been properly fixed.
Possibly. The last thing that was in that particular bottle was D-76. I did rinse all the one-liter bottles several times with hot water (can't remember for sure, but I may have used a small amount of Dawn dish soap, followed by numerous hot water rinses). BUT, both rolls were from that same bottle, so if the T-Max 400 is good ...Seems so to me.
I wonder about your storage bottles - could thy have been contaminated?
Try another roll of T-Max, or at least a clip of one.
I do have some Adox Silvermax developer that is open, but should still be good. I plan to shoot a roll of something, cut it in half, and develop one half in XTOL and the other in Silvermax.+1
seems your film has been underexposed in-camera quite a bit, and it seems that your negatives look like xtol ( thin ) negatives.
I was never able to get XTOL to work for me either ( after a few years of trying desperately to be in the xtol club ) I consistently had under processed film no matter how I increased time or exposure. many vit c developers seem to be "low contrast" developers.
do you have any other non xtol developers lying around ? Les Mclean wrote something here and on his website about mixing rodinal and xtol together, I don't do that, but I use caffenol C and add a tiny bit of whatever print developer I have lying around in it, and it helps with my similar thinnish looking negatives issue.
have fun and until you get your system worked out I wouldn't use xtol for anything but film to test it with, use a different developer for your "important" work.
I have two Pentax MX bodies and these 2 films were exposed in different bodies.I think you have predominantly an exposure problem. The Acros roll has some negatives that look good, so I don't think underdevelopment alone explains the other very thin negatives. Did you use different cameras for the two rolls? How do you meter?
I have two Pentax MX bodies and these 2 films were exposed in different bodies.
I usually meter each scene with both the camera meter and an incident reading from a hand-held meter. All of the T-Max and half of the Acros was metered with a Gossen LunaLux SBC. The last of the Acros was metered with a Sekonic L-308s. Incident readings from the two meters agree very well. But the readings between the cameras and the incident meters do not agree. But I would expect that, because many of those scenes had large areas of Zone 3 shadows - so the center weighted meters on my cameras want more light than my incident reading of the light.
Maybe.No one has commented on the very faint edge markings on the Acros. Does that have any significance?
I can show you xtol (actually mytol) developed negatives that have through-the-roof contrast. The notion that vit C developers would be inherently low contrast, thin, bloodless, slow, etc. is bogus.I was never able to get XTOL to work for me either ( after a few years of trying desperately to be in the xtol club ) I consistently had under processed film no matter how I increased time or exposure. many vit c developers seem to be "low contrast" developers.
I can show you xtol (actually mytol) developed negatives that have through-the-roof contrast. The notion that vit C developers would be inherently low contrast, thin, bloodless, slow, etc. is bogus.
I can show you xtol (actually mytol) developed negatives that have through-the-roof contrast. The notion that vit C developers would be inherently low contrast, thin, bloodless, slow, etc. is bogus.
I think your bigger problem is exposure, but the test with two developers is not a bad idea and good thing to learn how to do. But ideally you need to shoot the whole roll of the same scene with a wide range of tones at the same exposure. If you shoot all kinds of different stuff at different exposures that introduces confounding variables making it hard to see the effect of the developer alone. I would not rush to thrown in other developers with Xtol at this point. That just adds another complicating variable. The degree of problems you show can't be attributed to Xtol if is used properly. With developers in general and especially Xtol it is good to do a clip test if we haven't used the developer recently. You take a scrap piece of film like a film leader exposed to the light and develop it. It should turn out really dark almost black. It's best to first do a test with fresh developer to compare with. If subsequent test show the sample getting less dark the developer is probably failing. I don't think you need artificial lighting to do a test.I do have some Adox Silvermax developer that is open, but should still be good. I plan to shoot a roll of something, cut it in half, and develop one half in XTOL and the other in Silvermax.
Thanks so much to everyone who replied! The faint edge markings distracted me from the bigger picture, but now I hope I am back on track.
My plans to test my metering technique and to also compare results from development in XTOL vs. Adox Silvermax developer are somewhat complicated by the weather forcast - rain expected, all day. The vast majority of my photos are exposed out-of-doors on sunny days, so, except for the fact that outdoor light is constantly changing, sunlight and/or open shade would probably be ideal for testing. But ...
Would it be a Bad Idea, to try to set up a test for my light meters and expose some b&w film using artificial light? I do not have any proper photographic / studio lights. I do have some household bulbs - LED and tungsten. I can get halogen, if that would be any better. My local camera shop MAY have some daylight adjusted bulbs; I will check when I buy my test film. I have some old flashes which might produce good negatives for testing the developers, but, obviously are not helpful with testing incident readings from my light meters. (And if you think my ambient exposures are bad, my flash results tend to be really bad.)
Is it possible / likely that either the film or my light meters will respond differently to artificial light (vs. sunlight), and therefore will introduce yet another element of uncertainty into the results? Both of my handheld meters have modern silicon photocells. As
About my test target - will printed step-scales tell me what I need to know, or will the limited range of a paper print not present enough tones to show when my exposures start to loose the ability to record shadows and highlights?
Finally, does it matter what film I use for testing? The obvious answer is, Test the film you plan to use most often - but I am still trying to find the one or two I like best. (Right now, I am leaning towards Ilford FP4+ and Delta 400, or possibly, T-Max 100 and 400.) My local camera store does not have a great selection - just a few of the most popular mainstream b&w films from Kodak and Ilford. I guess for testing my metering, I might want a film with the LEAST latitude? Hmmm... that would be slide film, right? But for testing the developers, what should I look for? High speed vs, low speed? Conventional grain vs. tabular? Or does it really matter?
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