HELP! I forgot to account for reciprocity failure.

Well, I tried to develop the roll normally, but I think it was too long. My negatives were pretty thick. I used Dilution E for HC110 at 7:15. I will probably shave 45 seconds off of the development next time - please let me know what you use. I have not edited these at all - even the dust is still there.

First, here is the cliche pier shot - long exposure then normal exposure. The long exposure was at around 1:30, I think. I did lose a some shadow detail (the morning sun was hitting that side of the pier pretty strongly), but I actually don't mind the look:








Next, I have a shot under the pier. I have lost all shadow information on the long exposure on this one. It was longer, at about three minutes, so the reciprocity adjustment would have been much more. I wanted to be one post closer, but I didn't have anything with me to keep the tripod from sinking as the waves hit:






Hopefully I won't make this mistake again. I doubt I'll even bother with long exposure on Tri-X because of the insane adjustments. Even for the normal exposures, I think I prefer Ilford. But the Tri-X does have a very classic look to it, somehow. Especially the very last picture. Very different from what I am accustomed to.

Thank you again to everyone for the advice. I thought you might like to see the comparisons.

[QUOTE="Ariston, post: 2181382, member: 88853"Well, I tried to develop the roll normally, but I think it was too long. My negatives were pretty thick. I used Dilution E for HC110 at 7:15. I will probably shave 45 seconds off of the development next time - please let me know what you use. I have not edited these at all - even the dust is still there.

First, here is the cliche pier shot - long exposure then normal exposure. The long exposure was at around 1:30, I think. I did lose a some shadow detail (the morning sun was hitting that side of the pier pretty strongly), but I actually don't mind the look:

View attachment 224176

View attachment 224177




Next, I have a shot under the pier. I have lost all shadow information on the long exposure on this one. It was longer, at about three minutes, so the reciprocity adjustment would have been much more. I wanted to be one post closer, but I didn't have anything with me to keep the tripod from sinking as the waves hit:

View attachment 224178

View attachment 224179


Hopefully I won't make this mistake again. I doubt I'll even bother with long exposure on Tri-X because of the insane adjustments. Even for the normal exposures, I think I prefer Ilford. But the Tri-X does have a very classic look to it, somehow. Especially the very last picture. Very different from what I am accustomed to.

Thank you again to everyone for the advice. I thought you might like to see the comparisons.[/QUOTE]

I’m glad you processed the film. You can call it a “mistake”. They’re wonderful images. I don’t the lack of shadow detail works. Take good notes because you never know when you’ll want to reproduce the look again.

Thank you for the kind words.

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Don't know about the monobath but I tried Antec's desensitiser once. The desensitiser stained the film (Orwo UN54), the reels and the tank heavily but the film got fogged as soon as I lifted, after a few minutes of developing, the lid of Patterson tank and took the film off the reel to inspect in ambient light.

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Did you dilute it or use it full strength? I am the one who developed the formula for Antec and never had an issue with staining. Phenosafrin is the dye and it seems to counteract the sensitization in most panchromatic emulsions. Also, some developers play better with phenosafrine than others. I found that a MQ developer works best. Not sure what kind you used. Also, while you can inspect in bright light, I would use a bright darkroom safelight (I had sodium vapor lamps) that really did the trick. I hope you can try it again, as it is pretty cool to develop film much as we do paper. Stay well.

sedwards said:

“Exposure indices can be raised about 1 stop if the film is presoaked for 1 minute in a 1% solution of Sodium Perborate instead of a water presoak. Film is developed after presoaking without rinsing. (If you cannot find Sodium Perborate, this presoak can be made by diluting a 3% solution of Hydrogen Peroxide with 2 parts water then adding enough Kodalk (Sodium Meta-borate) by weight to make a 1% solution). Incidentally, this presoak will also boost film speeds with conventional development as well.”

This is off of Antec’s website. They make a desensitizer and mono bath as well as sell bulk chemicals. Could be worth trying?

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The use of nascent oxygen is a legacy way of boosting film speeds. I have tried the perborate with a number of films and had a speed boost with several different developers (d-23, d76, d72, rodinal). If you dare, you can also use elemental mercury (put your film on a SS reel in a dry tank with a bead of mercury, IN the dark, or course, leave it in there for 24 hrs or so, Then open the tank (in the dark) and spool the film into your cartridge, shoot and develop. You get about 1/2-1 stop or so. You can also rehypersensitize the film by reexposing it on the reel, in the tank, with another bead of mercury for 24 hours. Elemental mercury is environmentally toxic, so use it at your own risk!

Vaughn said:

Nice 'sketchbook' work. Such things help to prepare one for images that one sees later on by learning how the camera/lens/film sees.

Reciprocity failure can be your friend! It allows one to get a little more contrast in an otherwise low-contrast scene...or bump it up if needed in a scene of normal contrast. TMax, or Acros (RIP), can help control RF a bit more than conventional films, so might be worth exploring...rather than esoteric chemical approaches.

This wharf/jetty was taken on Kodak Royal Pan back in 1986, developed normally in HC-110 (16x20 silver gelatin print). I used a red filter and the exposure was at f64 for 10 seconds. My Pentax Digital spot meter gave me reading of 16 for the sky, 15 for the sunlit sand and 10 under the jetty. I exposed at 7 (3 stops for the red filter) -- putting the underside of the jetty on Zone V, basically -- or Zone III with two extra stops for RF, but I was not thinking that way back then.

The tide was receding and I moved the camera up once to keep my composition...but hurrying to keep the shadow line semi-centered under the jetty. The negatives is not particularily dense and printed easily. I burned the underside of the jetty a little as there was too much info there and I wanted a different 'mood'.

I used a red filter because I wanted to reduce the blue light that surrounded the underside of the jetty relative to the underside. That is what I remember thinking, and right or not, it worked. The print takes a couple hours of spotting -- I had high humidity static discharges happening during the next 3 months the exposed film rattled around in a film box as I rode my bicycle in lots of New Zealand rain. Still one of my favorite images from that 6 month trip.

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That’s a great image. I don’t understand how you got any detail in the sky if it was six stops over Zone V. Did you burn it during printing a lot, or am I misunderstanding?

As I revisit mine, I am happy with the moodiness and am going to keep notes about how I did it (as suggested above) in case I want to recreate the look.

I think I understand... you are saying the red filter brought the sky down to VII, and the underside down to III...

What helped was the red filter, which brought down the sky's values relative to the underside of the jetty (and the values of the sun-lit sand relative to the shaded sand) -- so on the negative itself there is a smaller range of values than found in the scene. I only did a little burning of the sky values on the right-hand side to match them with the sky values on the left.

Also, I generally do not like overly dark and contrasty skies -- so the sky is printed lighter than what one often sees when other photographers use a red filter.

At the time of this image, I had only been using LF for 7 or 8 years, without much technical study...most trial and error, and without much knowledge of RF and other finer details. Luck combined with some experience.

Funny thing -- for some reason I have been assumming for years that I used TMax100 on this 6-month bicycle trip. I found my notes for my post and was surprised I used Royal Pan (400ASA), then some Kodak Super XX for the last images of the trip.

This image was made on the same trip with Super XX (200 ASA), using the red filter only as a nuetral density filter (overcast day and not much color anywhere in the scene). f64 at 4 seconds (9 -- 12 plus 3 stops for filter) -- water read 15, rocks 13 to 14 and the wet rocks 12, with the darkest areas at 11. Looking at my notes again -- I selenium toned this negative to bump up the contrast.

A little more contrast in the digital reproduction on-screen than in the actual print.

Another nice image! I recently got a 4x5 camera to dip my toes into large format and enjoyed it a lot. I have yet to have a chance to take it out for a real (deliberate) photo, though. I wanted to make sure I could load, expose and develop properly, which I was able to pull off. Hopefully I can get out with it again soon.

I've used Cokin mounts and screw on filters for medium format and 35mm. How do you mount filters for your large format? Or do you just hold the filter up to the lense manually?

Modern lenses have filter threads, so I use the normal screw-on filters. The second image was taken with a Caltar IIN 150/5.6 that takes a 49mm filter, while the first image used the Computar 210/6.3 and takes a 72mm lens.