High exposure times for enlarging / Negative Density?

[JohnMatters]

Hello All,

So I recently got back into the darkroom after a number of years away. When I first got into B&W development (through a club with maintained facilities), I recall my enlargement times being around or below a minute. As I get back into it, my times for enlargement are much longer .... in the 2-4+ minutes, with the aperture open to 2.8 ! The images cast onto my enlarger board from all the film I've been shooting (10+ rolls, with a variety of film & developer combos) are so faint that focusing can be a challenge as well.

I thought it might be an equipment thing, but I just dug out some of my old negatives and they enlarged very brightly and exposed quickly.

So, I am wondering what the heck is going on!? I am thinking now of ruling out equipment differences, and wonder if my negatives are totally to blame ? I've shot on different ilford, kodak and arista films and used rodinal, D76 and HC-110 for development, following development guidelines as best I can. My final images turn out well enough, but require what seems like way to much time.

Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated!

-John

 

[JW PHOTO]

Lay a newspaper or magazine on the table, in a brighlty lighted room, and see if you can read the black print/letter while holding the negative at or near a 45 degree or less angle to the text. If you can just barely read it through the denser areas of the neg your exposure and developement are fine or good enough at least. I'd then look into the enlarger bulb, lens aperture problem or something in the light path. Do you get a bright projection on the easel with no negative in the carrier? John W

 

[Bill Burk]

JohnMatters,

Welcome to APUG!

Yes dense negatives take longer to print. You might be making overexposed/overdeveloped negatives these days. Nothing wrong with print times of 2-4 minutes but you probably want them to be 30-60 seconds.

If overdeveloped, taking 15% (maybe 3 minutes) off the developing time might cut the print time in half. (Is your developer too hot?)

If overexposed, cutting exposure two stops might cut the print time in half. (Is your shutter sticky/slow?)

Most of the time I'd recommend making only one change - but in your case the resulting print times are so extreme (compared to your old negatives)... That it might be a good idea to make two changes: Check for problems with both your exposures and development time.

 

[Christopher Walrath]

I'm with Bill. 2-4 minutes is just way to long for a normal enlarging exposure. Something is definitely amiss. How long in the soup before the image becomes visible? That should not take much longer than about 15 seconds or so I would think. Also, what paper are you using? Is it good paper? Is it new or old? Any chance of fogging? Other considerations as well.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Is the enlarger light setting on High or Low? Mine has Low, High, and White [without filters].

 

[ic-racer]

You didn't make the mistake of wasting you time with expired film, did you?

 

[JohnMatters]

Thanks for all the responses! I've got some follow up answers:

-Yes, I am using variable contrast paper, and filters. Typically a #2 or #3 filter (a print I made this morning from hp5 w/ a #3 filter that took 3.25 min).

-I've mostly been using ilford fp4+ and hp5 in 35mm, and shot a roll or two of tri-x in 120 (all of which is recently purchased and not expired). The 120 went through a camera I know has problems, and I've not really done much with it.

-It would say 15-25 seconds sounds about right for seeing the imagine appear on rc paper, closer to a minute when I gave it a try with fb paper.

I've been pretty careful in metering (handheld as well as in-camera) and exposing my shots but will try and make a special project of staging some very specific shots to see if I can't get some more usual results, and see if maybe my thermometer needs calibration.

Thanks again!

 

[pentaxuser]

What is the wattage of the bulb and how big are the prints? Even if you had grossly over-developed negs I fail to work out how at f2.8 and the usual 75-100 W bulb your exposure times can be anything like 2-4 mins unless your prints are very large indeed.

What is more puzzling is that your description of the negs suggest that they are very thin and not over-developed. When you hold up a strip of these negs do they look predominantly black i.e. have large dark grey or black areas in them as would over-developed negs

I suppose that if the lamp's wattage is very low or the lamp is about to expire then maybe the times might be 2-4 mins but I'd be surprised.

I really cannot work out these times. The other possibility is that the aperture is stuck at say f16 even though it says f2.8. It might be worth checking that the aperture is working properly by opening and closing it across the range.

How bright does the light seem to be at f2.8? It should be very bright but your "hard to focus" statement makes me wonder if either the bulb is of a very low wattage or the aperture is stuck at the smallest aperture.

pentaxuser

 

[cliveh]

Without any negative in the enlarger or use of contrast filters expose down on a test strip of paper for one second at F2.8. Does it go black in the developer.

 

[Bill Burk]

If you stage a few shots: Take three shots 2 f/stops apart - Normal, 2 under and 2 over. It's an old, old test for exposure problems. And it's also an effective test for development problems too.

Still, if you were careful metering and had different cameras do this to you, that's starting to lean towards development.

You didn't accidentally mix the Rodinal or HC-110 at too high a concentration? Maybe try the D-76 at 1:1 for 10 minutes at 68-degrees F. Run cold water over your fingers and wrist. Turn on the hot water just a tad. 68-degrees has an interesting feel to me. I can barely sense rivulets of almost warmth breaking through but being canceled out by the overall chill of the cold. It's definitely not warm, but just above cold.

 

[MartinP]

To compare negatives of different films, from different cameras, at different times it may be convenient to make contact-prints. Choose a normal grade-2 filter, with a time that gives you a result where you can barely tell the film-base 'almost-black' from the paper 'as black as it gets'. You will then easily be able to see any difference between the old and new negatives over time, regarding density or contrast. After that you might have a better idea of precisely what needs to be differently controlled in producing the negs.

Presumably you have already not seen any major difference looking at the negs visually, otherwise your questions would be different, so check there is no neutral-density dialled in to the enlarger (this is a useful feature in many colour heads) and that the bulb type, voltage and power are as expected (energy-saving bulbs won't work well for example!). Remember that really long exposures could show safelight fogging when a more normal exposure would not be out for long enough to be affected - if all else fails, try rigging up your safelight so it is off when the enlarger is making an exposure. We will all be interested to find out the cause(s) of the problem.

 

[MattKing]

The images cast onto my enlarger board from all the film I've been shooting (10+ rolls, with a variety of film & developer combos) are so faint that focusing can be a challenge as well.

To me, this says you have problems with either your enlarger light source, or the light path.

What enlarger are you using, and what light source?

Are you sure there isn't something in the light path, like a neutral density or colour filter?

If it is a condenser enlarger, are the condensers clean and undamaged and complete and properly placed?

If you have a colour head on the enlarger, is the light diffuser correctly sized and positioned, and has it yellowed?

 

[walbergb]

I'm with Matt-sounds like a light source/path problem. I have a Beseler 23C II that came with a condenser head. Lots of light, too much. I retrofitted it with a Dichro S head and I was running 2 minute exposures with filtration! I switched the original diffusion chamber for what Beseler calls an after market "light multiplier." I'm now exposing at reasonable times (10-20 seconds at f/5.6--2 stops closed from wide open). How intense is the light on the baseboard with the lens wide open, no filtration, and nothing in the negative carrier (see Cliveh's suggestion).

 

[JohnMatters]

I am using a Beseler 23CII-XL. Enlarging 35mm negatives to, usually, 5x7 or 6x8. Have a 55mm lens on the enlarger and am using a 75w bulb. I'll have to wait until I have things set up next to test out these new suggestions, but will do so (next week?) and see how things go.

Thanks, again, everyone.

 

[MattKing]

You may have the condensers set for a much larger format.

Which lens is it? 55mm sounds unusual.

 

[Hilo]

- maybe you fixed too cold?
- If that Beseler can have it, you should really use a 150 watt bulb

 

[pentaxuser]

We now know that the OP prints at 5x7 or 6x8, uses F2.8 with a 55mm lens and 75W lamp. Even if the correct wattage is 150(is it for his make of enlarger?) it is difficult to see how this results in 2-4 mins exposure.

I am still puzzled. I look forward to the OP's next report-back. It has to be connected to the "light" or lack of it in the broadest sense of the word and whatever it is, it is clearly creating a fundamental problem

pentaxuser

 

[JohnMatters]

Alright, I spent some time experimenting with my enlarger this morning. Using an empty 35mm film carrier, and with the bulb height set to 35mm, i lowered the head all the way down to have the light for a 4x5 print. With the lens all open (to 2.8), a 2 second exposure resulted in a gray tone that spot meters somewhere btw. 10% --> 18% (closer to 10). A true black seems to be around an 8->10 second exposure....I can see a slight difference in the 'black' at 6 second vs. 8 seconds, but not between 8 and 10 seconds.

According to the Beseler manual, 75W is the proper bulb for this enlarger.

I am not an expert at reading negatives. But I built a light table this week as well to better investigate what is going on. On some of my older film, there seems to be a little more clarity...by which I mean the strip between each shot it almost clear, whereas a more recent roll I've shot has that spacing strip more of a light gray. Both rolls Kodak, the clearer one 400tx, the other 400tmy-2.

 

[cliveh]

Alright, I spent some time experimenting with my enlarger this morning. Using an empty 35mm film carrier, and with the bulb height set to 35mm, i lowered the head all the way down to have the light for a 4x5 print. With the lens all open (to 2.8), a 2 second exposure resulted in a gray tone that spot meters somewhere btw. 10% --> 18% (closer to 10). A true black seems to be around an 8->10 second exposure....I can see a slight difference in the 'black' at 6 second vs. 8 seconds, but not between 8 and 10 seconds.

According to the Beseler manual, 75W is the proper bulb for this enlarger.

I am not an expert at reading negatives. But I built a light table this week as well to better investigate what is going on. On some of my older film, there seems to be a little more clarity...by which I mean the strip between each shot it almost clear, whereas a more recent roll I've shot has that spacing strip more of a light gray. Both rolls Kodak, the clearer one 400tx, the other 400tmy-2.

There is something wrong with your enlarger. Check the internal aspects from light source to lens. But what do you mean by bulb height set at 35mm?

 

[pentaxuser]

Most cameras wind the film so far on that you normally have a black section which was exposed when you load the film into the camera and a clear section which is pulled through, unexposed after the back is closed.

If you don't have this then exposed a frame with the cap on. Use this clear frame in your neg carrier and see what exposure is required to produce a max black on paper at your normal height for say a 6x8 print at f2.8. It should be in very low single numbers of seconds , appreciably lower than even than 8-10 secs.

8-10 secs at f2.8 means that at two stops down i.e. f5.6 the max black is 32 secs which is still high as far as I can see but is getting much closer to where I'd expect exposure to be.

I take it that you have checked that the lens does open and close as it should and that you have a manual that tells you how the enlarger needs to be set-up for 35mm film?

pentaxuser

 

[John Koehrer]

There is something wrong with your enlarger. Check the internal aspects from light source to lens. But what do you mean by bulb height set at 35mm?

The lamp/condenser housing on a 23C is adjustable for different formats. There's a scale on the RH side with format sizes and the LH/CH is set to the format.