How to Develop for Highlights?

Jimi and Jim and Janis · Oct 23, 2009

Im doing a Birthday project for my girlfriend so I'm gonna make a photo stitched Panoramic of the city view from my rooftop and the make enlargements of each photo so she can put it up on her wall.

I want to expose for the shadows of the building so I dont lose the details, but I dont want the Highlights to burn up. I guess I should pull my film from the Developer sooner then usual but how soon? I plan to shoot 1 stop over with Tmax 400 and Tmax developer and at 22 degrees I develop for 7 1/2 minutes. When should I pull the film? Thanks

Michael W · Oct 23, 2009

For a starting time look at the Massive Dev Chart at digitaltruth.com
There will be a time for Tmax exposed at 200 ISO which is what you are doing & the time will be somewhat less than for 400.
You can't really take that as gospel however & it's worth doing a test first for your methods.
You don't have to shoot an entire roll, you can do a clip test - shoot 8 or so frames of the subject & then cut that piece off the roll & process, leaving the unexposed portion in the canister for further clip tests if necessary, or actual shooting. You'll just have to cut a new tongue for the film.

2F/2F · Oct 23, 2009

"I plan to shoot 1 stop over..."

You can't really make plans as to how to expose and develop until your camera is set up and ready to shoot. Weather and light change constantly. Wait until you are up there to decide what to do. If it looks contrasty, overexpose and pull. If it looks normal, shoot normal and process normally. If it looks flat, underexpose and push. (This is all stated assuming you are after a somewhat "normal" rendition of tone and contrast.)

mike c · Oct 23, 2009

If I was you J,J,an,J ,try some practices rolls at 10% to 15% less time in developer.Beware of to short of developing times which will mottel sky and cause un even development.Could also lower temp. to 20 deg C.

PeteZ8 · Oct 23, 2009

Interesting, the MDC shows the time for TX-400 @ 200 and 400 ISO at 1:1 to be only 15 seconds different? That's only about 2.5% difference in time going from 9.5 to 9.75 minutes.

http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Tri-X+400&Developer=D-76&mdc=Search

Somehow that just doesn't seem correct.

Jimi and Jim and Janis · Oct 23, 2009

You guys make good points, i should try it out first before go out shooting for real, I mean it is for her birthday.

Thanks everyone!

mike c · Oct 23, 2009

Ya if ya got the time it can help avoid some disappointment.And the knowage you gained will be usefull in the future.

fschifano · Oct 24, 2009

You don't need to do this with TMax 400. Sorry to bust your bubble on this one, but that's the truth. Conditions need to be really extreme before you start losing shadow detail with this film. It is that good. I use D-76 or XTOL for this film and there's not much it can't handle.

markbarendt · Oct 24, 2009

Good film? Absolutely.

Flexible? Sure.

Magic bullet? No.

How can anybody figure out what exposure and processing works best? Test it.

fschifano said:
You don't need to do this with TMax 400. Sorry to bust your bubble on this one, but that's the truth. Conditions need to be really extreme before you start losing shadow detail with this film. It is that good. I use D-76 or XTOL for this film and there's not much it can't handle.

Ronald Moravec · Oct 24, 2009

One stop over is -20% from you standard development time. I never found a film/developer where this was not very close if not perfect.

How to Develop for Highlights?

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