How to develop for overexposed TRI-X 400? Getting grainy negatives at normal dev time

If your water is liquid, and you are somewhere near normal conditions, then you cannot have a temperature below 32F. Otherwise, your water would be solid.- aka ice.

Unless of course you involve something like salt, or super-saturation, or other esoteric matters.

Your thermometer is reading too low.

But that can be okay, if it is consistently low, in the important range, and you adjust accordingly.

You can trust my knowledge about water and ice - I am Canadian.

Not to mention a fairly antique BSc. in physics.

Rather than doing a backflip to fix this with film processing you may want to fix the root of the problem.

If the shadows lack detail in studio then there is too large a difference between the main light and the ambient or fill light. (Too much main and or not enough fill)

Longer shutter open time helps fix that. Flash power is controlled in the flash unit by limiting duration, full power may be 1/1600th of a second, half 1/3200th... resetting shutter from 1/200th to 1/100th will allow ambient light twice the effect, 1/50th twice again. This can open up the shadows a bunch without affecting the flash exposure.

Other thoughts

Opening the curtains to let some sunlight in.

Turning on more lights in the room.

Turning down the strobes and opening up the aperture.

Reflectors or white sheets on the off side.

Adding more light can, as you've seen, compound the problem.

Water in thermal contact ice will be at 32F until all the ice melts. Very, very pure water can be put in a unstable super-cooled state where it will remain liquid below 32F. However this is hard to achieve. To get lower temperatures typically a water, ice, and salt mixture is used. This will get you down to approximately 0F.

Alright guys I have a serious issue here. I repeated the same exact development with a new roll of film that was bracketed and EVERY frame turned out overly dark with the same density. I had metered for the sky and got a reading of ISO400, f/2.8, 1/200. I bracketed the ten shots via shutter speed like this:

1/400 (-1)
1/200 (0, metered reading)
1/100 (+1)
etc...
1.5s (+8)

I wanted to see what exposure would give the best density for scanning. Here is the result of TRI-X 400, D-76 1:1 (9m45s), TF-4 (1:3, 10m). The camera was pointed up at the sky in the first frame by accident, but at -1 exposure why the heck would it be so dense...:

[video=youtube;LBYdKY0Xxik]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBYdKY0Xxik&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Update: contact scan



The exposure on these frames should gradually be increasing as I slow down the shutter to let more light in. How can they all be the same exposure?! This has truly got me stumped, I feel like ripping my hair out! Could my chemicals be dead (no odors or color) or my thermometer underestimating the heat of them?

Is this shot with an RZ67?

Which lens?

Are you by chance using an RB67 lens on an RZ67, and trying to adjust the shutter speed using the control on the camera body?

RZ67 w/ 110mm 2.8 for RZ - was working perfectly fine until recently. Shutter speed dial turns fine. If it was stuck at 1/400 due to lack of battery or something that should make the frames thin and underexposed, not overly dense like this!!!

This changes everything about this whole threads situation, now I really have no idea where these issues are coming from. If my RZ is giving only 1 exposure frame after frame every roll I'm screwed.

1/400 at f/2.8 for Tri-X would definitely be over-exposed in most daylight conditions.

Well it was 7PM and the sun was setting, pretty dim outside. It's what my Sekonic L-358 was reading, and the RZ67s battery light does not blink or anything.

Just now I switched my shutter speed to 8 seconds and noticed for the first time that the lens blades only stay open for a split millisecond regardless of what shutter speed I choose (1/400 or 8s). This can't be normal behavior right? Fresh battery, same thing.

Prof_Pixel said:

Scanning dye based images is one thing; scanning silver images is completely a different thing. Dyes don't scatter the light; silver grains do, making silver images more difficult to scan - especially when they have high density.

Click to expand...

Notice I suggested using a chromegenic film

I hope that camera doesn't have an auto mode which you have switched on. And/or it's not in EV mode where changing shutter speed also adjusts aperture to retain same overall expsoure (Hasselblads can do this).

moodlover said:

Well it was 7PM and the sun was setting, pretty dim outside. It's what my Sekonic L-358 was reading, and the RZ67s battery light does not blink or anything.

Just now I switched my shutter speed to 8 seconds and noticed for the first time that the lens blades only stay open for a split millisecond regardless of what shutter speed I choose (1/400 or 8s). This can't be normal behavior right? Fresh battery, same thing.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Given the fact that all the negatives in the video and on the contact look virtually the same, this is a clear indication that something is wrong with the camera/lens. For example, I recently had a student who bought a brand new looking Hasselblad 500CM for a great price. However, when she told me the owner said that it had hardly been used my heart sank. She did a test roll and all were overexposed and slightly blurry. When I looked at the set-up it was clear that the lack of use had led to the shutter/iris blades in the lens sticking and so she had to get it CLAed.

What I do not understand is that if it is only staying open for a split second you should be getting underexposed images.

You should now try setting the camera/lens to 'B' and fire at the smallest aperture and see if it stops down all the way. Repeat several times and then do the same with each aperture up to wide open. Once you have observed what is happening report back here for further advice.

Also, just as an aside, you can ignore the old wives tale about overexposure causing grain. This has been repeated over the years by lots of people who do not stop to think about what they are saying. If more light hitting a film causes more grain on the negative than less light hitting the film, then in everyone's B&W images the highlights would be very grainy and the dark shadows would be grain free. Ever seen that? . . . No nor have I. Grain appears most visible in the mid-tones of an image - especially if it is a large even area.

Grain is affected by the specifications of the film in combination with the development regime used.

Best of luck sorting your camera issues out so that you can get on progressing with your photography.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

Is it just me or am I the only one that likes the over exposed neg better?

Mainecoonmaniac said:

Is it just me or am I the only one that likes the over exposed neg better?

Click to expand...

It's just you

You're right

RobC said:

It's just you

Click to expand...

But I listen to Celine Dion and have Thomas Kincade paintings on my wall.

Mainecoonmaniac said:

But I listen to Celine Dion and have Thomas Kincade paintings on my wall.

Click to expand...

never heard of them

RobC said:

I hope that camera doesn't have an auto mode which you have switched on. And/or it's not in EV mode where changing shutter speed also adjusts aperture to retain same overall expsoure (Hasselblads can do this).

Click to expand...

This camera is all manual and doesn't come with a built-in EV mode like that so I'm not sure what the heck is going on. Even the RZ67 manual doesn't seem to say anything about this.

David Allen said:

Given the fact that all the negatives in the video and on the contact look virtually the same, this is a clear indication that something is wrong with the camera/lens. For example, I recently had a student who bought a brand new looking Hasselblad 500CM for a great price. However, when she told me the owner said that it had hardly been used my heart sank. She did a test roll and all were overexposed and slightly blurry. When I looked at the set-up it was clear that the lack of use had led to the shutter/iris blades in the lens sticking and so she had to get it CLAed.

What I do not understand is that if it is only staying open for a split second you should be getting underexposed images.

You should now try setting the camera/lens to 'B' and fire at the smallest aperture and see if it stops down all the way. Repeat several times and then do the same with each aperture up to wide open. Once you have observed what is happening report back here for further advice.

Also, just as an aside, you can ignore the old wives tale about overexposure causing grain. This has been repeated over the years by lots of people who do not stop to think about what they are saying. If more light hitting a film causes more grain on the negative than less light hitting the film, then in everyone's B&W images the highlights would be very grainy and the dark shadows would be grain free. Ever seen that? . . . No nor have I. Grain appears most visible in the mid-tones of an image - especially if it is a large even area.

Grain is affected by the specifications of the film in combination with the development regime used.

Click to expand...

Yeah perhaps my development has been fine all along and it's the camera/lens thats causing major issues. Funny you mention your student because I got this RZ67 on eBay from someone who said it hadn't been used in a long time.

You're right, if its stuck at a fast shutter I should be getting underexposed images, and that is exactly what I'm confused about too. I did set the camera to Bulb mode and even if I hold the shutter release button it just closes in a split second so it's ignoring my shutter speed choice completely. Here's a video (yes battery is fresh):

[video=youtube_share;krLest9vS28]http://youtu.be/krLest9vS28[/video]

Proper negative reducer. You will need to mix chemicals. Find one that reduces highlights more than shadows. There are proportional, sub proportional, and super proportional and I forget what does what.
Paint red dye on the thin areas so you can expose longer and/or flash the print which makes the highlights print faster. http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Printing/printing.html Last paragraph on the page.
Diffusion enlargers work better for burning through dense highlights.