how to develop this more "effectively"...

musila · Feb 26, 2012

I'm doing a project where I am knowingly overexposing a "scene" and I absolutely cannot help it. This "scene" is also going to result in a low contrast negative. This project is being shot on roll film. I'm curious on what you would think the best way to develop these negs were. I'm thinking of trying split developing, (maybe d23 with a Kodalk bath) or a quick Dektol bath? Develop them normally, and bleach then after? I know the the negs aren't going to be perfect, but I'm trying to get the best I can out of them. The film is Fuji Neopan Arcos 100 because its reciprocity failure rate, if that matters.

Any suggestions?

MDR · Feb 26, 2012

Musila please excuse my question but what are you photographing and what are you trying to achieve. Overexposure usually does not result in a low con negative quiet the contrary in fact underexposure would result in low con negs. Overexposing is way enhance contrast. White on white would be the exceptions. Split developing usually lowers the contrast even more. So again my question what are you photographing and what are you trying to achieve.

Dominik

ic-racer · Feb 26, 2012

If the images are severely overexposed (part of the image over the shoulder, on the flat part) that is permanent damage. Image detail is gone. Just like under exposure. You can't develop something that is not there.

I'd just process as normal.

removed account4 · Feb 26, 2012

hi musila

i regularly over expose my film .. sometimes by 3 or 4 even 5 stops.
i have a developer and method that works for me. it involves using coffee for a developer.
i am not sure where you live, and if you have instant coffee, vit c powder and washing soda ( sodium carbonate )
available to you. i mix it strong ( maybe 2x stronger than the standard american tsp/tbs recipe ) i think at least
i don't really measure anything to be honest ... then i add a splash of print developer ( i use ansco 130 because
i have been using it for about 10 years both as a print developer and dilute as a film developer ) ...
i stand develop for about 25 mins, maybe 30 mins and my film comes out great.
not super dense, not thin ... neopan loves coffee developer, over exposed it is a dream to work with.

just do a test run with whatever developer you choose to use ..
and over expose a whole roll by 4 stops and see what happens ...

have fun!
john

albada · Feb 26, 2012

My first response to severe overexposure would be to use severe underdevelopment. That will probably mean diluting your developer to keep dev-time from being too short.

Regarding image-loss on the shoulder: The position of the shoulder depends to some extent on the developer being used. For example, POTA creates a huge dynamic range, which in essence, means the shoulder got pushed to the right on the H&D curve.

But whatever you do, as another poster said, test first on scrap-film.

Mark Overton

markbarendt · Feb 26, 2012

Neutral density filter?

clayne · Feb 26, 2012

ic-racer said:
If the images are severely overexposed (part of the image over the shoulder, on the flat part) that is permanent damage. Image detail is gone. Just like under exposure. You can't develop something that is not there.

I'd just process as normal.

I'd be one to say that this is not strictly always the case. Things aren't gone, they're just overly saturated to the point of difficulty in recovering it - which is not impossible. But what we're talking here is +2, +3 stops, not +0.5/1.0 stops. In essence the curve steps into compression of the shoulder. What is then needed is resultant expansion.

As we all know, this cannot be done with digital mediums, so take advantage!

keithwms · Feb 26, 2012

Do I understand that this is meant to be a learning exercise? If so then why not go ahead and overexpose and then reduce development a bit and then see what your negs look like, i.e. look at the contrast index. Chances are you just need to tune the grade of your paper. Multigrade makes a lot of these issues go away, and split grade printing can solve all kinds of things.

Another good exercise would be to develop identical shots a few different ways... e.g. one neg with a very compensating developer, another with a pyro developer, another with your ordinary brew.

clayne · Feb 26, 2012

Yep, well said.

In fact the best thing people can do is not try to follow any rules whatsoever and figure out what the actual limits of their materials are.

Remember: you are working with materials that freely allow you, and sometimes reward you, for walking outside the bounds. Make use of this!

removed account4 · Feb 26, 2012

keithwms said:
Do I understand that this is meant to be a learning exercise? If so then why not go ahead and overexpose and then reduce development a bit and then see what your negs look like, i.e. look at the contrast index. Chances are you just need to tune the grade of your paper. Multigrade makes a lot of these issues go away, and split grade printing can solve all kinds of things.

Another good exercise would be to develop identical shots a few different ways... e.g. one neg with a very compensating developer, another with a pyro developer, another with your ordinary brew.

its ALL a learning exercise

clayne said:
Yep, well said.

In fact the best thing people can do is not try to follow any rules whatsoever and figure out what the actual limits of their materials are.

Remember: you are working with materials that freely allow you, and sometimes reward you, for walking outside the bounds. Make use of this!

exactly!

musila · Feb 29, 2012

I'm recording entire television episodes onto films. I'm starting with Looney Tunes cartoons. I know that it's going to take some trial and error, but I was curious what people might recommend. An ND filter would help, but I'd rather not buy anymore camera stuff, and I'm already using a polarizer. Coffee seems like an interesting idea.

SMBooth · Feb 29, 2012

So your filming TV shows from the television on to B&W film.. is that right.

clayne · Feb 29, 2012

:munch::munch::munch:

Newt_on_Swings · Feb 29, 2012

I've played with tv stills and video monitor stills in the past for fun and to see what kinda effects I could get.

This is what I'm thinking:
What your hoping: really cool dragged out long exposure like star trails of light painting of the entire scene.

What is likely to happen: one terribly over exposed blank scene devoid of detail. The screen will emit light across the whole image viewing area. I wish I could remember the photographic artist's name which did long exposures of entire films in the movie theater with a large format camera. The screen would be entirely white, and the seats and isles, and stage would be nicely exposed from the reflected glow of the projected movie. People were erased from this long exposure, quite sublime and Erie.

What I suggest:
In order to preserve viewable information, you should look at multiple exposures instead. And get multiple scenes on a piece of film which you can actually print. Try low and fast speed films with different combinations of exposure times and X number of multiple exposures on that frame.

Good luck

MDR · Feb 29, 2012

Sugimoto's cinema series comes to mind the screen is extremely overexposed = white the room is correctly exposed. I'd say meter for the room / shadow minus maybe one stop and let the screen turn white. No overexposure and no special developer necessary.

Dominik

Rudeofus · Feb 29, 2012

From what I understand you want to severely overexpose some film, which would normally call for pull development. But since you say your scene contrast is already going to be weak, pull development or POTA may not be the right choice, as both would reduce contrast even more. One thing that may work in your direction is reciprocity failure, I assume you will stop your lens all the way down, reduce screen brightness as far as possible and you said you use a polarizer. Anything that would require an exposure of more than 1s with this setup will appear darker than you expect from linear calculation, so contrast will be increased.

Obtaining a developer which decreases speed while maintaining contrast will require home brewing and experimentation. I would think about a high contrast developer with lots of restrainer, but that's just my initial approach. How far are you willing to go with this?

markbarendt · Feb 29, 2012

clayne said:
:munch::munch::munch:

+1 :confused:

Newt_on_Swings · Feb 29, 2012

MDR said:
Sugimoto's cinema series comes to mind the screen is extremely overexposed = white the room is correctly exposed. I'd say meter for the room / shadow minus maybe one stop and let the screen turn white. No overexposure and no special developer necessary.

Dominik

Ah yes, Sugimoto. I was a bit to lazy to google it haha. but yes he was the person I was refering to in my previous post.

musila · Mar 2, 2012

Thanks for all your input(s). Rudeofus has the right idea. Except the reason why I'm using Neopan is to avoid (as much as possible) the failure rate. I might have to embrace the low contrast. I think a better question I should have asked would be, what starting point would everyone recommend, but I'll learn as I go. Right now it's just a fun little project that I might be more serious about as I go. The idea does resemble Sugimoto's Theaters, but I'm not including any of the "room". The television screen would make up the entire photograph.

Rudeofus · Mar 4, 2012

musila, you still haven't mentioned how far you want to take these experiments. It looks very much like nobody on APUG has done anything similar so technically you are on your own. If you are willing to home brew, (there was a url link here which no longer exists) lists a number of developers with increasing contrast. You can find recipes for these devs in the Darkroom Cookbook or on digital truth.

As restrainers you can use KBr or benzotriazole, others were mentioned on APUG but may be difficult to get. My approach would be starting with a 5 stop over exposure (IDK to which exposure time this translates in your setup) and one of the tough guys (D-72, D-19) and let's say double the restrainer to begin with. If negs are too thick, develop less and/or use more restrainer. If contrast is too high/low, try again with a different dev from the list. Make sure, you distinguish carefully between contrast and density.

Once you got a good combo, increase your overexposure in 2 or 3 stop increments and adjust your soup until you have the final output you are after. Good luck!

how to develop this more "effectively"...

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