how to shoot up contrast on hp5?

[pierods]

I would like to develop hp5 so that contrast is increased meaningfully.

My primary idea was to develop at 1+1 time with stock id-11.

Ideas? Agitation can do the same? Better ways to do it?

Also, what do I lose in the process? Acutance?

 

[Ray Heath]

usually under exposing and over developing will increase contrast

and or print using high contrast paper/grade/techniques

 

[jim appleyard]

What Ray says, or increase dev time, increase dev temp, increase agitation, use a high contrast dev (D-19, dektol) or give more contrast when printing.

 

[edtbjon]

As always, it depends... How much do you want to increase the contrast? Are you happy with your normal results under normal conditions?
A few guidelines though:
Once you've found something normal that you're happy with, you can start finding how to increase and decrease contrast. The thing is really to know what's "normal" in everyday photograpy. (I often find myself in either full sun or all cloudy, which are the my plus and minus points.)
Anyhow, there are many recommendations that you should use ID11 (same as D76) at 1+1 and use it as a one-shot developer. (That was my standard developer before switching to Pyrocat.) It's a good developer which, once you've learned how to use it, will render excellent results.
The "normal time" for HP5 in ID11 at 1+1 is 13 minutes. (Straight it's 7½ minutes.) My normal expand is 30% giving you around 17 minutes (780+234=1014sec). (Straight it's 450+135=585sec, i.e. 9,45 minutes.)
My normal contraction is to shorten the dev.time by 25%. (Do the math yourself, but it's easy, just take away 1/4.)

Now, what are the targets of these contractions/expansions? A normal dev.time is supposed to be calibrated for a slightly overcast day. I.e. some clouds, giving you fuzzy shadows, but still shadows. With this you can save a scene shot in full sun and also save the next one which you shot where the sun was all behind a fully clouded sky. But the last two are compromises. The normal equals a 7 stop difference between black with some detail and white with some detail.
In full sun the difference is 8½ to 9 and on that gray day the difference is 5-5½.
The calculations above are designated to handle the same scene in a 5½, 7 and 8½ stop light situation.
It's quite easy to learn to see the contrast by looking at a shadow. Is it sharp? 9 stops. Fuzzy. 7 stops. Almost not there. 5 stops.
These are starting points. If you use a condenser enlarger, the starting times should be shortened by 10-15%. Feel free to adjust the developing times to get the results you want. Anyhow, already with these starting points you should get negatives that are "in the middle of the road", so that you can adjust your prints in many ways and they will still look good.
The -25% and +30% goes with most developers. Some of the pyro developers are tricky though, as they exhaust/oxidize quickly. But your question is about ID11.

A lot of people spend days, months and even years calibrating the zone system. (Some people never stop. ) This is a very simplified version which does 90% of the job in a much faster way, allowing you to get quick results. (It's derived from a method in Phil Davis's "Beyond the Zone System". I read about it in a swedish book.)

Last, you worried about acutance. Getting the contrast right is much more important in this stage as you will have a much more printable negative that is easy to work with. But if you want to have a high acutance, stay with the diluted developer. Later on there is plenty of info in this forum on how to gain acutance.

//Björn

 

[Trevor Crone]

If you can't get enough increase in contrast by development alone, try selenium toning the neg. @ a dilution of 1:3 for approx. 5 min.

 

[pierods]

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Also look into staining developers like Pyrocat or PMK Pyro.

 

[RobC]

yes 25 to 30% increase in time equates to approx moving zone VIII upto zone IX. And a minus 20 to 25% time pulls a zone IX down to a Zone VIII.

But this is only true if zone 0 thru zone X print from max black to pure white at your standard grade setting and paper. If they don't do that, then there's no telling what a 30% increase in dev time will do.

Most zone system workers never verify that zone 0 thru zone X actually do print a max black and pure white so these N+ and N- percentages are very ball park. Infact, since manufacturers development figures are usually aimed at a 7 stop range and not a 10 stop range as in the zone system, then metering and reducing exposure by 2 stops to place something on zone III is actually placing it between zone I and II. So it is imperative that you verify that zone 0 and zone X print black and just pure white otherwise you are wasting your time with the zone system.
If you can reproduce the print of zone swatches from zone 0 thru X as shown in AA's The Negative (approx page 50), then you will be streets ahead of most people in using the zone system in a useful and controllable way.

 

[2F/2F]

If you mean nothing but black and white, like a line-rez print, rate it at 400 (close is good; no need to be exact in this case), meter the darkest area of the scene, underexpose that by three or four stops, develop in D-19 or Dektol, or graphic arts developer and print on a grade 4 paper. I think there is still a grade 5 (Slavich?), but it is RC only. If you just want some more contrast, not the line-rez look, I would just expose to make your shadows a bit darker than normal, and experiment with both overdevelopment and selenium toning of the negs.

The slower your film, the easier this will be. HP5 will require more severe measures than Pan F or FP4 to totally jack up the contrast.

What I would do if I wanted this line-rez look, unless I wanted the grain that comes with aggressive development, is just shoot and develop my negs as normal, and copy them onto graphic arts film; first to pos. then back to neg. This lets you have a "normal" neg in case you ever want it, and gives you two additional steps to play with contrast.

 

[edtbjon]

A lot of good replies, but pierods please: Tell us more about what you are trying to do. My advices was about dealing with sunny or dull weather. Others guess that you are looking for "soot n' chalk". Some people refer to (Ok, barks about... ) the zone system.
As you didn't mention much at all, the answers are all over the place.

//Björn

 

[RobC]

Ok, barks about...

Cheeky bugger Woof Woof

 

[pierods]

A lot of good replies, but pierods please: Tell us more about what you are trying to do. My advices was about dealing with sunny or dull weather. Others guess that you are looking for "soot n' chalk". Some people refer to (Ok, barks about... ) the zone system.
As you didn't mention much at all, the answers are all over the place.

//Björn

Sure.

I went through a few rolls of HP5, id-11, 1+1, and they look dull and lifeless.

I followed Ilford's recommendations by the book.

At the same time, I got some processed commercially in xtol, and although the greys (midtones) are very nice, shadows and highlights are compressed.

So I am asking myself, how come a film from a remote manufacturer (foma's r100), with Soviet-era technology, that I developed at home, with their Czech developing kit, with instructions in broken English, gives me better results than HP5 (their main film) and id-11 (their main developer) from almighty Ilford?

Examples:

http://flickr.com/photos/pierodesalvia/2613241133
http://flickr.com/photos/pierodesalvia/2613240219/
http://flickr.com/photos/pierodesalvia/2613240009/

 

[2F/2F]

First of all, it's because you can't buy "good" results with a magic bullet film selection. Same way buying a Ferrari doesn't assure that you can drive it fast. Traffic conditions dictate that, not the car.

More technically, it's because 400 films are significantly flatter than 100 films. Also, you shot them on different days. Also, just by chance, all the variables fell in place to make your Foma pix more to your liking.

Don't blame the film just yet. I think it is the best film made today. You just need more time to learn to use it. My first thought is that you are overrating and underdeveloping it. Next time try it at 320 and adding 15% to your development, assuming a normal contrast day and good metering technique. That will open up your shadows a bit and pop your highlights a bit.

Those pix on the Foma look underexposed and flat as well, according to my aesthetics. But what good are scans anyhow? We can't see what is on the negative. All we can see is how you adjusted them...which seems very dark and flat.

 

[RobC]

Well we can't tell anything from scans. Have you actually printed these negatives or are they scans of negatives.
The zone system and all these recommended methods are about fitting the neg to your standard paper using your standard filtration. If you have never printed them yourself on your own equipment, which I don't think you have, then what exactly are you asessing?

People get into judging negatives by how they look and in the pursuit of sharpness they frequently keep pushing for more contrast and etched looking negatives because they can see the image in the negative better. But that is not good for printing. I've seen so called experts describing the grain of a negative as "mushy" based on how the negative looks under a microscope. Those same mushy looking negatives can print really sharp with wonderful smooth tones. Don't make the mistake of judging theoretical prints by what a negative looks or scans like. Print it and then decide whether it's any good.

Until you have done zone swatch print as I suggested and proved your negs fit your standard paper with standard filtration, then you are not going to know what a properly developed negative looks like because you have never seen one.

 

[gainer]

One of the problems is that HP5+ is not a high contrast film by its nature. The peak contrast index in Rodinal, for instance, is only about 0.61 at the 1+50 dilution, and not much higher with 1+25. If you try by overdevelopment to get more, you will increase fog. There are other developers that will get more contrast, inckuding XTOL, but not much above 1.0 IIRC.

 

[pierods]

One of the problems is that HP5+ is not a high contrast film by its nature. The peak contrast index in Rodinal, for instance, is only about 0.61 at the 1+50 dilution, and not much higher with 1+25. If you try by overdevelopment to get more, you will increase fog. There are other developers that will get more contrast, inckuding XTOL, but not much above 1.0 IIRC.

A question, its Kodak equivalent, Tri-x, has more contrast?

 

[Trevor Crone]

The best you will probably get from HP5 by development is N+1.5. Trying to get more by development will start raising the shadow values and possible film base fog.

There's a good section in Dick Arentz's book 'Platinum & Palladium Printing' on this very issue. See especially table C.7 (HP5+ & D76/ID11) appendix C if you're interested.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Contrast change - to visually change the span of tones to contain less information between bright white and pitch dark black. This means that you bury some of the shadow tones in black and some of the highlight tones in white. This can be dealt with either at the film stage or the printing stage. If you do it at the printing stage, you will have negs that are easier to print down the road if you change your mind about your approach.
You have a curve that describes how the tonal response of your film is. You can find that on Ilford's web site.
To get less shadow detail, or a wider span of the tones in the scene in complete black, you need to get a lot of the info onto the toe of that curve. That means to underexpose the film. The more you under expose, the farther down the toe you'll get until you don't have much detail anywhere at all.
To get your highlights into the white you need to expand the silver density so that the highlights you wish to get into that region goes onto the shoulder of that same curve. You do that by over developing your negatives.
For you, to increase total contrast, you under expose and over develop, to stretch out the tonal response of the film. This is true for all films.
If you only overdevelop your film, all you do is move the tones in the scene you recoreded up the curve. You will get a denser negative with brighter highlights, but your shadow detail will remain the same or better. In order to increase contrast by getting blacker blacks with less shadow detail you need to underexpose too.

I hope that helps.

- Thomas

 

[nworth]

Fifteen to twenty percent more time should give you enough more contrast to do what you want. Hand processing is very dependent on the individual's technique, and the recommended times are just a starting point. Changes in agitation, especially, make for big changes in the result. Settle on a fixed technique and adjust the times to get the results you need.

 

[2F/2F]

"Trying to get more by development will start raising the shadow values and possible film base fog."

I have tested, and shot, for +2 on this film, and it gets there with no problems...takes a while but it gets there! Tone it afterward and it can make it to approx. +3, where a zone V fall ends up a zone VIII density. Of course shadow values and fog increase. So what. The highlights are also raising, and at a faster rate, so there in no loss of contrast when this happens. It starts building more slowly, but it does not get lost. If you need to develop so far that you are notably increasing fog, you have other concerns beside fog, which can just be burned away in printing.

 

[Trevor Crone]

Indeed fog can be printed through but personally I would not want an undue increase in shadow values caused by extended development. Draging the shadows up the toe of the film curve will offset contrast.

Try printing on grade 5 before resorting to undue extended film development.

 

[pierods]

Thanks again for all the advice.

 

[jim appleyard]

A question, its Kodak equivalent, Tri-x, has more contrast?

No, not really. If Tri-X has more constrast than HP-5, it's not by much. I think you're looking for a quick-fix; you may not find it. A good negative depends on quite a bit from the photographer. Using a good-quality film is a start (TX, HP-5, Neopan 400, APX 400), but after that, it's up to the photographer. Choice of camera, lens, film, exposure method, dev process and printing all matter.

Can you tell us how you're metering and what "ISO" you're using?

 

[eddym]

"Trying to get more by development will start raising the shadow values and possible film base fog."

I have tested, and shot, for +2 on this film, and it gets there with no problems...takes a while but it gets there! Tone it afterward and it can make it to approx. +3, where a zone V fall ends up a zone VIII density. Of course shadow values and fog increase. So what. The highlights are also raising, and at a faster rate, so there in no loss of contrast when this happens. It starts building more slowly, but it does not get lost. If you need to develop so far that you are notably increasing fog, you have other concerns beside fog, which can just be burned away in printing.

I'll confirm the above; HP5+ has been my standard film for dance and theater performances for over 15 years, and I usually shoot it and process for an EI of 1600 (+2 stops). I have in emergencies pushed it to 3200, but the contrast gets really high. It is a very flexible film in terms of contrast control.

 

[pierods]

Can you tell us how you're metering and what "ISO" you're using?

400-center weighted.

I must say that after posting, I developed my film in perceptol stock and the situation got better.

not up to par to fomapan r100, but better.