Hp5+ for snow scenes and what developer combo

AA devotes several pages to snow photography in The Negative.

This is TMax 400 in D76 1+1.

Plenty of sparkle and texture. I think it's more down to the lighting than the choice of developer.

JamesMorris said:

AA devotes several pages to snow photography in The Negative.

Click to expand...

I'll dig it out tonight and do some reading. I went to one of my spots and got three shots off before the clouds rolled in. I packed up and headed for another spot, but the sun never really popped out again. I'll head to the big city(Grand Rapids) for a doctors appointment and will snap a few around town. I checked the weather and it's suppose to be partly sunny, but I'll keep my fingers crossed anyway. JW

Your best bet for shooting in snow is to use an incident light meter and aim from the subject towards the camera to take a measurement.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

This is TMax 400 in D76 1+1.

Plenty of sparkle and texture. I think it's more down to the lighting than the choice of developer.

Click to expand...

Thomas,
That sparkle in the foreground is exactly what I was after. I could see it with my own eyes and in the 500C's viewfinder, but it never showed on the film when I used WD2D+. Maybe I should not have used WD2D+ since it holds back the highlights just a little much. When I have used either Pyrocat-HD or MC the highlights seem a little snappier then they do with WD2D+. The WD2D+ negatives have very good shadow detail and pretty, pure white snow, but not that reflected sparkle. I was a little puzzled??? Well, it's going to be F76+ and Pyrocat-MC for the first two rolls so we'll see what happens tomorrow. JW

Just before I left home today I took two shots out the backdoor of my house with some long expired Plus-X film that I had forgotten about, which was in a very old C12 Hasselblad back that I didn't even remember having. I processed it tonight to see what it looked like and I'm rather happy with the looks. These are straight scans with nothing done to them. No levels/curves applied at all. Don't mind the dust spots since I did no prep work on these at all. I was really surprised at how clear the film base was for this film since it's close to at least ten years old I think. Remember, these were just a couple of quick test shots. I hope HP5+ works this well in Claytons/Arista Premium liquid. JW

JW PHOTO said:

Thomas,
That sparkle in the foreground is exactly what I was after. I could see it with my own eyes and in the 500C's viewfinder, but it never showed on the film when I used WD2D+. Maybe I should not have used WD2D+ since it holds back the highlights just a little much. When I have used either Pyrocat-HD or MC the highlights seem a little snappier then they do with WD2D+. The WD2D+ negatives have very good shadow detail and pretty, pure white snow, but not that reflected sparkle. I was a little puzzled??? Well, it's going to be F76+ and Pyrocat-MC for the first two rolls so we'll see what happens tomorrow. JW

Click to expand...

Good luck!

I used to use pyro developers too. For a couple of years I used only Pyrocat-HD and MC, and then I had some experiments with PMK pyro as well. While I liked them, I often felt that they were a little too 'held back' in the highlights, and I was longing for something more 'brilliant'. So I got hooked on using a developer called Edwal 12, a developer that Edmund Lower developed for flat Midwestern light, and guess where I am - that's right, exactly in the middle of fly-over country. It was such a revelation to me, to have intense and beautiful highlights, a completely different set of tones than I was used to.

Edwal 12, however, contains PPD, paraphenylenediamine, which is a hideous substance to work with, so I switched to replenished Xtol. Beautiful developer too, albeit a bit different in tonality, more muted. I started a batch in 2009, and I kept replenishing it for five years until the beginning of this year, and it was similar to Edwal 12 if I agitated a lot, but could also display a more compensated and muted look, like Pyrocat does, with held back highlights and mid-tones that are a bit deeper.

I recently switched to D76, simply because I wanted to prove to myself that I don't need anything special to make good negatives and prints, and I have come to find out that I like D76 a whole lot, and it is quite special. Keeping it simple helps me focus on my technique, what I do, and what the photographs eventually become. Takes all of the bull$hit out of the process, and now I'm making prints that are as good as anything I've ever made before, with HP5+, D76 1+1, Ilford MG fiber, and Ethol LPD. And it's more fun than ever. It kind of feels like living in a house that was just spring cleaned, or just like a breath of fresh air.

I think sometimes some of us (myself included) get confused as to whether we want a film/developer combo that compresses highlights or lets them run in a straight line when working towards bright brilliant highlights. I know I've struggled with this for the last few years. Let's compare HP5 and Tri-x for example. I find HP5 less contrasty than Tri-x. Many use that to their advantage on bright sunlit days. They shoot it at EI 200-250 and reduce development. I've tried all that and still can't seem to like the results from HP5 on sunny days. Now Tri-x on the other hand, amazing! The highlights just sing and separate well. I prefer HP5 shot at EI 500-640 on overcast days with extended development times. It's just beautiful. But for sun, I stick with Tri-x because the results feel bright and vibrant.

Thomas's example is just fantastic. Tmax is another film that separates highlights very well. I'd recommend Tri-x, Tmax, or FP4 in a developer like ID-11 (D-76) diluted 1:1.

Thomas,
Your light and mine here in Michigan are pretty close. I found that WD2D+ didn't seem to separate the high tones/values that much. Shadows were excellent, mid-tones very good, but the highlights in snow seemed to go from a bright grey to bright white with not much in between. That old roll of Plus-X in F76+ looks much, much better in the highlight for separation and texture is there also. Those two shots above were rated at ISO 100 and not metered. I just applied the "Sunny 16" meter and allowed a stop for the yellow filter. Seems to be more snap in the high values and that's what I was after. I'll finish a roll today and might get a chance to soup it tonight.
I like your KISS approach and thought about just going the D23 diluted route myself and just might in the future. I used some D23 for my first 4X5 work 25 years ago and had no complaints back then, but all those fancy name new developers came calling. Should have just stayed the coarse with D23 I guess. Still beats sitting in a bar pissing my money away! JW

JW no advice on developers, but a few comments on snow photography.

I used to live in Maine, so like Michigan, winter landscapes mean snow. The challenge with snow is to hold details in the highlights, since so much of your image is likely to be highlights. I used to use Plus-X Pan in the winter, because of the soft shoulder that it had which helps with maintaining highlight detail, but the evil yellow demons discontinued it in 4x5. I tested a lot of different things, and ended up settling on HP5+ as my film of choice year round - and I have always developed either in HC-110 or Ilfotec HC.

What I do in snow:
1) If the sky is blue, so you have some shadows, the shadows will be blue, so to increase local contrast in the snow, a yellow filter will help.
2) I rate HP5+ at 320, meter on the snow, and then increase exposure by 3 stops, this places the snow in Zone VIII, and still leaves room for some detail in the shadows - if I don't have a lot of shadow in the image that I care about, I increase exposure by 2 stops to have more detail in the snow.
3) I usually expose two sheets the same, and develop one sheet for my normal time/temp - then examine the negative. When examining a snow scene, I will look at how much density there is in the snow, and if the negative is too dense, I will develop the second sheet for less time, if I could stand some more density, develop for longer.

Given this, perhaps what you should do with your third roll is develop it in one of the same developers that you are using for the other two, but for more or less time, depending on what you are going for.

JW PHOTO said:

I haven't shot any HP5+ in sometime now and have three rolls of 120 film to play with. We had a beautiful fresh snowfall and I'm going out tomorrow to take advantage of it. I plan on rating the HP5+ at 320 and developing one roll in Claytons F76+ and another roll in Pyrocat-MC.

Click to expand...

Mark_S said:

JW no advice on developers, but a few comments on snow photography.

I used to live in Maine, so like Michigan, winter landscapes mean snow. The challenge with snow is to hold details in the highlights, since so much of your image is likely to be highlights. I used to use Plus-X Pan in the winter, because of the soft shoulder that it had which helps with maintaining highlight detail, but the evil yellow demons discontinued it in 4x5. I tested a lot of different things, and ended up settling on HP5+ as my film of choice year round - and I have always developed either in HC-110 or Ilfotec HC.

What I do in snow:
1) If the sky is blue, so you have some shadows, the shadows will be blue, so to increase local contrast in the snow, a yellow filter will help.
2) I rate HP5+ at 320, meter on the snow, and then increase exposure by 3 stops, this places the snow in Zone VIII, and still leaves room for some detail in the shadows - if I don't have a lot of shadow in the image that I care about, I increase exposure by 2 stops to have more detail in the snow.
3) I usually expose two sheets the same, and develop one sheet for my normal time/temp - then examine the negative. When examining a snow scene, I will look at how much density there is in the snow, and if the negative is too dense, I will develop the second sheet for less time, if I could stand some more density, develop for longer.

Given this, perhaps what you should do with your third roll is develop it in one of the same developers that you are using for the other two, but for more or less time, depending on what you are going for.

Click to expand...

Mark,
You were reading my mind! That's exactly why I'm holding back the third roll. I want to see the result I get from F76+ and Pyrocat-MC with HP5+ and then choose which combo I want to use. You also have very good advice on metering, but with the Foma 200/WD2D+ I really don't think metering was my problem. I didn't have much experience with the Foma/Arista EDU 200 and think that it may just not be a good combination with Pyro and snow. To be honest, I don't think I'll be buying anymore Foma/Arista EDU 200, but I did like the ISO100 Foma. I'm trying to standardize on Ilford film and a little Fuji Acros. I like TMY2 also, but I just want to get away from T-grain films for a spell. JW

HP5+ in Rodinal work just fine...

Here's some snow (in the background) and some .... Burning film... In the foreground... Don't worry it's nitrate film, I had to burn it, it was a difficult choice...