I did a bad thing - TMAX400 at ASA 6400

Went to my nephew's graduation and the lights were so dim I had to push Tmax400 to 6400. I'll be developing it in Xtol stock but I'll have to guess at the development time; even the massive dev chart only shows up to 3200.

Any suggestions for time would be appreciated. Also predictions on how yucky these will come out.

Plot a curve of the times at different speeds from the massive dev chart and extrapolate it another stop.

Mike

ive done that , but 5 stops under exposed
i didn't use xtol to process the film ... sprint film developer
... ( like d76 but different ) ...

i think i ended up increasing the development time
by 30% / fstop i pushed the film and i got film with something on it ...
it took trial and error ( no internet then )
i developed each of my 10 sheets of film separately and
increased development time for each sheet ...
i printed it on some sort of agfa rc grade 1 paper i
had ... and got an OK image ...

if i happened to do it again with 35mm film
i would use a different developer but the same approach.
... expose a second roll of film and instead
of processing the whole roll at once, i would pull about 8" out, and process it
maybe in something like dektol 1:5 for 45mins ( stand develop to help midtones not just contrast ... )
look at the film, pull another 8" out and adjust my development until i got something that worked.

then i would process the actual film ...

good luck !

john

Wolfeye: If the light was dim, but contrasty, I'd go 13' with agitation each minute at 68˚

If the light is dim AND flat, 16'. It will be just fine.

d

Wolfeye, after a certain point you will just increase contrast and make printing more difficult and not increase shaddow detail. Stick with the times for a +2 push. Shaddows will be empty and there is no way around it.

I do shoot an iLford PAN 400 film as 6400 ASA some days ago. Then i asked the lab to develop it as 3200 ASA. After scaning it i have fixed the light in PS and this is the result. it still have some detail. If you not go to print it by yourself digitize it and after fixing in PS send it to the lab for optical printing.

More accurately there is some highlight detail. Shadow detail is always toast with this kind of pushing. Highlights and upper mids almost always survive because they are effectively your new shadows.

Pushing is just shifting tones down the curve. No magic.

I'd personally prefer Rodinal than Xtol for such a push. Possibly similar to Tri-X times of 1+100, 2 hours semi-stand, 2 gentle inversions at 40 min, 2 gentle inversions at 1 hour 20 min.

Tri-X @ 6400 - grain is excellent, though this is 6x7cm, youd have ~twice the grain in 35mm doing the same thing, T-Max 400 is a little finer than Tri-X, so you should be able to do pretty well with the right development.

You shouldn't really lose much shadow detail, if any, when developed properly, if T-Max can be as good as Tri-X for this, this is reciprocity effected (though corrected), and it still has a range of ~6 stops in this scene, there's detail I've chosen to clip in the highlights and in the shadows as that's my creative choice of contrast for this 'print equivalent'.




crop of out of focus area to show grain (image also had quite some sharpening applied in d* which makes it stand out a lot stronger as well! )



If your exposure isn't ~dead on (like you need to be with E-6) for 6400, ie: any underexposure, and it turns to crap real fast.

EG: Another shot from the same roll, an extra 3 stops underexposed on top of my push (51.2k), iirc total range captured of 3 stops, thin negative.


Smaller crop, with no sharpening

Contrary to what people think one doesn't have the capacity for merlin like wizardry when it comes to developing pushed film. If the light was recorded you're going to get what *was* registered by the film. Your best bet in doing that is by using a speed-keeping developer like XTOL.

Sometimes these pushing discussions crack me up as I envision some people appearing as if they'll be competiting at the 2011 Film Powerpushing Championships.

Contrary to what clayne is responding with, there is no claim of "wizadry" about what I've posted above. I have described my exposure, my development, and shown my results, and have described the pitfall/caveat of doing so, the image quality is brilliant @ 6400 with the above developing method, one has to consider grain and other things as well, imae quality with the above developing method suffers very quickly if underexposed beyond 6400.

A graduation ceremony is unlikely (esp indoors) to contain more than 6 stops of range. It's more likely to be ~3.

Xtol isn't going to give me more detail for such a massive push, I have both Xtol and Rodinal, I find Rodinal to be a much different developer than what people on the internet say.

I find Rodinal to be the best extreme-pushing developer, due to it's ability to not exaggerate or mush the grain when used properly with correctly exposed (For your push) film, as is demonstrated above with what was "registered" by the film shooting @ 6400.


OP: I have some TMY-2 here (in 120), I could give it a run through @ 6400 and post up some results.

I have come to bring this thread back from the dead!

Does anyone have results with TMY-2 TMAX 400 at 6400 (in 120)? I'm thinking about buying some in 120 to shoot in low light. I've pushed HP5 in both 120 and 35mm and Tri-X and Kentmere 400 to 6400 in 35mm with scannable results. I don't think I've tried to print such pushed film yet though. I have HC-110 and Rodinal (and an a few years old bag of XTOL) to play with.

If I were intent on doing this I would use Rodinal 1:100 and do a semi stand development. Most rodinal stand times Ive seen run from 60 to 90 minutes, I doubt you would gain much beyond that. I used to push TriX a lot when I was younger and used Ethol or Acufine which were lower contrast developers and needed a higher iso to get the same contrast. There 6400 was only a three stop push, but sharpness and shadows were pretty poor.
One idea Ive considered is to mix up a POTA type developer for pushing, as its a lower contrast developer for contrasty film. Since pushing is turning the film higher contrast it should help. One thing Ive noticed about Rodinal is its formula is similar to POTA exept for the high alkalinity and nearly indefinite keeping properties, which may be why dilute rodinal works so well at stand developing.

glbeas said:

If I were intent on doing this I would use Rodinal 1:100 and do a semi stand development. Most rodinal stand times Ive seen run from 60 to 90 minutes, I doubt you would gain much beyond that. I used to push TriX a lot when I was younger and used Ethol or Acufine which were lower contrast developers and needed a higher iso to get the same contrast. There 6400 was only a three stop push, but sharpness and shadows were pretty poor.
One idea Ive considered is to mix up a POTA type developer for pushing, as its a lower contrast developer for contrasty film. Since pushing is turning the film higher contrast it should help. One thing Ive noticed about Rodinal is its formula is similar to POTA exept for the high alkalinity and nearly indefinite keeping properties, which may be why dilute rodinal works so well at stand developing.

Click to expand...

I developed 2 rolls of HP5+ at 6400 with Rodinal for one hour. The first roll I did 1:50 (35mm) and the second I did 1:40 (120). The first roll came out ok. I increased the amount of rodinal the second time as an experiment. I haven't scanned the second roll yet, I developed it last night. The solution I'm solving with pushing is shooting in low light, like outside at night or at the bar with a band playing. Scenes like that.

I should check out the POTA developer. That's an interesting idea.

D 23 is a formula using metol for similar contrast problems. It only has two parts, metol and sodium sulfite. Read up on that too and draw your own conclusions. I think divided D 23 may do better for stand developing but dont know how well it would work, depends on how well the metol is absorbed in the emulsion before its put in the sulfite bath.

Sometimes when I’m wondering “what if...” i go on Flickr and search for what I want to see — so I just did a search on “TMAX 400 6400” and got some results. The nice part is that you can see the results, and often the photographer has included some detail on how it was developed. If no info included, I’ve gone so far at times to send the photographer a message via Flickr asking them to tell me what developer they used, etc.

Not a fool-proof solution, but at least you have the chance to get a visual idea of what’s possible. Note: sometimes changing around your search terms will pop up different results, so “TMAX400 6400” “TMAX 400 6400” “6400 TMAX400” “TMAX400 push” and so forth. Good luck, and report back please what your eventual results are.

glbeas said:

D 23 is a formula using metol for similar contrast problems. It only has two parts, metol and sodium sulfite. Read up on that too and draw your own conclusions. I think divided D 23 may do better for stand developing but dont know how well it would work, depends on how well the metol is absorbed in the emulsion before its put in the sulfite bath.

Click to expand...

IMO, D-23 divided would't do the job. The "A" bath is merely soaked up by the film. The "B" bath uses up the "A" that's leftover. There is no extended time to allow for a higher EI. Stand dev usually works best with highly diluted devs like Rodinal or HC-110 where it can sit for an hour or more.

Would the metol left in the shadow and midtones areas stay long enough to develop more density if left for an extended time? I see that as an improvement on just pushing because the highlights would be more in control. I dont have any metol to try that with or I would be in the darkroom playing with it. I do have some phenidone, wonder if theres a divided formula for POTA?

Wolfeye I found an article on Unblinkine Eye you might be interested in.
https://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/XR-1/xr-1.html