I need a over exposing and under developing guide

k2adir · Apr 21, 2018

Years ago I found one blog posts where the writer was suggesting a different way of developing.
I do not remember it word for word but it was something like this

He was using 400 iso film and he rated it less than 100 iso. I believe he was overexposing it by 6 to 7 stops.

after that, he develops the film using different times (Which I do not remember anymore) and his results have a very well balanced histogram.

I remember the picture he used in the article. The first photo was taken in a room, and there was a very large window. Because of his technique, he got a well-balanced negative where light from the window didn't blow up the picture and made rest of the room look too dark, and there was good detail in the room too. Chairs other things were visible.

I lost that link and I cannot find it anymore. I do not know if this method has its own name but I doubt it does not.

Do any of you have that link saved somewhere or any other resources similar to this
Or your personal experiences, I mean, anything. I'm not being picky at all.
I have done things like +4 and under dev and so on but that article was plain crazy. I wish I still had it.

thanks

chris77 · Apr 21, 2018

no secrets there. overexposing and balancing out through development (needs to be tested, depends on chemistry and workflow ..) will bring values closer together.
pyrocat-hd works well in cases of overpowering highlights, reduced agitation.
there is no ''''recipe" solution.. try and error, proceeding by experience. enjoy !!

E. von Hoegh · Apr 21, 2018

Iso 400 overexposed 6 stops gives Ei of 6, 7 stops Ei of 3.
Without knowing the range of the scene and how it was metered, as well as seeing the negative, it's impossible to deduce what was done. There is also the amount of digital manipulation done to the image you saw on your monitor screen to consider.

pentaxuser · Apr 21, 2018

I think and that is all it is, think and not know, but there was an article where the author was convinced that this method was a near miracle way of producing negatives. It seemed a bit "over the top" to me to say the least and the consensus of Photrio opinion was that his method was seriously flawed. However I cannot recall the thread

pentaxuser

Todd Barlow · Apr 21, 2018

Link for a video that is a good starting point...
Developing Your Film... Wrong! or Adjusting the Exposure and the Development of Your Film to Match the Contrast of Your Scene

All the best

Todd

removed account4 · Apr 21, 2018

hi k2adir

it could be a very easy test to do if you have the urge, and very easy if you have a bulk loader ...
basically load a few exposures on a roll and shoot them, over and over again .. when i say a few exposures i mean the whole range
from -7 stops to +7stops .. then take each of these rolls and develop them whatever your normal developing time is -7(30%) all the way to +7(30%)
and print them all. you could do this same "test" / "experiment" with changing agitation times, ( instead of full 1 min and 10s/1m .. to 1 full min, nothing until 1/2 way through
then 10s/min for the remainder &c &C ) there are endless ways of figuring out exactly what works in exactly what type of scene.
what a lot of people forget is "developing time" given for xyz film isn't set in stone ... its a starting point for someone to start messing around
to dovetail their personal needs with it..

wish i knew the website you were talking about, soundslike a useful one !

good luck
===
added later cause i forgot it

the most important part of this operation i completely forgot to mention ..
you have to make positives out of all your negatives
that means in the darkroom either by contact prints or set up your enlarger
and make small prints to look at ... or waiting for that beam of light ..
you might find the scanner to be completely useless with films of a certain density but
these same films might print beautifully with a little extra time printing.
either way you will SEE what exposure and development will do to your positives ...

pentaxuser · Apr 21, 2018

Thanks for the linked video, Todd. I found I had to view it on YouTube rather than straight from your link. I suspect this is to ensure viewers have to sit through an opening advert. Anyone watching may feel that after about 12 minutes there isn't much to be gained but stick with it as from then on, there is good information.

It does not however advocate an overexposure of anything like 6-7 stops to achieve "better" negatives.

pentaxuser

ic-racer · Apr 21, 2018

No matter how you expose, you development time and temp would be adjusted to match you printing paper/enlarger combination. If you use graded or multigrade paper you can accommodate a very wide range of scenery brightness range with the same development time.

Adrian Bacon · Apr 21, 2018

You over expose and under develop. Many developers provide times or compensation methods for doing pull processing which is the same thing.

Other people take it even further and agitate as little as possible in an effort to keep the highlight density values as low as possible.

All this does is result in a lower average gamma in the negative. I’m not a fan of over exposure and under development because it is a lot of time spent to determine a workable development time.

If you know what the resulting gamma is and linearize it correctly after scanning, you’ll notice very little difference between a normally exposed and developed negative and one that is way over exposed and way pull processed in terms of visible dynamic range. I’d rather go with normal exposure and development as it’s less time spent.

Anybody who says that their scans of a normally exposed and developed negative don’t look good isn’t doing something right.

pentaxuser · Apr 21, 2018

Well I have to say, Adrian, that the video's example of a problem negative and the "rescue method" advocated did appear to demonstrate where over exposure and under-development seemed to work very well

pentaxuser

Adrian Bacon · Apr 21, 2018

pentaxuser said:
Well I have to say, Adrian, that the video's example of a problem negative and the "rescue method" advocated did appear to demonstrate where over exposure and under-development seemed to work very well

pentaxuser

I didn’t say you can’t get it to work, it’s just more effort than I’m willing to put in.

faberryman · Apr 21, 2018

Why do you hope to accomplish by overexposure and under development that you cannot accomplish with correct exposure and normal development?

E. von Hoegh · Apr 21, 2018

faberryman said:
Why do you hope to accomplish by overexposure and under development that you cannot accomplish with correct exposure and normal development?

Something magical. Sunset over Groom Lake, perhaps.

faberryman · Apr 21, 2018

E. von Hoegh said:
Something magical. Sunset over Groom Lake, perhaps.

And I thought you were going to say: something magical, like a silver bullet.

E. von Hoegh · Apr 21, 2018

faberryman said:
And I thought you were going to say: something magical, like a silver bullet.

Groom Lake = Area 51

removed account4 · Apr 22, 2018

i don't really think its a silver bullet the OP is after
but a "look" .. i kind of like the look of wildly over exposed film+overprocessed
processed so you can't see through it. makes things more mysterious when it gets printed ..
the trick is to use a developer that stains like caffenol and nothing really gets blocked up too much to print..
even if it does take like 20seconds on rc paper with a 300watt bulb...

YMMV

Rudeofus · Apr 22, 2018

Underdevelopment is a certain way to reduce negative contrast, and it will lose film speed very quickly. There are better ways to reduce contrast IMHO which don't lose film speed:

Compensating developers. These are either dilute single bath developers, or two bath formulas. These developers will give you full film speed and decent contrast in the shadows, but keep highlights in check.
Delta 3200: this film has such a characteristic curve built in, i.e. you can develop it with your goto developer and will get low contrast highlights together with ISO 800-1200 shadows.
Special low contrast developers such as POTA or Delagi-8 will lose a few stops, but give really low contrast.
Michael R. published a series of low contrast developer recipes which keep full speed. If you are willing to self mix and need very low contrast, this is what I would recommend.

PS: do not expect miracles from low contrast developers, unless you use really good, modern multi-coated lenses. Even small amounts of lens flare will destroy shadow contrast of scenes with strong highlights. Think of it: 0.5% lens flare is not uncommon and will reduce overall dynamic range to less than eight stops!

cowanw · Apr 22, 2018

A few years back a minor turbulence rumbled about The Op's question. I think this might have been it.
http://www.johnnypatience.com/the-zone-system-is-dead/

pentaxuser · Apr 23, 2018

cowanw said:
A few years back a minor turbulence rumbled about The Op's question. I think this might have been it.
http://www.johnnypatience.com/the-zone-system-is-dead/

Well done Bill. That's the one. I could have thought about it for years and still not come up with the link which is surprising given that the name Johnny Patience sounded as if it might be a made-up name to make people take note of it( as I had forgotten the name, it failed in my case)

pentaxuser

cowanw · Apr 23, 2018

His name sounds like a country and western singer to me.

pentaxuser · Apr 23, 2018

cowanw said:
His name sounds like a country and western singer to me.

Yes but not quite as homely as Johnny Friendly in "On The Waterfront"

pentaxuser

pentaxuser · Apr 23, 2018

Back to the example I quoted from Prof Agar's video, if I may, and the two replies I had from Adrian Bacon and faberryman. The example comes at about 12.5 mins into the video and concerns a negative he took of his father indoors but with a large window and a lot of light coming in. His first neg had the right exposure for detail in the outdoors but,not unsurprisingly, gave practically no detail indoors of his father's face. This was f16 and normal development. He then took a second neg, correctly exposed for the indoors at f4 in which his father is correctly exposed but the window area on the print is a featureless white. Again this got normal development. His third neg was a "compromise" of f8 and normal development. This was quite a lot better for both indoors and outdoors but still appeared to require a good bit of dodging and burning His fourth neg was again f4 such that the father's face was OK but this time his dev time was cut by 50% and the negative required no dodging and burning

So by far the best negative for a straight print was deliberately 2 stops overexposed for the outdoors and half a stop under-developed to achieve good detail in both the outdoors and indoors section without any "darkroom magic" if i can put it that way.

I felt he had proved his point that this was an easier way to produce a negative that would straight print and would look as good as a dodged and burned print but without all the trouble that D&B can involve.

OK it brings us back to the problem of roll film where overexposure and under-development has to be applied to all negatives but if you know that a good number of your negatives require this for easier printing then it might still represent the better way.

pentaxuser

Rudeofus · Apr 24, 2018

This procedure as described sounds very arcane. You could easily substitute a stop underdevelopment by normal development and printing at a lower grade contrast, and you would not lose a stop of film speed.

Did I miss something?

faberryman · Apr 24, 2018

pentaxuser said:
Back to the example I quoted from Prof Agar's video, if I may, and the two replies I had from Adrian Bacon and faberryman. The example comes at about 12.5 mins into the video and concerns a negative he took of his father indoors but with a large window and a lot of light coming in. His first neg had the right exposure for detail in the outdoors but,not unsurprisingly, gave practically no detail indoors of his father's face. This was f16 and normal development. He then took a second neg, correctly exposed for the indoors at f4 in which his father is correctly exposed but the window area on the print is a featureless white. Again this got normal development. His third neg was a "compromise" of f8 and normal development. This was quite a lot better for both indoors and outdoors but still appeared to require a good bit of dodging and burning His fourth neg was again f4 such that the father's face was OK but this time his dev time was cut by 50% and the negative required no dodging and burning. So by far the best negative for a straight print was deliberately 2 stops overexposed for the outdoors and half a stop under-developed to achieve good detail in both the outdoors and indoors section without any "darkroom magic" if i can put it that way.

Sounds like it was correctly exposed for the indoors at f4 and given something like N-2 development to control the highlights. This is standard Zone System stuff for sheet film. For 35 and 120, do you want to do that as a general rule for every shot on every roll?

pentaxuser · Apr 24, 2018

Rudeofus said:
This procedure as described sounds very arcane. You could easily substitute a stop underdevelopment by normal development and printing at a lower grade contrast, and you would not lose a stop of film speed.

Did I miss something?

Thanks for the reply. In answer to your question, I don't know. I want to avoid this thread having a purpose other than that of seeking wisdom and truth. So many threads these days seem to end up going "off the rails when the questioner can seem like a "dog with a bone" and pointless gnawing away . It seems clear that Prof Agar achieved his goal of achieving a negative that translated into a straight print by considerable overexposure for the outdoors in order to get detail in the face indoors and then his chosen tool( possibly his only tool then ) was 50% underdevelopment which still retained detail in the face and indoors but gave detail in the outdoors.

If he had shot it at f4 and used normal development as he demonstrated in one of his negs, the outdoors are featureless. How much lower a grade of print would be required to have restored detail outside while avoiding a flat greyness in the final print?

If the "circle can be squared" by your method, resulting in as good a print then this does avoid the impossible problem of different development times for the same roll but is there enough leeway in MG paper to do this without a flat grey pring.

I am not asserting that what the Prof did was the only way but I am simply wondering if other ways can be as successful in what were extremely difficult light conditions. I also accept that we can only deal with "on balance" speculation as we do not have his normally developed negative that was 2 stops overexposed to try a print with.

What I think we can conclude is that if this were sheet film then the Prof's method seems to have a lot going for it or can we?

pentaxuser

I need a over exposing and under developing guide

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