ILford FP4, Trying to achieve normally developed negatives with good density and contrast for #2-3 printing.

bernard_L · Jul 19, 2023

No offense meant, but could your massive overdevelopment possibly result from a confusion between

Mixing from "stock" (as defined in the Kodak datasheet);
Mixing from concentrate (the stuff in the bottle);

Stated differently, and assuming dilution B as an example, maybe you mixed from the concentrate, using the 1+7 dilution intended for mixing from "stock".

https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/default/files/files/resources/j24.pdf

albireo · Jul 19, 2023

sruddy said:
I have been shooting this film for awhile and last roll was a disaster for darkroom printing but my mirrorless camera scans are fine.

I don't mean to go OT and I don't mean to be rude - also I have not seen your scans, but I somehow doubt that your mirrorless camera scans are fine. These are severely underexposed and overdeveloped negatives, which will represent a sub-optimal starting point for your scanning for a variety of reasons. I do a lot of negative scanning and I have never been able to produce a better scan than one obtained from a well exposed and well developed medium contrast (gamma .5-.6) negative with minimal post-scanning manipulation. Conversely, I have never seen a great scan from sub-par starting material. Overly post-processed/rescued images from underexposed/overdeveloped negs are easy to spot for the trained eye. Unless of course that chalky+grainy look is what one is after.

As an aside, I have a Yashicamat 124G too, the reflective meter's utility depends on a) camera condition and b) simplicity of the light in the scene. When metering such high contrast forest scenes I'd always ignore the in-camera meter and whip out my Sekonic incident. Brick wall in pretty flat light? I might rely on the Yashicamat meter.

DWThomas · Jul 19, 2023

albireo said:
As an aside, I have a Yashicamat 124G too, the reflective meter's utility depends on a) camera condition and b) simplicity of the light in the scene. When metering such high contrast forest scenes I'd always ignore the in-camera meter and whip out my Sekonic incident. Brick wall in pretty flat light? I might rely on the Yashicamat meter.

I also have a 124G and this comment reminds me that when I first got it, the switch that turns the meter on when the hood is raised was very flaky so I didn't use the meter. But the meter originally used a mercury battery. I'm wondering if using a non-Hg cell without modification could throw off the metering and account for any of what's happening here?

When I had Mark Hama do a CLA on mine, he got the meter switch fixed and set it up to run with an Excell S625PX silver oxide cell. It seems to work reasonably well for casual shooting, though I generally use a separate meter for "serious" work. (And I just looked on line to discover the silver oxide version may now be discontinued, though there is an alkaline.)

albireo · Jul 19, 2023

DWThomas said:
When I had Mark Hama do a CLA on mine, he got the meter switch fixed and set it up to run with an Excell S625PX silver oxide cell.

That's exactly what I did. Sent it to Mark Hama, got the same battery tweak done.

Doremus Scudder · Jul 19, 2023

pentaxuser said:
OK Thanks. However I always thought that establishing your own EI and from that a suitable development time for the particular developer you use was precisely because that method tailors the EI and dev time to match what you are using in terms of camera and metering. The method exists precisely because you have unknown variables built in to meters and cameras

pentaxuser

If you just have one camera and one meter, that's what you have to deal with, so tweaking exposure index and development time to suit that is the way to go. If you've got lots of meters, then comparing would be a logical first step. And, maybe you should test a new camera with a film that you've used before and have a good personal development time for. I'm not sure what the OP has or doesn't have in these respects.

D

Doremus Scudder · Jul 19, 2023

koraks said:
...
Keep in mind that in a real-world conditions, outside, with variable lighting, you'll still run into images with quite wildly varying contrast on a single roll. There's not all that much you can do about that, although exposing in such a way to capture sufficient shadow detail is always a good start.

... and that's the challenge with averaging meters and contrasty situations. You can't get a real reading from the shadows unless you walk right up to one and make sure you fill the meter's field of view with the entire shadow. That's a good place to start and a good check. Learning to recognize contrasty scenes and having a sense of how much extra exposure to add in such situations works too, with a modicum of experience.

As for dealing with lots of different scenes with widely varying subject brightness ranges on one roll, one can only work to find a development time that lands pretty much in the middle and retains enough density in the highlights of low-contrast scenes while not too-severely overexposing the highlights in the high-contrast ones. This allows one to make the final contrast control with the flexibility of VC paper or in post. Choosing a film with a long straight-line portion of the curve and not one with a pronounced shoulder helps a lot here.

Of course the first step is always to expose to get the desired shadow detail. This is a challenge with meters like the tiny averaging (non-TTL) meter on the old Yashicamat 124s. Overexposure is your friend here in contrasty situations, as counter-intuitive that may seem.

Best,

Doremus

sruddy · Jul 19, 2023

Thomas71 said:
FP4 is my all time favourite film in MF and I developed it with many developers (D76, Rodinal, HC-110 and XTOL).
My best results for darkroom print are achieved with XTOL 1+1 for 10 min.
In my process (incident meter, print on Grade 2 - Ilford RC) the time in Ilford datasheet (9 min in HC110 dil B) is too long and leads to very high contrast negatives and too much grain. I've found a time of 5-6 min is more appropiate with more manageble negatives.
Anyway, XTOL is definitely better than HC110 for FP4

I just went to mix up a new batch and found the new formula had crystals, I have some of the original formula left so am going to try it. However it looks like HC-110 has been discontinued. I will try your suggested XTOL 1. Will this be good as an all around developer? It would be good if I could use it for all my black and white film. Oh and why did you swicth from HC-110?

snusmumriken · Jul 19, 2023

FP4+ has a lot of latitude, so if you are rating it at 125 ISO and your shadows are devoid of detail (which they are), the thing to concentrate on is the way you meter the scene.

I don’t use HC-110 so I’ve no experience of its behaviour with FP4+. From what I’ve seen/read, and given your results, HC-110 might not be the best choice to match the old-fashioned, smooth-toned, lush feel of this emulsion. Ilford’s own recommendations are very safe; or else (my preference) a metol-only developer like BT2B.

sruddy · Jul 19, 2023

ic-racer said:
Expose more, at least one stop, and develop 30% less and report back.

Will do.

albireo said:
I don't mean to go OT and I don't mean to be rude - also I have not seen your scans, but I somehow doubt that your mirrorless camera scans are fine. These are severely underexposed and overdeveloped negatives, which will represent a sub-optimal starting point for your scanning for a variety of reasons. I do a lot of negative scanning and I have never been able to produce a better scan than one obtained from a well exposed and well developed medium contrast (gamma .5-.6) negative with minimal post-scanning manipulation. Conversely, I have never seen a great scan from sub-par starting material. Overly post-processed/rescued images from underexposed/overdeveloped negs are easy to spot for the trained eye. Unless of course that chalky+grainy look is what one is after.

As an aside, I have a Yashicamat 124G too, the reflective meter's utility depends on a) camera condition and b) simplicity of the light in the scene. When metering such high contrast forest scenes I'd always ignore the in-camera meter and whip out my Sekonic incident. Brick wall in pretty flat light? I might rely on the Yashicamat meter.

Here are a few camera scans that I have processed with only global adjustments. I don't think there is much underexposure at all but I certainly cooked the heck out of the negs in development.

pentaxuser · Jul 19, 2023

Doremus Scudder said:
If you just have one camera and one meter, that's what you have to deal with, so tweaking exposure index and development time to suit that is the way to go. If you've got lots of meters, then comparing would be a logical first step. And, maybe you should test a new camera with a film that you've used before and have a good personal development time for. I'm not sure what the OP has or doesn't have in these respects.

D

No me neither but as he mentioned a new to him camera and what appeared to a change for the worse in his negs I thought it worth mentioning the personal film speed and development time test to him

pentaxuser

Saganich · Jul 19, 2023

I would shoot FP4 at 100 and dev in Hc110 1:41 20C for 8 or 9 minutes with full shadow and highlights in the zones.

DREW WILEY · Jul 19, 2023

To get nearly full shadow detail in any high contrast scene using FP4, I find it mandatory to rate it at 50, regardless of developer. In such cases, you need to boost the shadows up onto the straight line a little more. But even then, it still won't resolve deep shadow details as well as a film with an inherently longer straight line, like TMax films or Foma 200.

I often shoot in deep woods under open sunlight, and know that mantra quite well - the contrast range in our redwood and old growth fir forests, for example, can easily be 11 or 12 stops once the coastal fog dissipates and the sun comes out.

Thomas71 · Jul 19, 2023

sruddy said:
I just went to mix up a new batch and found the new formula had crystals, I have some of the original formula left so am going to try it. However it looks like HC-110 has been discontinued. I will try your suggested XTOL 1. Will this be good as an all around developer? It would be good if I could use it for all my black and white film. Oh and why did you swicth from HC-110?

XTOL is an all-round developer; it works well with both traditional film (FP4 and HP5) and with modern emulsion (Delta100&400). I don't use Kodak film any more due to their crazy prices....
It's a powder developer easy to dissolve in hot water; you can use it as stock solution, in replenished solution or in one-shot 1+1 diluition.
I use it in one-shot 1+1 because it allows to achieve more predictable results as compared to "replenished solution"
You can expose film for nominal ISO because XTOL isn't an "ASA eater" like HC110 or even worse Rodinal
Prints from FP4 in XTOL 1+1 are very sharp with a very small and well defined grain (I don't like mushed grain or no- grain prints; a little bit of grain helps to give a 3D or "plastic" effect)
I still have an old HC110 bottle; it lasts for many years and it's ready to use. It's a very active developer at 1+31 diluition from syroup (dil B) with short developing times (5-6 min). I tend to use in a more diluite concentration (1+50) in order to have more manageble developing times and to control the overall contrast in a better way (high contrast negatives are difficult to print).

sruddy · Jul 19, 2023

Looks like my problem was either bad film or wacked shutter. The only thing I changed was mixing a fresh batch of developer. Time was the same 5:10 @ 75 degrees. This is a cell phone photo so the contrast is higher do to jpg processing. The 120 film did show some mottling due to known bad stock from the pandemic however I haven't seen it effect exposure this way. I did use a meter on a few frames so even if the camera meter was way off which I dont think it is, I guess the only thing left is a bad shutter. I have no real way to test other than listening to a one second exposure and it sounded right. The camera is not worth getting CLA’d so I’m a bit disappointed. I will reshoot these shots using a spot meter and a serviced Rolleiflex as I want to learn how to get the best images out of scnes with very high SBR.

koraks · Jul 19, 2023

sruddy said:
I did use a meter on a few frames so even if the camera meter was way off which I dont think it is

Odds are that your metering was just off. There's no shame in that; happens to most of us at some point, sometimes many points.

I'm a bit wary of drawing conclusions from a comparison of FP4+ shot in a Yashica camera under natural light using the inbuilt light meter and the same film shot in sheet film format in obviously an entirely different camera system and with studio flash.

sruddy said:
I guess the only thing left is a bad shutter.

If your shutter on the Yashica would have been slow, you'd have oodles of shadow density. You don't. So the shutter may be off a little, but not by all that much.

MattKing · Jul 19, 2023

sruddy said:
Looks like my problem was either bad film or wacked shutter.

I don't know how you could run into those problems with excess contrast as a result of either factor - exposure problems yes, but not excess contrast.
I went back and looked at the beginning of the thread. I can't read the edge printing in the negatives. Are you sure the film is FP4+?

koraks · Jul 19, 2023

MattKing said:
I went back and looked at the beginning of the thread. I can't read the edge printing in the negatives. Are you sure the film is FP4+?

Ouch. Well spotted Matt. No way that film is FP4+. More likely something like Fomapan 100.

albireo · Jul 19, 2023

koraks said:
Ouch. Well spotted Matt. No way that film is FP4+. More likely something like Fomapan 100.

Not Fomapan 100. Fomapan 100 uses a different font for the frame numbers, moreover there are no arrow symbols near the frame numbers - unlike the arrow symbols visible in post #1.

koraks · Jul 19, 2023

You're right, @albireo. Fomapan has the characteristic numbers-in-circles (visible on close inspection). It's been a while since I shot any Foma in 120.

sruddy · Jul 19, 2023

koraks said:
Ouch. Well spotted Matt. No way that film is FP4+. More likely something like Fomapan 100.

It could be however I only purchase Kodak and Ilford in 120 black and white film. It came out of an FP4+ box however I was wondering why FP4+ was missing on the edge printing too. This was stock from the pandemic so who knows what film was actually in the box. this makes way more sense than metering issues.

MattKing said:
I don't know how you could run into those problems with excess contrast as a result of either factor - exposure problems yes, but not excess contrast.
I went back and looked at the beginning of the thread. I can't read the edge printing in the negatives. Are you sure the film is FP4+?

Looks like it was not FP4+ it definitely came out of an FP4+ box coded 63CFN1C03/03 Mar 2022. I had discovered rolls with several different codes that had mottling due to backing paper issues and Ilford is sending me replacement film. This code wasn't a known bad one but I'll be contacting them about the issue.

koraks · Jul 19, 2023

sruddy said:
It could be however I only purchase Kodak and Ilford in 120 black and white film.

Well, this mystery film is neither, since both Kodak and Ilford have edge numbers and clearly recognizable brand names as well as product identifiers. Maybe a gifted roll of something more arcane found its way into your film stash?

sruddy · Jul 19, 2023

koraks said:
Well, this mystery film is neither, since both Kodak and Ilford have edge numbers and clearly recognizable brand names as well as product identifiers. Maybe a gifted roll of something more arcane found its way into your film stash?

This is spooky. It came from an ilford box, I just pulled it out of the trash! I agree it's not ILford Film. Oh well I feel a lot better now you solved the issue.

koraks · Jul 19, 2023

sruddy said:
Oh well I feel a lot better now you solved the issue.

I wish I solved it! But it's a clue alright. Well, the obvious advice is....try with another roll of known identity and see how that goes.

GregY · Jul 19, 2023

.....the plot thickens

sruddy · Jul 19, 2023

koraks said:
I wish I solved it! But it's a clue alright. Well, the obvious advice is....try with another roll of known identity and see how that goes.

I just purchased new rolls with 10/24 ex dates so I'm nearly certain now all will be well. Thanks for that catch I immediately noticed it, but after thinking I wonder why this doesn't say ILford, I just figured the printer failed.

ILford FP4, Trying to achieve normally developed negatives with good density and contrast for #2-3 printing.

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