Newbie needs help ...

Hi...

I just developed my 2nd roll ever (first one was a total disaster)
Now I believe I did everything right this time ... but for some reason my negatives turned low contrasty and I think underexposed.

Now I am sure the exposures were correct as I used sekonic light meter and also double checked with my D90 .... so that leaves "developing" stage ... Something went wrong during processing ...

I used ;

Kodak T-400 TMY2
D76 developer 1:1 ( 10 1/2m 5 second agitation every 30secs )
Sprint Speed Fixer (3 minutes ~ 1min agitation and 15 secs each minute thereafter)

Good thing that my scanner uses "auto levels" ~ so you can compare both ;

this is the original with no adjustments, as you can see it's dark and low contrasty


and this is after auto levels . The way it should be...



So my question is ..... what did I do wrong ? Why did my negatives come out dark and low contrasty ?


Thanks in advance.. :confused:

You don't mention temperature. Years ago I had a heck of a time with thin negs for awhile until I realized the cheap thermometer I was using was a couple of degrees off. New thermometer, better negs.

It also looks like it could have been a low contrast day.

The scanner is not the only way to boost contrast. Do you have access to a darkroom for printing? This looks quite printable with variable contrast filters and paper.

Temperature ... yes! I forgot all about it..

All stable at 68-69... except last rinse was at about 70-71 degrees, I don't know if that makes a difference, I believe the image was already fixed by the last rinse..right ?

It was bad weather, however I have indoor shots, they also look low contrasty and underexposed...

As for printing, I am not looking to print them. At this point I am just trying to learn the process. But I really like to develop the best negatives possible, as I am not a big fan of digital manipulation of film... which to me defeats the whole purpose...

Is that a scan of a negative. In my experience scanners can dull a transparency or negative, so auto levels is needed.

Actually that looks too far off so nevermind.

Darkroom317 said:

Is that a scan of a negative. In my experience scanners can dull a transparency or negative, so auto levels is needed.

Click to expand...

I agree; the raw neg scan will almost always look dull and flat. Behold the 'protected' highlights! Coming from digital, that is a novelty. When you print the neg optically, you decide what contrast grade that gives you what you want.

cenetti:

First, welcome to the wonderful world of film development.

You indicated at first that your "negatives turned low contrasty and I think underexposed".

Essentially, the development has a large affect on contrast, and only a small amount of affect on exposure. So if the exposure is too low, it isn't likely to result from a problem with the development.

You also indicated that you checked exposure with both a sekonic meter and your D90. It may be that your two meters were correct, but your camera is out of adjustment (shutter speed faster than set, or aperture not accurate).

You also state that your negatives came out "dark and low contrasty". Do you mean that your negatives were dark, or did you mean to say that your negatives were actually light (thin) which led to a dark scan?

Finally, scanners aren't a good way to learn to evaluate a negative if you don't already know how to evaluate a negative. I know that sounds strange, but unless your scanner and software are calibrated to give good scans when used with good negatives, then a "no adjustment" scan may actually lead to a poor image on the screen when the negative is good.

In a perfect world, you could show your negatives to someone who has experience with negatives, and they could advise you if you should change your exposure and/or development. Unfortunately, the Internet isn't a perfect world .

In the meantime, here are a couple of questions:

a) are there a range of tones in your negatives, from almost clear (thin) to almost opaque (thick)?;
b) with respect to the thick parts of the negative, if they are supposed to contain observable detail, they should be slightly transparent - enough to be able to read black and white text from a newspaper through them. Are your (thick parts of the) negative like that? If not, how do they differ?;
c) how does the text on the edge of the film (the rebate) appear? Can the letters be easily read?

As for the general appearance of the negative, you might want to look at this site:

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Assessing-negatives-4682

Hope this helps.

Matt

Thank you Matt..

Ok, The thick parts are almost dark black with little to no transparency. I can't see thru text.
Judging from the samples on that site, I think they're underexposed, underdeveloped. Hmm.. plus the scanner might be adding dullness onto top of all that...

It could be the shutter speed, I'll check that one...which explains the "underexposed" part.

Kodak developing times for new t-max 400 is 10 1/4 minutes for D76 1:1 at 68 degrees (according to their PDF)
D76 pdf says developing time for tmax 400 is 12 1/2 minutes at 68 degrees

I used 10 1/4 minutes and they came out underdeveloped. So Should I be using 12 1/2 minutes then ?

Any experienced d76 tmax400 users ? What is the correct developing time ?

cenetti:

If the thick parts of the negative are too thick, the negative has been overdeveloped. I think you may need to reduce your development.

When you look at the chart on that site, pay most of your attention to the left side of each pair of images.

Matt

Unless you've printed them in a darkroom and can tell us which filters, paper, developing methods you used, it's impossible to rely on a scan to determine if the negative has been exposed/developed properly. If I'm reading your post correctly, you say that your negative has parts that are almost total black...that would translate to white on a print (hence the term negative) which would mean that it's probably not underexposed or underdeveloped...

Correct me if I'm misreading your words!

hmm... well if you look at the examples I posted in the first post. The sky is completely dark/black on the negative, I can't see tru at all. And the right side of the image (door) is extremely thin on the negative.

So if the I have extremely dark areas on the negative, it means it's overexposed... but the image (after the scan) looks underexposed ... I think I'll take these negatives to a lab and get some prints, see how they turn out.

You're right, it's very hard to judge from digital scans. I think that's why software automatically applies "auto-leves" after each scan.

For this scene, you cannot use the sky to evaluate exposure or development, because it will inevitably be over-exposed compared to the side of the building.

You need to use the white window frame to evaluate highlights, because that part of the scene is a highlight area that needs to show detail.

What can you tell us about the thinner parts of the negative? Can you see detail there?

And the lettering at the edge - is it dark or thin?

Matt

I really think that a little bit of info offered gives us some insight here. You said that the exposures were made in bad/inverse weather. With no direct sunlight to further seperate tones in the subject, the diffuse light can compress your tonal values considerably. I would think that this is definitely an exposure issue and that some creative printing would be of order. Even if the exposure were to be increased the contrast in this subject would still come out a little flat. But this negative is more usable in that there is more tonal seperation in your lower exposure zones.

MattKing said:

You need to use the white window frame to evaluate highlights, because that part of the scene is a highlight area that needs to show detail.

What can you tell us about the thinner parts of the negative? Can you see detail there?

And the lettering at the edge - is it dark or thin?

Click to expand...

Matt,

Window frame looks grayish with fine detail, definitely I can see-thru.
Thinner parts are also have fine details all over. And the letters at the age (frame numbers, film brand etc) are perfectly developed and readable.


Here I have indoor shot on the same roll.

Original negative scan without any adjustments :



and after "auto-levels" applied :

Keep in mind that your meter, whether it's the one in the digi SLR or a handheld meter seeks to render anything it looks at as 18% (sometimes 12%) grey. So, if you meter a piece of white mat board, and expose for what it says, a normal unadjusted result will look like a grey card.
If the scene you are metering is lighter than middle grey, you must compensate by increasing exposure. If it's darker, you reduce exposure.

Generally, a dark looking uncorrected positive would imply too little exposure and a light positive would imply too much. There isn't much shadow detail either, which is another indication that the exposure wasn't quite enough.

Assuming the doll is meant to have caucasion looking skin, it's underexposed. The lighting is fairly contrasty in this case, so shadow detail would be lacking anyway, but the left side of the head disappears into the background pretty rapidly.

maybe you should process your film exactly as you are
but bracket your exposures so you can see what exposures
work best for your developing method(ology).
often times box speed &C are just a guideline ..
lab-exposures, lab-perfection ...

i would reshoot a roll, all the same way
1 exposures right on what your meter suggests
1 exposure a full fstop overexposed
1 exposure a full fstop underexposed.

then instead of comparing scans+autoadjusted scans
make a contact sheet and see which exposures look the best.

it is ok to use contrast filters ... or a higher contrast graded paper.
that is why they make them

good luck!

john

ps. don't forget it is supposed to be fun

John is right that bracketing teaches much.

Just bear in mind that how a neg looks takes a long time to interpret properly. And on top of that, a thick neg can be correct, a thin neg can be correct, depends on how you plan to do your printing and where you want things to fall on the toe/shin/knee of the curve.

One school of thought would suggest contact printing your negs on graded paper to get a idea of where you stand. This is very simple, and you don't need an enlarger or darkroom etc. If your neg prints easily to a standard contrast grade then you're doing well. As John says, nothing wrong with printing to a high or low contrast paper... and there are more advanced technique like split grade printing that give you full curve control. But the usual advice is to try to keep it as simple as you can, at least for starters. If it isn't simple then chances are that you're doing something incorrectly

In any case, until you consecrate the relationship between neg and paper, I don't see how to move forward on what your neg should look like.

If you are just scanning and that's all you plan to do, then here is what to look out for: if your neg is too thin then when you auto curve it, you will see noisy/grainy shadows. If it is too thick then it probably won't matter (unless it is really, really thick!), but the #1 problem for the scan workflow is having a neg too thin.

A couple of thoughts and questions. You wrote that you are not planning to print these now. Is your long term goal to print your work with conventional "wet" materials, or is it to scan and digitally create some digital print or digital end product? If it is to do conventional prints, then the best way to see what you have is to print on conventional "wet" printing materials. All the changes a scanner imparts and putting on the web, here, impart make it near impossible for others, who don't have your negs in hand, to evaluate your process. It limits how much we can help.

That said, if these are your first two rolls, and you have only trashed one, then you are doing just fine. Despite the chance of some under or over exposure and development, your film looks evenly processed; shows no fatal scratches; is at least scannable; and gives with a bit of tweaking a very fair representation of the soft light of a gray day. In short, it worked.

So, now you want to tune up the process. Soft lighting tends to produce low contrast all things being equal. That means it is not necessarily the best light to use to get a basic working process going with. It might be a good plan to shoot in very "average" conditions so that you can create a normal process for yourself. Normal, means for the easiest way to get in the ballpark, shoot some test film in sunlight, with the sun to your back. Were you shooting for finished work, that tends to be boring light, but it makes for middle of the road contrast exposure so that average development will give you easily printable negs. Then you can go on to fine tune your process. Start with bland.

If you plan to use conventional "wet" printing materials, then those same materials are the best way to see and evaluate what you are doing. There are myriad choices of how to go about all this. Everyone here will offer his or her favorite way to expose and test, so we will have every chance to make your life complicated and confusing. I would urge you to start with some simple, middle of the road, testing technique, and to avoid, at the beginning, complex and involved processes. There is plenty of time for complicating your life later.