Overdevelopment of SFX 200?

Slowshooter · Jul 3, 2019

I recently ran an expired roll of Ilford SFX 200 through my newly acquired Olympus XA2. The film was from 2005 and had been stored in a fridge at least some of the time.

It was processed in Ilfosol 3. I gave it the recommended processing time of six minutes, completely forgetting that I needed to reduce the time for expired film (see accompanying photo). I did a bit of post-processing in Lightroom to bring up the shadows but they're still pretty dark.

The day was bright and sunny. My questions are:

1). Was it just too sunny and the camera adjusted the exposure?

2). Was the film too far past its use-by date?

3). Was it just processed for too long?

4.) Was the photographer just clueless?!

Thank you.

bdial · Jul 3, 2019

Probably #1, lack of shadow detail would generally be caused by not enough exposure. So, the sunny conditions might have caused the meter to under-expose. Or you may need to use a lower exposure index too. for example, rate it at 100 instead of 200.
Were you using a filter?

MattKing · Jul 3, 2019

We really can't tell much from a scan.
If you shared a backlit photo of thhe negatives themselves we might be able to tell more.
That being said, this looks like the result of the meter being fooled by the sky, and setting the exposure too low for the foreground.
By the way, I'm not where you got the idea tthat old film should have the development time reduced. Some times it is a good idea to increase the exposure for old film, which may result in a need to reduce the development a bit, but generally I would suggest that development be for the standard time.

Slowshooter · Jul 3, 2019

bdial said:
Probably #1, lack of shadow detail would generally be caused by not enough exposure. So, the sunny conditions might have caused the meter to under-expose. Or you may need to use a lower exposure index too. for example, rate it at 100 instead of 200.
Were you using a filter?

Thanks bdial. No filter, as it's a compact camera. The dark areas were quite blue in my original scan.

Slowshooter · Jul 3, 2019

MattKing said:
We really can't tell much from a scan.
If you shared a backlit photo of thhe negatives themselves we might be able to tell more.
That being said, this looks like the result of the meter being fooled by the sky, and setting the exposure too low for the foreground.
By the way, I'm not where you got the idea tthat old film should have the development time reduced. Some times it is a good idea to increase the exposure for old film, which may result in a need to reduce the development a bit, but generally I would suggest that development be for the standard time.

Thanks Matt. I read somewhere about development times, probably online. I'll upload a photo of the negatives tomorrow.
Seán.

jim appleyard · Jul 3, 2019

SFX is a near-infrared film and is meant to used with an IR filter. Without one, it's just another b/w film. The XA is a great camera, but I'm not sure I'd use it with IR film. You could buy an oversized IR filter and hold it up to the lens when you shoot, but you'll need a tripod and use the cameras self timer.

MattKing · Jul 3, 2019

Actually Jim, SFX 200 is quite interesting when you use it conventionally. Its extended red sensitivity can be put to good use, and its grain structure might satisfy those who complain about "modern" Tri-X not having the same character as Tri-X of days of old.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend that people start out with it as their general purpose film - it is fairly costly for one thing - but I could understand if someone ended up using it as their favourite after trying lots of options.
A very long time ago I won an "honourable mention" in an Ilford photo contest by submitting (from half way around the world) a print of a floral still life shot using SFX 200 without a filter.

Slowshooter · Jul 3, 2019

jim appleyard said:
SFX is a near-infrared film and is meant to used with an IR filter. Without one, it's just another b/w film. The XA is a great camera, but I'm not sure I'd use it with IR film. You could buy an oversized IR filter and hold it up to the lens when you shoot, but you'll need a tripod and use the cameras self timer.

Thanks Jim. I was being casual about it, just to see how the camera would perform. I knew SFX could be processed as an ordinary film but didn't expect it to have turned out so dark. Knowing that I was going to such a beautiful location, I should have used a new ordinary film and left the experiments for another day!

pbromaghin · Jul 3, 2019

The center-weighted metering on the XA-2 probably had a lot to do with it, since the center of the pic is very bright. I second Mr Appleyard in saying that the equipment used doesn't take advantage of the characteristics that make SFX special. It's a lot of work to try to get it right, but really fun when the magic happens.

Slowshooter · Jul 3, 2019

pbromaghin said:
The center-weighted metering on the XA-2 probably had a lot to do with it, since the center of the pic is very bright. I second Mr Appleyard in saying that the equipment used doesn't take advantage of the characteristics that make SFX special. It's a lot of work to try to get it right, but really fun when the magic happens.

Thanks pbromaghin. It was just the wrong film at the wrong time!

jim appleyard · Jul 3, 2019

MattKing said:
Actually Jim, SFX 200 is quite interesting when you use it conventionally. Its extended red sensitivity can be put to good use, and its grain structure might satisfy those who complain about "modern" Tri-X not having the same character as Tri-X of days of old.

Interesting, Matt. The few shots I've done w/o a filter (forgot to put in on!) were quite bland. I couldn't see myself using this a regular film, but milages vary.

Sirius Glass · Jul 3, 2019

Did you use a Red filter [R23, R25, R29?]? or not?

MattKing · Jul 3, 2019

Here is a scan of the print I referred to above - 120 SFX 200 in a Mamiya 645 Super (IIRC). No fiter used. It would have been developed in HC-110, dil H.
It was entered in the 2009 Ilford APUG Competition:

jim appleyard · Jul 4, 2019

MattKing said:
Here is a scan of the print I referred to above - 120 SFX 200 in a Mamiya 645 Super (IIRC). No fiter used. It would have been developed in HC-110, dil H.
It was entered in the 2009 Ilford APUG Competition:
View attachment 226345

Nice!

Slowshooter · Jul 4, 2019

Sirius Glass said:
Did you use a Red filter [R23, R25, R29?]? or not?

There was no filter used.

Slowshooter · Jul 4, 2019

MattKing said:
Here is a scan of the print I referred to above - 120 SFX 200 in a Mamiya 645 Super (IIRC). No fiter used. It would have been developed in HC-110, dil H.
It was entered in the 2009 Ilford APUG Competition:
View attachment 226345

That's a beautiful image Matt.

MattKing · Jul 4, 2019

Thanks.

Overdevelopment of SFX 200?

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