Plus-X Professional Test Stuff-Up

Hi all. I come to you today with a bit of a dilemma, and one that I thought it would be prudent to defer to the expertise of the board with.

It reads as such: I have a 30.5m bulk roll of PX125, expired in 2005 that I bought off of a fellow APUGer here a few years back. A couple of days ago I finally decided to load it up into my bulk loader after shooting the last of my hp5+. I spooled off a few rolls and figured that it would be prudent to do a test of the film before any real shooting, as I don't foresee coming across any more of this stuff anytime soon. So I do just that. I chose to use an f801s as it contains the only spot meter I own. I don't have a grey card so I metered off of a painted piece of wood that is approximately 18% grey, note zone V, place wood in zone I, expose, bracket, yadayadayada. Quite pleased with myself for my capacity for due diligence. I'm thinking to myself "you really know what you're doing" and various other ego affirming and boosting thoughts as I relax with a nice coffee post shoot.

Then I pick up my camera again. Look at lcd screen. Notice metering symbol. Matrix. Hmmm... Not so smart after all, are ye? Laugh and simultaneously chastise myself for wasting 20 frames of this precious and rarest of film.

Now, here is the thing. I know that when I develop this roll, I will find acceptable results for whatever it is the film speed ends up being after development. My chosen film speed will work fine with the Nikon and it's matrix metering capacity; the caveat being that I plan to shoot the majority of this film in my m4 which happens to be my everyday carry (I rarely use the Nikon for anything other than at home snaps of my 4 month old) and as such I use sunny 16 almost exclusively. Now, do I shoot another test roll? Or do I work off of the results obtained from the first test, transfering the proper exposure information obtained from the Nikon to the M4? What is your suggestion?

This one would be just as at home in the "latest mistake" thread.

I suppose a better sum-up question would have been "has anyone here ever done this and did it worked out ok for you in the end?"

I haven't used matrix metering when I thought I was spot metering, but have made my fair share of mistakes...

If you can re-create the test setup, you can probably figure it out without shooting film, just setup the same scene again and meter with matrix and spot and note the difference. Then any result that you get, apply the difference.

Have you seen this thread?

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I wouldn't waste any more film on testing, just develop what you have, refer to the notes you made about which exposure looks best and go use the rest of it in good health.

Bill Burk said:

I haven't used matrix metering when I thought I was spot metering, but have made my fair share of mistakes...

If you can re-create the test setup, you can probably figure it out without shooting film, just setup the same scene again and meter with matrix and spot and note the difference. Then any result that you get, apply...

Click to expand...

Good grief, how did I not think to do this? You see, this is why I defer to the panel. It helps having others to think of the things that one doesn't. Excellent idea.

To answer your question, I have seen that thread. Not exactly relevant to my situation, as the OP of that thread is working with a much older film and would be developing differently than how I would be, but I appreciate you pointing me in that direction.

Fixcinater said:

I wouldn't waste any more film on testing..

Click to expand...

I like your style.

I say this as someone whose favorite b&w emulsion is Plus-X, and sees any remaining rolls as equally precious.

I guess I just don't see much purpose in testing when the test is not at all representative of the actual intended use. Any difference between metering modes in a static situation will be rendered moot by the change to a different camera/lenses and the wildly different situations you'll encounter in daily shooting.

If you're going to be shooting it Sunny 16 in your Leica, go shoot a half roll in your Leica with your best guess and go from there. If you're confident enough to do this presumably through an entire roll of HP5, you've got a fair bit of data there.

Or, even better, go shoot a factory roll or three of FP4 (nearly closest thing to PX that is still in production) with the Leica and then pop in some Plus-X.

Fixcinator, I get it. Use the film to take pictures, not to make tests with. I'm on board 100 percent. But it's not so much the exposing of the film I'm worried about, it's the developing. Having never shot or developed Plus-X before, I want to make sure that with the exposure I give I'm able to properly soup this film the way I develop and with the soup I use. The point is to obtain good negs to print from, and although the test may not be representative of the intended use, at least it will give me data from which to extrapolate from. The film has probably lost speed due to its age and there might be some base fog there. I use rodinol for most things and intended to use it for the Plus-X soup too. I'll lose further speed from that dev. Just want to do my due diligence.

All that being said we're talking about another 8 frames. Still have around 29 meters to play with.

Plus-X isn't so fast nor is 2005 so old that you're likely to suffer a whole lot of fogging or loss of speed unless it was really stored poorly.

Plus-X is pretty forgiving stuff - in your position, I'd shoot it at box speed and soup at the normal time and see what I got. I think the odds are extremely good you'll still get printable negs and then you'll have a real-world baseline to work from.

Oh... and enjoy the roll! Plus-X is wonderful stuff.

Ok, I guess I'm overthinking this whole thing. I'll skip the first roll and see what I can see. Thanks for the input all, I appreciate it.

lovely_sausages said:

Ok, I guess I'm overthinking this whole thing.

Click to expand...

Oh, I dunno if I'd say that... if it was readily available film, I'd say you were doing the prudent thing. With Plus-X being as hard to find as hen's teeth, however, I'd just hate to see you lose precious frames to further testing when you could, instead, have useful images on them.

lovely_sausages said:

Ok, I guess I'm overthinking this whole thing. I'll skip the first roll and see what I can see. Thanks for the input all, I appreciate it.

Click to expand...

Have fun with it! I have a few rolls of 35mm left and a few in 120 so I definitely understand, it's sometimes hard to decide that now is the time to use them.

I was never a big fan of Plus-X in 35mm. Just something too grey and squishy about it for my tastes. But I'm absolutely adoring it in 4x5. I'm shooting stuff as old as expiration dates in the 70s and getting really good results. I've been metering at 50, developing in ID-11 1:1 at some time I came up with that works well (I don't have my notes here), and away I go. I've just been using that scheme regardless of the age of the box, and I always get good images. (I'm sure that has a lot more to do with Plus-X's forgiveness than my having hit upon some magic formula.) Oh, and I always do test one sheet out of a box before using it in earnest, just to make sure I haven't ended up with a box of ruined film, but so far so good. Hooray for ebay.

Duncan