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shadesofgrey · Jun 26, 2005

Hi all. Pens to the ready? Your starter for ten is..... Soups
1/ Neopan 400 in HC110. Anyone try this?
2/Neopan 400 in Ilfosol S Anyone try this?
3/D23. Where to buy these days? Can you? Equivalent? Is there?

I normally Dev Neo 400 in Rodinal/ID11 but have seen some real nice work using HC110 so I though Id like to give it a go but, before I rush out and buy a ton of it I thought you gurus might have some pointers for me. As to the others, just looking for that holy grail..the perfect developer for the perfect film.

Cheers guys..and gals.

Brian.

Nick Zentena · Jun 26, 2005

You need to mix D-23 yourself. No big deal.

100 sodium sulfite
7.5 grams metol

water to make 1 litre.

mono · Jun 26, 2005

Why change your combi Neo 400/Rodinal to HC110??
There might be a little more grain!

jim appleyard · Jun 26, 2005

There is no Holy Grail. There is no perfect film. There is no perfect film. It's whatever combo satisfies most of your needs.

I like to shoot waterfalls in the woods. For me, it's a slow film with a slow shutter speed. APX 25 was great, as was Pan-X. Now it's Efke 25 and Pan F, all souped in Rodinal. These films are/were nearly grainless, so Rodinal brought out the sharpness in them.

Portraits? ISO 400. I like to do portraits of Caucasion folks against a black backdrop and overexpose by oe stop to make the backdrop really black. I soup this film in somethng like D-23, D-76; something to shave the grain a bit.

Point being that these two styles of photography are not necessarily interchangable. Use the right tool for the right job.

Lots of films left, lots of devs out there. Try them all.

srs5694 · Jun 26, 2005

shadesofgrey said:
3/D23. Where to buy these days? Can you? Equivalent? Is there?

As Nick pointed out, D23 is one of the simplest developers to mix yourself. If you can't bear to open two bottles rather than one packet and measure rather than dump, Photographer's Formulary sells Developer 23, which it says is "similar to Kodak D-23." Your guess is as good as mine as to precisely what "similar" means in this context. One point: The PF product costs $8.95 for 1l, or $15.95 for 4l ($3.99/l). Mixing it yourself will cost about $0.85/l, depending on where you buy your chemicals and in what quantities.

shadesofgrey · Jun 26, 2005

Nick Zentena said:
You need to mix D-23 yourself. No big deal.

100 sodium sulfite
7.5 grams metol

water to make 1 litre.

Hi Nick. I know the D23 formula, I was just hoping that maybe someone knew of a ready made-ish alternative product that was similar, like the one SRS (hi SRS) pointed out though not sure if its available over here. Dont mind the mixing, do it all the time (ID11) getting hold of the ingredients is just a pain sometimes. Hi Mono: Changing my brew may indeed produce more grain, only way to find out for sure is to try it; plus, I learn about another developer film combination. Thanks for the post Jim, not sure what it was about but thanks anyway.

B.

k_jupiter · Jun 27, 2005

jim appleyard said:
Portraits? ISO 400. I like to do portraits of Caucasion folks against a black backdrop and overexpose by oe stop to make the backdrop really black. I soup this film in somethng like D-23, D-76; something to shave the grain a bit.

Ummmm... overexpose to get a really black background? I can see metering on skintone and overexposing to bring it up to zone 6, but what does that have to do with a black background?

Please explain.

tim,
Cornfused in...
san jose

titrisol · Jun 27, 2005

Tried this a while ago, results were OK, printable, but the neopan looked grainy and the shadow details was lost. Ilfosol S is a great developer for slower films though.
Neopan 1600 in Ilfosol S is also an interesting combo, if you want to have nice solid black shadows

shadesofgrey said:
2/Neopan 400 in Ilfosol S Anyone try this?

Brian.

jim appleyard · Jun 27, 2005

I guess I left some folks in the dark; (Get it? Of course you do!) my point of my answer is that there is no one film to do everything. Often we need 2 types of film or more to do different things.

With the black background I often get an image where it comes out dark gray; this is with ISO 400 film, studio flash, incident reading at EI 400. By overexposing by at least one stop, the black backdrop comes out black, not gray when I print for skin tone. Does this help?

k_jupiter said:
Ummmm... overexpose to get a really black background? I can see metering on skintone and overexposing to bring it up to zone 6, but what does that have to do with a black background?

Please explain.

tim,
Cornfused in...
san jose

Jeremy · Jun 27, 2005

jim appleyard said:
With the black background I often get an image where it comes out dark gray; this is with ISO 400 film, studio flash, incident reading at EI 400. By overexposing by at least one stop, the black backdrop comes out black, not gray when I print for skin tone. Does this help?

Jim, I think Tim was asking because I believe you have your terms backwards.

Overexposing means letting in more light so the background would become even lighter.

Underexposing would let in less light therefore making the background darker (black).

I have made this mistake myself too many times to count!

jim appleyard · Jun 27, 2005

Ok, we're a bit off topic now, but let's see if I can explain what I do: average white person as subject. Black backdrop. Using ISO 400 film. If I do an incident reading at EI 400 I will get a good exposure of the skin, but my black backdrop comes out dark gray. If I overexpose, yes, overexpose by at least one stop I then get a lighter than normal face, but I print it down to normal in the darkroom and then I get a black background.

It might not make sense to you, but it works.

In my 1st post I meant to say, "No perfect dev. No perfect film"

"It's not the age, it's the mileage" Indiana Jones

shadesofgrey · Jun 27, 2005

titrisol said:
Tried this a while ago, results were OK, printable, but the neopan looked grainy and the shadow details was lost. Ilfosol S is a great developer for slower films though.
Neopan 1600 in Ilfosol S is also an interesting combo, if you want to have nice solid black shadows

Just what the Dr ordered plain facts, magic! Perhaps Ill Leave Ilfoso S for the 100/200 group. Now if only I could get Fujido over here!
All the best

B.

dancqu · Jun 27, 2005

jim appleyard said:
... incident reading at EI 400.
By overexposing by at least one stop, ...

So you shoot that ISO 400 film at an EI of 200.
Your black meters how many stops below skin? Dan

Jan Cornelius · Jun 27, 2005

... Underexposing
... overexposing
... underdeveloping
... overdeveloping
... Developer losing film speed
... developer gaining film
... 400 @ 200 asa
... 400 @ 1600
... expose for details, develop for shadows (or something similar)

and then all the combinations of the above ....

Could somebody explain this all in a few clear words.

Everytime I read a thread like this I get totally confused.

k_jupiter · Jun 28, 2005

Jan Cornelius said:
... Underexposing
... overexposing
... underdeveloping
... overdeveloping
... Developer losing film speed
... developer gaining film
... 400 @ 200 asa
... 400 @ 1600
... expose for details, develop for shadows (or something similar)

and then all the combinations of the above ....

Could somebody explain this all in a few clear words.

Everytime I read a thread like this I get totally confused.

OK, I'll give it a shot.

10 zones (give or take). Your meter reads zone 5. Caucasion skin is about zone 6. So meter on it and open up one stop (overexpose) and the skin tone will come out just about right. In the big pitcha, you have set your meter to 200 for a ASA film of 400. I suspect that because Jim adjusts development to compensate a bit for the over exposure, his blacks will not develop as much in relation to the skin tones of the model. Hence, they will go darker in that relationship. He prints for perfect skintones and the background drops away to a more perfect black.

Now 400 @ E.I. of 1600... Underexposed by two stops. The meter set for 400 reads zone 5. you close down ( close the aperture or add two stops of speed) i.e. meter reads f11 @ 1/125... you shoot at f11 at 1/500 or f22 at 1/125. You lose two zones of low blacks. They disappear into the void of shadows.

You expose for shadows and develop for highlights.

developers gaining or losing speed? There ain't enough room in this thread to go into that. But some developers will do a better job of retaining shadows in development than others. This is called gaining speed for a particular film.

Underdeveloping? I have no idea. I have never done that. You would do it to control contrast (don't blow out the highlights).

tim in san jose

jim appleyard · Jun 28, 2005

I suspect that because Jim adjusts development to compensate a bit for the over exposure, his blacks will not develop as much in relation to the skin tones of the model. Hence, they will go darker in that relationship. He prints for perfect skintones and the background drops away to a more perfect black.

That's it! See wasn't that easy!?

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