relationship between exposure and paper grades

[mitch brown]

i know this maybe stupid however , i seem to have to use grades 4 - 5 to get a good print and was wondering if maybe i was having developing or exposer problems. what controls what grade or paper you use?
mitch

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

If you always need grades 4-5, you probably should increase your film development time. If you target your negatives for grade 2-3, then you'll have grades 4-5 available when you really need it (flat lighting conditions).

 

[BBarlow690]

Chances are you're not developing your negatives long enough. It's also possible that you don't have enough exposure to begin with. There are easy exposure and development time tests you can do to trim things up in a day's work, most of which is spent waiting for negatives to dry.

At the risk of self-promotion, visit the web site below.

Bruce Barlow
www.circleofthesunproductions.com

 

[Monophoto]

Mitch -

I think there is a concensus that you need to increase the contrast in your negtives. What is not in agreement is how that should be accomplished.

The point I want to make is that you probably should proceed with a little caution in addressing the problem. Yes, increasing exposure may be the right answer. Or increasing development time. Or increasing the temperature of your developer. Or changing your agitation pattern. Any of these can change contrast, and you want to pick the optimum combination of them to produce negatives that you are happy with.

The best answer is to do some testing. The first test should be a film speed test to determine how you should expose the film to achieve the desired Zone I density. After you have zeroed in on an appropriate speed, then you can do a development test to fine tune Zone VIII.

I suspect that the material that Bruce sells can guide you through these steps. Alternatively, there are a number of references - some much better than others - that you can find in a public library. I found that Fred Picker's books were among the more understandable.

 

[Claire Senft]

For a rough first test, assuming that you are using graded paper, would be to increase your development by 20% and increase your film speed by 1/3 stop.

The increase in film spped is of less importance. It will work good if you already have nice shadow detail;Otherwise, do not change your film speed.

 

[mitch brown]

thank you everyone for your thoughts. i will try adding 20% and see what happens. i have done the film test but not the z viii because i use a yankee holder in a 3 liter tupperware container . the pmk mixtuer i use is what the person who taught me uses and his dilution and times and temp.
thanks
mitch