I'm not expecting much input here so much as recording my "DUH" moments for the possible benefit of others.... who love photography and enjoy both digital and film.
After 2 years off, I'm back to film with a good slew of developing ahead and been re-reading all my documents. What brings me back is: 1) I've got all this stuff still hanging out in the fridge; 2) I miss the tactile analog physicality of handling.... as much as it can be a PIA... and it is... especially "DUST" on my negatives!!! and defects in processing and elsewhere; and 3) Digital is just more and more something I do for others and not for me (except where the unobtrusive iPhone is a boon).
So rechecking the documentation collected and always STILL collecting, it turns out there's a LOT of mild suggestions, hints, etc. that aren't as easily focused upon (by me at least) when starting out until remembering some of my struggles... the "issues" and discussion seem more pointed than before, and so I pass those on here:
1) Finley's Jobo book suggests limiting developer solutions to 1:1. Some suggest that one issue with using STOCK developer is that times get shortened to a point where defects in processing become more common because the "slosh" just doesn't have as much of a chance to assure full and complete coverage.
2) Finley's discussion of Ilford ID-11 quickly passes along the 1-use idea... but more as a note that "ID-11 is ideal for mix-use-discard." Wait.... that's 1-use ain't it? Missed that last time.
3) Water stop: This remains somewhat murky to me. I used 3 water rinses after admonition that STOP with rotary will harm the film. Now I'm not so sure. Citric acid stop which is cheap - maybe even in a single use regimen - might help conserve the Fix solution which is more expensive ...and at least more troublesome to dispose of.
4) Fix: I've picked up some of FLIC's more EPA-friendly stuff, but still have the chems to mix TF3 on my own. Covered there for a while.
5) Wash: Use of HYPO was kind of hotly debated here at one time, but a lot of folks use it (I didn't) and make a fairly convincing argument that it can help remove any left over chems... like halation levels that might not have been completely removed in a pre-wash. I've got some stock / dry on hand and will give it a shot. Also re-examing the Jobo recommended endless wash rinses vs. Ilford minimal wash and using these together with an intermediate Hypo.
6) Pre-wash: The arguments continue if you follow Finley who suggests a 5-minute pre-wash. The purpose though according to many is less halation removal than to make non-rotary times identical with rotary times by a pre-soak of this length. Ilford of course warns explicitly that its films should NOT be pre-washed. Most photographers I see seem to prewash, and so last time I defaulted to Finley's 5 minutes. This may be longer than necessary as I'm seeing many just do 2 minutes - even with hand inversion - to remove anti-halation, but some in the rotary world are cutting pre-wash to 2 minutes as well. So I'm gonna go with 2 pre-washes of 1 minute each and see what happens.
7) My next steps after development are hybrid for an inkjet print process, so digital scanning's the goal. This means the blackpoint and whitepoint will be managed in that way, and believe me, I'm going to TRY to be a lot less artsy fartsy with this and use the eyedropper rather than my eyeballs as the first pass.
As to technique, I've used Jobo 2509's for reels with 4X5 mostly cause I hade the 2500 size tanks on hand, and found a loader.... but I'm not a fan given that I'd found you pretty much are well advised to cut practice to using 4 sheets rather than 6 to avoid "touching" issues. The larger size reels that fit 120 and 35mm just seem easier to feed roll film than the smaller reels for the 1500 series... so that's what I did. This round I've received a Patterson 3 tank and will give a B's 4X5 reel a shot as well as his slower rotation process and some manual / hand inversion to see if we can pick up more consistency. Additionally, I'm NOT going to try to do two 2509 reels in one tank, but go with 1 at a time. More work, but as film gets more expensive, you hate to lose any sheets to "the process". Roll film had always gone fine - even and especially C41 and E6 - but my 4X5 had some issues. Those are the major equipment and process changes.... which in effect are "not much".
Last time, I'd found an old densitometer cheap, but hadn't used it. This time... we're using it to help become more objective and precise in analying the range of tones within my images and help push to get the full range I'm looking for. This will be somewhat short of St. Ansel's Zone process... but not completely divorced from it's ideas. Zonies.... and Zombies may feast on me and that's fair, but I just don't want to get lost in the weeds so much as use an obvious tool to help with reaching full dynamic range. My semantics may be imprecise, but I think you know my intent.
Here are some things I didn't really think about last time:
1) Ilford liked to say that rotary processing should mean a 15% reduction in developing time. Adox suggests that instead rotary processing should mean a 15% reduction in effective ISO. Sounds like general agreement, but a different way of reaching the same target. Is that a "duh"? Yeah. Probably another one.
2) Clearing time for fixer: I read over this last time but fully intend to sacrifice some 35mm to testing after 1st mix and throughout to monitor what's going on.
3) Developer testing to set initial time: Yep. Read a bit on this and will give this the same test. Why not? Didn't do this last time, but instead just took advised times as a given.
4) Selected my developers as 1) ID-11 'cause I've got 5 boxes on hand, 2) D23 'cause I've got a ton of chems for mixing this as it was my one-and-only last time, and 3) Diafine which is new for me as I'm kind of sold on the utility of a speed increasing developer for enhancing the utility of a dwindling number of films and especially in 4X5 where the ISO's tend to be low and the f-stop speed of the lenses slow...and actual shooting slower still. Some photos I've admired using Diafine were just exceptional and wouldn't be practical with my other choices.
Yes, I still shoot a Rolleiflex 3.5F and Nikon F4... so it's not all 30 pounds of weight or drop-the-idea-and-stick with digital. Digital has a lot of utility, but my iPhone seems to be handling a lot of that.... EXCEPT for event photography. And another realization that with digital shooting at 1200 or 3600 ISO is today really without defects, I'm even more curious about giving Diafine a whirl.
And do I dream of a MF camera that would be easier than LF but at the end of the day find that MF is just another way to carry the SAME weight? Yep. Wish I could avoid seeing the effect of not using tilt-shift, but once you become aware of it, you honestly are stuck with it becoming a mental impediment to appreciating otherwise good images. Mental hang up? Yep. I think only two MF cameras will fix this RB/RZ 67's and Fuji's 680.... and after thinking this over seriously for the past month.... I decided to commit to trying to debug my 4X5 before going to what's actually a 2X3-ish format where the difficulty in achieving the requisite level of precision to pull it off... seems drawn to my attention as justifying the high prices good MF cameras pull in. And LF ain't cheap!!!
Will debugging a process in 4X5 have benefits elsewhere? I'd think so.
At any rate, today one of the biggest impediments to film is the attention it brings... especially LF where unobtrusive just isn't a thing.
After 2 years off, I'm back to film with a good slew of developing ahead and been re-reading all my documents. What brings me back is: 1) I've got all this stuff still hanging out in the fridge; 2) I miss the tactile analog physicality of handling.... as much as it can be a PIA... and it is... especially "DUST" on my negatives!!! and defects in processing and elsewhere; and 3) Digital is just more and more something I do for others and not for me (except where the unobtrusive iPhone is a boon).
So rechecking the documentation collected and always STILL collecting, it turns out there's a LOT of mild suggestions, hints, etc. that aren't as easily focused upon (by me at least) when starting out until remembering some of my struggles... the "issues" and discussion seem more pointed than before, and so I pass those on here:
1) Finley's Jobo book suggests limiting developer solutions to 1:1. Some suggest that one issue with using STOCK developer is that times get shortened to a point where defects in processing become more common because the "slosh" just doesn't have as much of a chance to assure full and complete coverage.
2) Finley's discussion of Ilford ID-11 quickly passes along the 1-use idea... but more as a note that "ID-11 is ideal for mix-use-discard." Wait.... that's 1-use ain't it? Missed that last time.
3) Water stop: This remains somewhat murky to me. I used 3 water rinses after admonition that STOP with rotary will harm the film. Now I'm not so sure. Citric acid stop which is cheap - maybe even in a single use regimen - might help conserve the Fix solution which is more expensive ...and at least more troublesome to dispose of.
4) Fix: I've picked up some of FLIC's more EPA-friendly stuff, but still have the chems to mix TF3 on my own. Covered there for a while.
5) Wash: Use of HYPO was kind of hotly debated here at one time, but a lot of folks use it (I didn't) and make a fairly convincing argument that it can help remove any left over chems... like halation levels that might not have been completely removed in a pre-wash. I've got some stock / dry on hand and will give it a shot. Also re-examing the Jobo recommended endless wash rinses vs. Ilford minimal wash and using these together with an intermediate Hypo.
6) Pre-wash: The arguments continue if you follow Finley who suggests a 5-minute pre-wash. The purpose though according to many is less halation removal than to make non-rotary times identical with rotary times by a pre-soak of this length. Ilford of course warns explicitly that its films should NOT be pre-washed. Most photographers I see seem to prewash, and so last time I defaulted to Finley's 5 minutes. This may be longer than necessary as I'm seeing many just do 2 minutes - even with hand inversion - to remove anti-halation, but some in the rotary world are cutting pre-wash to 2 minutes as well. So I'm gonna go with 2 pre-washes of 1 minute each and see what happens.
7) My next steps after development are hybrid for an inkjet print process, so digital scanning's the goal. This means the blackpoint and whitepoint will be managed in that way, and believe me, I'm going to TRY to be a lot less artsy fartsy with this and use the eyedropper rather than my eyeballs as the first pass.
As to technique, I've used Jobo 2509's for reels with 4X5 mostly cause I hade the 2500 size tanks on hand, and found a loader.... but I'm not a fan given that I'd found you pretty much are well advised to cut practice to using 4 sheets rather than 6 to avoid "touching" issues. The larger size reels that fit 120 and 35mm just seem easier to feed roll film than the smaller reels for the 1500 series... so that's what I did. This round I've received a Patterson 3 tank and will give a B's 4X5 reel a shot as well as his slower rotation process and some manual / hand inversion to see if we can pick up more consistency. Additionally, I'm NOT going to try to do two 2509 reels in one tank, but go with 1 at a time. More work, but as film gets more expensive, you hate to lose any sheets to "the process". Roll film had always gone fine - even and especially C41 and E6 - but my 4X5 had some issues. Those are the major equipment and process changes.... which in effect are "not much".
Last time, I'd found an old densitometer cheap, but hadn't used it. This time... we're using it to help become more objective and precise in analying the range of tones within my images and help push to get the full range I'm looking for. This will be somewhat short of St. Ansel's Zone process... but not completely divorced from it's ideas. Zonies.... and Zombies may feast on me and that's fair, but I just don't want to get lost in the weeds so much as use an obvious tool to help with reaching full dynamic range. My semantics may be imprecise, but I think you know my intent.
Here are some things I didn't really think about last time:
1) Ilford liked to say that rotary processing should mean a 15% reduction in developing time. Adox suggests that instead rotary processing should mean a 15% reduction in effective ISO. Sounds like general agreement, but a different way of reaching the same target. Is that a "duh"? Yeah. Probably another one.
2) Clearing time for fixer: I read over this last time but fully intend to sacrifice some 35mm to testing after 1st mix and throughout to monitor what's going on.
3) Developer testing to set initial time: Yep. Read a bit on this and will give this the same test. Why not? Didn't do this last time, but instead just took advised times as a given.
4) Selected my developers as 1) ID-11 'cause I've got 5 boxes on hand, 2) D23 'cause I've got a ton of chems for mixing this as it was my one-and-only last time, and 3) Diafine which is new for me as I'm kind of sold on the utility of a speed increasing developer for enhancing the utility of a dwindling number of films and especially in 4X5 where the ISO's tend to be low and the f-stop speed of the lenses slow...and actual shooting slower still. Some photos I've admired using Diafine were just exceptional and wouldn't be practical with my other choices.
Yes, I still shoot a Rolleiflex 3.5F and Nikon F4... so it's not all 30 pounds of weight or drop-the-idea-and-stick with digital. Digital has a lot of utility, but my iPhone seems to be handling a lot of that.... EXCEPT for event photography. And another realization that with digital shooting at 1200 or 3600 ISO is today really without defects, I'm even more curious about giving Diafine a whirl.
And do I dream of a MF camera that would be easier than LF but at the end of the day find that MF is just another way to carry the SAME weight? Yep. Wish I could avoid seeing the effect of not using tilt-shift, but once you become aware of it, you honestly are stuck with it becoming a mental impediment to appreciating otherwise good images. Mental hang up? Yep. I think only two MF cameras will fix this RB/RZ 67's and Fuji's 680.... and after thinking this over seriously for the past month.... I decided to commit to trying to debug my 4X5 before going to what's actually a 2X3-ish format where the difficulty in achieving the requisite level of precision to pull it off... seems drawn to my attention as justifying the high prices good MF cameras pull in. And LF ain't cheap!!!
Will debugging a process in 4X5 have benefits elsewhere? I'd think so.
At any rate, today one of the biggest impediments to film is the attention it brings... especially LF where unobtrusive just isn't a thing.
