Revisiting Microphen

Juan Valdenebro said:

One more thing:
I don't see the same very small grain I got with the previous Tri-X... It looks like normal Tri-X grain:

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I do wonder if the "holy grail" that I mentioned previously of high speed film or med speed pushed by one or two stops with less grain is actually achievable to the extent of making a noticeable difference in say an 8x10 print

It isn't clear to me how much of a difference a much lower agitation regime can make to grain that is inherent in the film with compensation in development time

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

It isn't clear to me...

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Again, it's in your hands to see more clearly, not in mine.
I did my homework and I saw it many years ago.

pentaxuser said:

I do wonder if the "holy grail" that I mentioned previously of high speed film or med speed pushed by one or two stops with less grain is actually achievable to the extent of making a noticeable difference in say an 8x10 print

It isn't clear to me how much of a difference a much lower agitation regime can make to grain that is inherent in the film with compensation in development time

pentaxuser

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I think that less agitation results in less contrast in the highlights compared to mid tones (assuming times adjusted for equal mid tone density). Maybe that would be enough to alter the perception of grain.

Sure, John... Agitation schemes affect grain because they affect image structure growth: as you say, changes in contrast affect perception.
I guess some developers show it more than others, Rodinal being the most sensitive one I've used.

FINAL UPDATE
As there was direct sunlight here this afternoon, I could expose again both sunny and soft scenes. This new development is right: I mean both types of scenes mixed for a single development time can be wet printed without dodging or burning, just the way film was designed to work, in my case using filters 3 and 3 1/2 for soft light, and filters 1/2 and 1 for direct sunlight.
It was fresh current TX@640, Microphen Stock 21C, no presoak, 6 minutes, 2 slow inversions in the beginning, 1 slow inversion at minute 2, and 1 slow inversion at minute 4. Stop bath at minute 6 (I preferred to use stop being stock), fix, rinse. Condenser enlarger.
WHAT I SEE
I got the same small grain again, and I don't think it's just because of the shorter development time: I agree with Erik van Straten... Different lenses can produce different grain sometimes. Possibly grain is lower in my case because of the low contrast lens, though I think I remember he said he liked the small grain given by his 50 2.5 Voigtlander Skopar, a modern lens. Maybe other lenses he owns (current Leica 50's) are higher contrast... Anyway, my first (over)development today showed a lot more contrast, and not only more grain. So grain grows quickly when we develop for the longer times required for pushing. On the contrary, it seems low contrast native speed developments with Microphen produce a lot less grain than its more common use for uprating, and this makes it a great developer IMO because it can be well used in most (and very different) situations, instead of using two developers. Now I have no problem in using Microphen for the box speed range. It also echoes what Lex Jenkins said about TMX at box speed in Microphen: as good as D-76, but better tone at EI100 without more grain.
WHAT I WASN'T EXPECTING
I thought Stock was going to produce less grain than 1+1, or at least that it was going to dissolve it a little more: not at all. I see what Ian Grant means when he talks about the sulphite being dropped in Microphen design. With Stock solution Microphen Tri-X has grain that's equally small, equally tight, and equally brutally sharp: I see no difference with 1+1, so I'll never use stock again for the box speed range, only for 1600 in those unusual low light situations. I imagine being "only" 640 this case, occasional mixed sunny scenes can also benefit from 1+1 to help avoid blocked highlights as Microphen stock is very strong even when we seldom agitate.
That's all, bye.

Nicely done Juan!

I do think the reputation of Microphen as a 'grainy, pushed film only' developer is only partly correct, and as you've seen if you are slightly off or mistreat the processing with Microphen (as you saw with 1:0) it gains both contrast and grain to an obvious extent, and most would 'error on the side of caution' and with the 'fully expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights' wisdom if either of those determinations were off slightly the result could got quickly into "unprintable' (at least without Farmer Reducer!).

I think most casual or first time users of Microphen have this impression so I feel that Juan's examination will help users get a nicer result, easier.

Yes, the ability to shoot with different light, using the same development and still be able to wet print within a consistent printing contrast filter is what I was mostly aiming for in my wedding photography work; keep in mind I was printing in my own darkroom 3-4 days a week 15-35 prints a day, fiber based, and quality consistently with a reasonable pace was the only way I could keep up with production, and that definitely required a tightening of variables since doing many test strips would only waste time and doing a mis-judged 8x10 fiber print more than needed was actually a waste of real money. As my subjects were often both bright white gowns and deep black (or darker tones) on the beach in full sun, an accurate exposure coupled with precise and consistent processing was prevention for future darkroom angst. The Tapered development helped tame the potential for those bright gowns to still have printable highlights without underdevelopment of the rest of the roll.

As for me, I am waiting for my two boxes, I will probably do most of what I have to process in 1+1, it is high luminance waves and surfing in Hawaii and I'll be needing to tame some wild density/contrast so this conversation has reminded me of the look I think I want. I will post an example as I can.

Good luck with your new boxes and sessions!

Juan Valdenebro said:

If you keep everything equal, and just swap lenses, you can get slightly different amounts of grain if one lens is low contrast and the other one is higher contrast.

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No, you don't. The lens used has no influence on grain. Grain is determined by the emulsion first, and then by the combination of light intensity and development. The lens doesn't come into it. Like I said, it can be a perceptual thing, but then I wouldn't speak of an influence of the lens on actual grain, but on perceived grain or more colloquially graininess of the image. Different things...

You're wrong, koraks. And you can test it.
When I've used my old 35 Summaron (lowish contrast) and my 40 1.4 Nokton multicoated version (highish contrast) in the same roll, for the same scene, both scenes have different contrast. I use -years ago- a set scene with pure black and surfaces reflecting zones 3, 4, kodak gray card, 6, 7 (beige) and white paper (7 1/2), for soft light, and the scene has more contrast -on negative- when I use the higher contrast lens. Grain is a bit more present when the negative frame has higher contrast.
A very different thing is that I can afterwards decide the contrast on my print, and that the contrast filter I use affects contrast and grain again.
Different contrast lenses affect grain, just as different contrast multigrade filters affect it too.
I don't say the grain is bigger: I say it's more visible because it has higher contrast, as john_s said.

Okay, so it’s the exact same grain, but the contrast of the grain is different, therefore same but perceptually different?

like TWO prints of one same negative, one with filter 0 and the other with a filter 5? Yes, print with filter 5 will look sharper.

Or printing one same negative with teo different enlarging lenses, one of them excellent and the other very poor. The obvious outcome will be a sharp print and a soft print.

Or even, using a soft focus lens and a sharp lens on the same roll. Some inages will be diffused/soft, and others sharp.

However, in all these above cases, the grain along the whole roll stays the same, but the light hitting it is different from frame to frame.

...

Juan Valdenebro said:

I say it's more visible because it has higher contrast, as john_s said.

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Yeah, like I said right from the start. The grain isn't different. It just looks different to you. It has little to do with physics & chemistry, a lot with neurology and psychology. Just like @NB23 also says. I never said that different lenses won't yield different tonal renditions (contrast). But that has nothing to do with the grain as such. Like you said - you can test it...

koraks said:

The grain isn't different. It just looks different to you.

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No: grain has tones, from dark to light, so if the image has a bit more contrast, grain has a bit more contrast too, and then it looks a bit more intense.
But the difference is real: it's not about perception.
Now, it doesn't make an image better or worse, and that's a lot more important.

Juan Valdenebro said:

No: grain has tones, from dark to light, so if the image has a bit more contrast, grain has a bit more contrast too, and then it looks a bit more intense.
But the difference is real: it's not about perception.
Now, it doesn't make an image better or worse, and that's a lot more important.

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Can’t be... by your explanation one image would have huge grain as well as tiny grain on different parts of the image. Shadows would be super finely grained and the sunny parts would be super grainy. Like TMAX100 and TMAX3200 within one single frame.

Does this make sense to you?

NB23 said:

Can’t be... by your explanation one image would have huge grain as well as tiny grain on different parts of the image. Shadows would be super finely grained and the sunny parts would be super grainy. Like TMAX100 and TMAX3200 within one single frame.

Does this make sense to you?

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What I see and what I wrote, has no relation at all with your words.

Ok...

Juan Valdenebro said:

grain has tones, from dark to light,

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No, it doesn't. Have a look at film grain under a microscope and you'll notice that grain are in fact perfectly binary (pure black & pure white, so to speak) irregularly (usually, depending on emulsion) shaped blobs.
What you see at a lower magnification is the compound effect of these individual grains overlapping and being adjacent to each other. This compounds into the kind of pattern that you're talking about, which indeed depends on the local density of the image as well.

People here are using "grain" to mean a few different things, so it isn't surprising that their observations are different.
FWIW, most of the discussion seems to be about the appearance of grain - what one would see in a projection or print - rather than a measurable characteristic of a film - which one would see in a microscope.

Just a quick post to update; Acros ll in Microphen 1:1, 73.5->74.5F, 8 minutes. Recommended time was 11 minutes at 68, corrected down to 8 as per Ilford time/temp table. Agitation was full first 30 seconds, then 5 agitations at the start of 1 min, 1:30, 2 minutes, then at 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7:30 minutes, pour at 8. Upon review, some in camera exposures were a bit under (no meter on the F2) and my conclusion was that for this roll I could have extended the development about 10% and still be happy.

Image shot with a Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 Ai 6 element/6 group on the North Shore of Oahu. The light haze next to the mountain range in the distance is extreme salt spray from the powerful surf.

If I was wet printing this negative I would add 1/2 grade of contrast to the lower part and then burn the sky 10% or so with a 1/2 grade lower. My scan set up is compromised, but grain is tight and mild.

You may note the notch in the upper right side; I got this well worn F2 in the early days of the E'blay and it was sent to Sover Wong for a full rebuild. He noted some custom high quality internal work on this F2, and the notch was a modification in order to keep track of the mechanical shutters and meter accuracy across many camera bodies.

RidingWaves said:

Just a quick post to update; Acros ll in Microphen 1:1, 73.5->74.5F, 8 minutes. Recommended time was 11 minutes at 68, corrected down to 8 as per Ilford time/temp table. Agitation was full first 30 seconds, then 5 agitations at the start of 1 min, 1:30, 2 minutes, then at 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7:30 minutes, pour at 8. Upon review, some in camera exposures were a bit under (no meter on the F2) and my conclusion was that for this roll I could have extended the development about 10% and still be happy.

Image shot with a Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 Ai 6 element/6 group on the North Shore of Oahu. The light haze next to the mountain range in the distance is extreme salt spray from the powerful surf.

If I was wet printing this negative I would add 1/2 grade of contrast to the lower part and then burn the sky 10% or so with a 1/2 grade lower. My scan set up is compromised, but grain is tight and mild.

You may note the notch in the upper right side; I got this well worn F2 in the early days of the E'blay and it was sent to Sover Wong for a full rebuild. He noted some custom high quality internal work on this F2, and the notch was a modification in order to keep track of the mechanical shutters and meter accuracy across many camera bodies.



View attachment 299125

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Yes, the notch. Done this to all my Leicas so I can distinguish the negatives