Some thoughts on pushing film

I did some band photography lately under bad lighting conditions, so was forced to start pushing film. I used the Ilford HP5+ @800, @1600 in Rodinal and Delta400 @3200 in HC-110 (dilution A). Both had quite good results, but I was wondering if the Delta 400 and HP5+ would have produced better results in for instance the Ilfotec DD-X?

Just looking for some thoughts others would like to share on pushing the HP5+, Delta400 and Tri-X400 film to 1600 and 3200 and some recommended developers. I checked the Massive Dev Charts, but always good to find out how it works out in real, before investing in all sorts and brands of various developers. Thanks.

It depends if you're scanning or printing, or scanning and intending to print the best shots in the future.


I've used Microphen on Delta 3200 @ 1600 I think it was and it was pretty poor on the detail even for scanning at the specified times, though others said it's better at times for 3200 @ 1000 or 1250 I think it was or something like that.

Tri-X I've found does an excellent job in a long semi-stand, smooth and detailed.

I recommend Xtol or even Emofin if you can get your hands on it.

If you feel like you want more shadow speed then I would try one of said developers like Microphen, Xtol, Emofin, etc.


In many cases, I find even a tonne of shadow detail still with Rodinal and heavy pushing, because I am scanning the negative.

When I've taken it into the dark room, I cannot print the shadows while having highlight, and even midtone detail on grade 0.


Even though the detail is actually on the neg, I cannot print the whole range, as I can't expose and develop that kind of negative density range. (stand development included).


Though I've found weak ferricyanide bleaching of prints to help, I've been working on a developer that's severely low contrast for the purpose of printing these troublesome negs though, some success so far, need time to invest in this.

I used to use HP5 pushed to 1600 for rock concerts but switched to XP1 then later XP2 doing my own push processing in C41 chemistry, this gave far higher quality results in terms of finer garin and much better tones and control of the contrast.

Ian

Thanks Athiril and Ian. For the XP2, I don't do that much C-41 and because of the costs I tend to stick to the b/w film.

I scan the negatives and the nicer ones I would like to enlarge on my Durst Laborator (I use Rodenstock lenses). So would be nice to find some balance in that, but I think scanning will be my main goal.

I've read some good things on Xtol, so probably will get some of that. For some reason the massive dev charts seem very slow, so couldn't really check into the Emofin. The Microphen was recommened on Flickr too in some threads and saw some pretty good results with that one too.

Maybe a stupid question, but do I need a T-Grain developer when I use a T-Grain film for best results? I think the Delta400 is a T-Grain, right?

Negs that print easily should still scan fine. Unless they are overall quite dense and you're using a flatbed. The opposite won't necessarily be true. To clarify, the scanner has a fixed density range from a piece of film it can accept, the extreme ends are shitty, as is a very low density range neg (small dMax-dMin)

It is a fraction of the range of a latent image, but you can get it all at once in the one "print"/image, a print has a much narrower density range you can develop in the one print (without special treatment), but has no problem with densities on the extreme ends or even outside the range your scanner can pickup.

With that in mind, there's a good large overlap area, where a neg is perfectly good for both, and generally most normally treated negs are.

If you get enough experience with using both, your scanner is great tool for printing visualisation of density, you can quickly see via the histogram if your neg has too much contrast to print easily for what you want, once you've correlated how your setup matches your printing.

Invaluable if your dark room printing access is not at home.



I was unimpressed with Microphen, and do feel like Xtol is leagues better for their intended purposes.

Emofin is also a fine grain high speed developer, but it also happens to be a split bath (like Diafine).

All Delta films are T-grain, I've mainly used Delta 400 for landscapes exposed at 100 and pulled with Xtol Replenished at 24 celsius with minimal agitation.. I find it kinda 'shines' like that somehow, local contrast is nice, I chose Delta 400 for the extended red sensitivity, which the other films from Ilford don't have (apart from Delta 3200) as I quite liked it.


You don't need to use a specific developer for anything, you just choose a combination for the results it gives for your designated purpose.


Also Xtol Replenished is about as economical cost wise as Rodinal 1+100 for 120 roll. I usually make 1 litre of seasoned using E-6 First Developer starter as the starter (Xtol pdf documents this on how much to use) and replenish it from the other 4 litres divided into 1 litre sealed bottles.

Other people like stock or 1+1 or 1+2 etc.



edit: On the other hand, you dont always need/want an image with full shadow detail.

Thanks for your reply, Athiril. I ordered some X-tol and also the DD-X and will compare some of my results.

I like that what you wrote on the underdevelopment on the Delta400 and pull it, I've been looking for that 'shiny' effect in landscape photos and will definitely give that one a chance too!

btw. did some searches on Emofin and seems hard to find indeed, is this a discontinued product? And did you ever work with Prescysol? I have seen some nice results from that one, but not sure how to push/pull this. I've heard that it just uses 1 development time and will produce best results, so for instance if you want to push a film a few stops you still use one, fixed development time, but not sure if this is true what I've heard.

I don't think Emofin is discontinued, we have it here, it's 1 litre but over $40.. which is economically fine for split bath, except you'll lose a tiny amount each time and eventually not enough to cover 2 120 rolls at once. Netherlands... I think maco-direct or foto impex would have it.

This is Delta 400 exposed and developed for 100.

Haven't tried Precysol, actually have always wanted to give HC-110 a go.

Organ Pipes National Park #4 by athiril, on Flickr

And another, by my friend

Delta_400_100_2_007 by Jack Chauvel | Outside in Pixels (deftone2k), on Flickr

Nice! Love that 'silvery' and shiny effect.

I do all my Kodak's in HC-110, I love it and it's quite cheap in use. I use the dilution g quite a lot for the TMAX100, 400 and Tri-X. Around 18min development and after the 5min twice agitation for every 3min and I have a vary wide range of all the greys and nice shadow detail. It's so easy in use and hardly any chance of messing up.

I haven't been able to get HC-110, but thinking of importing to give it a go.

I'm thinking of trying the pull in hot Xtol (for short times) with minimal agitation on Fomapan 400, it has a little bit more extreme red sensitivity, and a slope upwards towards it... lowered blue sensitivity, so darker skies.

Although my next lot is gonna be Rollei 80s, but it's got extended red, which should be good as well.

Sounds like a nice experiment you got going on

Dunno if you can post webshops here, but you could give www.macodirect.de a go, they have quite a good price on the HC-110, at least the cheapest that I've seen. Plus they sell shitloads of other types of film, developer etc. I have only heard good things about this shop.

EDIT, the English version: http://www.macodirect.de/index.php?language=en

I like Delta 3200 at 3200 very much when developed in T-Max developer for the time Ilford gives for 6400.

Likewise TMZ. TMZ seems faster. I can get a pretty usable 6400 out of it, but it's only available in 35mm. I love that but need Delta 3200 in 120.

For 1250-1600 with Tri-X I'm still a big fan of Diafine. That's my preferred combo when those speeds suffice. For anything faster I use TMZ in 35mm or Delta 3200 in 120, both in T-Max developer but my guess would be that DD-X would be just as good (and Xtol very well might be.)

There may be a misconception going on here and I will try to clarify this here:

The speed of b&w negative film is not rated on its mid tones but on its shadow section. ISO speed basically says how dark something can be and how little exposure it can get before you can't get any details on your film. This ISO speed depends mostly on the film you pick but also to some extent on developer and agitation. Pushing only alters the contrast but does little in terms of ISO speed as defined.

Which brings me to my point: Athiril posts that he can get Delta 3200 up to ISO 1600 in Microphen, and in terms of ISO speed (in its strict sense) he may be correct. This does, however, not exclude that many folks including myself get pleasing results @ISO 6400 in the "the image looks right" sense. While Athiril rates Delta 400 at ISO 100, you rated it at ISO 3200 and got results you liked. Do these have great shadow detail? Hell no, but the images still look good to you and that's all that matters.

From what I've seen here, with modern emulsions different developers give you speed increases of about a stop or so. Xtol/DD-X/T-MAX may be better than HC-110 and Rodinal, but don't expect magic bullets or miracles.

The Delta 400 @ 100 example, I don't shoot it like that for more shadow detail, there is plenty already, but the entire tonality seems to change with this method and looks like a completely different film.

Athiril said:

The Delta 400 @ 100 example, I don't shoot it like that for more shadow detail, there is plenty already, but the entire tonality seems to change with this method and looks like a completely different film.

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But that's only half the story. You rate Delta 400 @ 100 but you also pick a suitable developer, dev time and agitation regime to achieve the tones you are after. It is documented that you can do miracles with films&devs

The original point of my post was: although no push soup will turn Delta 3200 into a real ISO 6400 film, there are plenty of great pics shot with Delta 3200 @ 6400 and above (or Tri-X 400 @ 1600 or whatever). Ongoing assertions that Delta 3200 and TMZ are really just mislabeled ISO 1000 films blurs that fact. The difference lies in how ISO speed is defined and how much shadow detail a good shot really needs.

Regarding shadow detail, of which the linked example is entirely the shadow portion of the film most likely!

That image was incredibly thin, I've had cases of that, incredibly thin image, where I can't see the detail I managed to pick off in a scan, a lot more than I was expecting on there. There is so much DR into the shadows as well, it's just that you'll never be able to ever get that far in any normal kind of push, and you think the DR cuts off there.

Because at less of a push, it is developed less (obviously) and even lower contrast, the contrast there further more you go into it gets lower and lower and lower (toe), so will just disappear into any normal image.

It's unusable DR unless you only use that portion.

Athiril said:

There is so much DR into the shadows as well, it's just that you'll never be able to ever get that far in any normal kind of push, and you think the DR cuts off there.

Because at less of a push, it is developed less (obviously) and even lower contrast, the contrast there further more you go into it gets lower and lower and lower (toe), so will just disappear into any normal image.

It's unusable DR unless you only use that portion.

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This is something I would like to try at some point. I plan on running a test strip of Tri-X and Delta 3200, with 4 frames in sequence exposed at rated speed, underexposed by 3 stops, 6 stops and 9 stops. I plan on souping and pushing these in HC-110, DK-50, D-72, D-19, D-82 and D-8 and will report the results somewhere here on APUG. I'm curious how much light is really required to create detail at the expense of tonality and grain. If you can point me to a source where someone has already done something similar, it could potentially save me from a lot of work.

Rudeofus said:

Athiril posts that he can get Delta 3200 up to ISO 1600 in Microphen, and in terms of ISO speed (in its strict sense) he may be correct. This does, however, not exclude that many folks including myself get pleasing results @ISO 6400 in the "the image looks right" sense. While Athiril rates Delta 400 at ISO 100, you rated it at ISO 3200 and got results you liked. Do these have great shadow detail? Hell no, but the images still look good to you and that's all that matters.

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I agree 99 percent. When you expose your film at anything other than the rated speed on the box, you don't call it ISO, but EI (Exposure Index).

The 3200 films do not even have a published ISO rating; their box simply states that it's possible to shoot at 3200 and get acceptable results.

As long as the prints look good, what else matters? And that's different to all of us. Which is why it's a good idea to shoot the film at different EIs, to determine what works, and in what light. I get usable results from Tri-X 400 between EI 100 and EI 1600 in the same developer.

Finally, something like TMax, Xtol, or DD-X will give about 1/2 stop speed advantage over something like HC-110. If that's important to you, it's worth exploring a speed-enhancing developer. If it doesn't matter, it's best to just continue with what you have. If it's possible to dilute the developer, do that instead, because longer developing time does increase shadow detail somewhat compared to the rest of the tones if you slow down agitation at the same time.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

Finally, something like TMax, Xtol, or DD-X will give about 1/2 stop speed advantage over something like HC-110. If that's important to you, it's worth exploring a speed-enhancing developer. If it doesn't matter, it's best to just continue with what you have.

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True. I got in my DD-X in today and damn that stuff is pretty expensive in use. So will run some tests the weekend and push a few rolls of Delta400 and develop in DD-X. It has to give some miracle results to continue use, compared with the costs of HC-110.

Did some tests with DD-X. Delta400 @3200, very nice, but damn that stuff is expensive in use! 1+4....

/dev/null said:

Did some tests with DD-X. Delta400 @3200, very nice, but damn that stuff is expensive in use! 1+4....

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I use a rotary process so the volume is low. Which makes it more affordable. But it is a very nice developer.

Any thoughts on DD-X versus T-Max and T-Max RS? I like the T-Max developers but keep hearing really good things about DD-X.

When I first started getting back into the dark room the local guy had Ilford, so I bought it. And that's what I've used since. I'd like to have time to experiment with controlled tests, but real life gets in the way, so I personally stuck with what I know. DD-X worked, and I used it.

michaelbsc said:

I use a rotary process so the volume is low. Which makes it more affordable. But it is a very nice developer.

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What do you mean with 'rotary'? You reuse the DDX? It says it's one-shot on the bottle and did not want to experiment and mess up my films.

/dev/null said:

What do you mean with 'rotary'?

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Something like this.

That's what I use, a Jobo. It's not cheap but neither is the T-Max RS I use and any film developer is a very small part of overall costs.