Somewhat light negs after development - underdevelopment ?

[Alexz]

My second manually processed B&W roll - I begun to notice a common issue in both of my two processed rolls after scanning them - the contrast appears to be somewhat "light", almost all the frames exhibit dead zone on the shadows side of the histogram in PS (Levels) - usually require to squeeze the left (shadows) lever of Levels by 10-18 units to the right towards the begnning of the histogram in order to stretch the contrast into darker tones. Almost all frames on both rolls show the bulk of the histogram shifted to the right (lighter tones).
I can hardly blame the scanner - it performed flawlessly for many years so far (nikon LS-40), no problems with it, but to my untrained to B&W processing eye the reason apparently lies in development - either under or over development, or probably agitation-related issue.
The film is Tri-X shot at nominal 400, developer: HC-110 (European), dill. B @ 20 degrees C for 6.5 minutes, first minute continuous agitation (slow flipping upside down and back), then 10 seconds at the end of each subsequent minute. After that (and prior to fixer) - filling up the tank with water at approx. the same temp. and letting it to sit for another 5 minutes with little agitation (10 seconds per minute).

So, if you see the histogram continuously shifted to the right (towards lighter tones) leaving the shadows empty (no pixels) up to about 10-18 points thoughout entire processed rolls - should it be under or over development ? Or probably excessive or, alternatively, non-suficient agitation ?

 

[Nick Zentena]

No idea about scanners.

Underexposed no shadow detail.
Under developed not enough contrast.

 

[Alexz]

Thanks.
Looks like underdevelopment if so....perhaps have to stretch dev. time to 7 minutes...

 

[percepts]

So how do they print?

 

[srs5694]

I'd be reluctant to draw conclusions on under- or over-development based on scanning. I've found that some negatives scan and print equally well but others just scan terribly but print fine (or occasionally are harder to print than to scan). The scanner itself and the scanner software can both affect how a negative scans, and I can easily imagine problems in the hardware, the software, or the software's settings that would produce symptoms such as those you describe. Even though you say the scanner's worked fine before (I presume with commercially processed negatives), that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a problem with your current negatives. It could just be that you found scanner settings that worked with your commercially processed (perhaps overdeveloped) negatives and you must therefore tweak those settings differently to get good results with the negatives you've processed yourself. A common complaint, incidentally, is that commercial labs tend to overdevelop B&W film, so this is a plausible scenario.

Another point: Even for printing, a "properly processed" negative can mean different things to different people. Your choice of enlarger (condenser vs. diffusion), for instance, can make a difference in how you'd want to process film.

That said, if you don't have access to a darkroom, you'll have a hard time determining whether the negatives are really properly processed from a printing perspective. Perhaps you could send strips to two or three people to evaluate. I'd be willing to do so, but I'm in the US, and I'm sure shipping within Israel would be cheaper. If you expect to only scan the negatives and not print them conventionally, getting optimal scans should of course take priority over getting negatives that would print well.

 

[Alexz]

Thank yuo guys.
Yes, wet printing is beyond of my reach, my flow rather involves scanning of manually processed B&W negatives and if printing - will be achieved from high-res scans (just like I routinely do with slides and C41).
I'm quite new to B&W - persuaded that just few weeks ago, so far processed 2 rolls only. As you certainly realize, the lack of vast B&W experience limits my abilities to check visially my negs in order to be able to determines development quality. I have never shot and processed a real B&W at labs so far, only C4 and E6 and scanner always served me well in their respect (knocking to wood...). However, now once looking at the negs by my untrained (on B&W) eye, I can see that on most frames there are very little deep shadow areas (very light areas on negative - approaching to transparant film base) which may hint the lack of contrast due to shadows lightness. And if this is the case, I may indeed assume the reason to be underdevepment, right ? And if such, I guess the only way to check myself is to try to extend development time next time (for the next Tri-X roll). Perhaps
from 6min 30 sec to 7 minutes....or probably change my agitation regime...?

 

[srs5694]

However, now once looking at the negs by my untrained (on B&W) eye, I can see that on most frames there are very little deep shadow areas (very light areas on negative - approaching to transparant film base) which may hint the lack of contrast due to shadows lightness. And if this is the case, I may indeed assume the reason to be underdevepment, right ?

It sounds like you're saying that there's relatively little in the way of light areas on the negatives (dark areas in prints). If so, then it could be that overdevelopment (or overexposure) is the problem, not underdevelopment. In any event, this is a very difficult problem to discuss over long distance, which is why I suggested you send some sample negatives to photographers with more experience and darkroom access.

 

[Nick Zentena]

Alex are you saying the film is almost clear? Underexposed. Look at the film rebate. The area that was not exposed at all. How much darker then that is it?

Or are you saying the film is almost black? Over exposed.

Do you see any details in the the shadows?

 

[Alexz]

Well, in fact the negatives themselves look fine to my eyes exhibiting both highlight and shadow details (there is very few cases of clipping on either side), I'd say, to my untrained eye they look quite balanced...
I tend to blame the link development-scanner, somehow I tend to believe and agree with the expressed here opinions about possible scanner's response not to be optimized for that kind of stuff....
I have very little to control in this regard in scanner's software (there is the option fo manual scanning exosure adjustment and lowering one my about third to half stops bering back highlight details, i.e. avoid highlights clipping in the scans, but doesn't influence shadows histogram which is strange...)
I'm willing to experiment with developing a bit to try to shift and fit the dynamic range of the negs into scanner's scale ...