Testing Kentmere 200 with D23 1+1

Alright. This is Part II of my film testing saga. This time I avoided most of the mistakes I made the first time, but I seem to have introduced a few brand new mistakes.

Recap: A while ago I took 5 rolls of film and shot a few scenes over and over so I could cut the rolls into pieces and run tests. This is the second roll.

This time we have Kentmere 200. Shot under sunny-16 conditions at both EI 200 and EI 160. I cut the roll into 4 pieces but I only developed 2 of them, keeping the other 2 in reserve. I developed both pieces in D-23 1+1 at around 20°C, one for 8 min and the other for 10 min. Both with Ilford agitation.

Result 1:

First, if we zoom out we'll see that I seem to have introduced a new error in the development process:






There are some flaws in the development, clearly associated with the sprockets, and secondly with the edge of the film. The association with the sprockets makes me think that those were perhaps bubbles? Does that sound right? It is not clear to me how bubbles can cause OVER-development next to or above the sprockets, but I can't think of any other phenomenon that is even tied to the sprockets (ok, there is bromide drag, but that definitely ain't what we see here).

If this was indeed caused by bubbles, would that indicate that my agitation process was too aggressive? After I saw these structures, I went back to a video from John Finch you YT that shows how to do inversions, and my inversions were definitely more aggressive than his.


Result 2:

Moving past the thing with the sprockets, let's pick a couple of scenes and zoom in. For each scene, the first shot is at EI 200 and the second is at EI 160. Comparing this to my previous test with AristaPan 100, I see a huge improvement in the shadows --- I see a lot more detail in the tree compared to last time. Looking back, now it's more obvious to me that the previous film was underexposed.

I see more shadow detail (i.e. the tree) at EI 160 than EI 200. I guess that means that EI 160 is the proper exposure?

As for development time ---- I have no idea which one is correct.

Anyway, here are the images. Let me know what you think. I'd be grateful for any insight you can share.


D23 1+1 for 8 min --- EI 200 (left) + EI 160 (right)




D23 1+1 for 10 min --- EI 200 (left) + EI 160 (right)

When you say under sunny 16 conditions, does that mean your not using a light meter?

cjbecker said:

When you say under sunny 16 conditions, does that mean your not using a light meter?

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What? No. I mean that it was a sunny day. The kind of day where you'd apply the sunny-16 rule.

The camera has a built-in light meter.

dcy said:

There are some flaws in the development, clearly associated with the sprockets, and secondly with the edge of the film.

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That's a light leak. The film received exposure in that area as it was rolled up, with the light hitting an underlying layer of film through the sprocket holes of an other layer. What's interesting here is that a light leak of this magnitude generally also extends inside the image area, which it apparently hasn't in your case.

Light leaks like these are caused in general either inside the 35mm cassette or on the film uptake area inside the camera. Are you working with factory-spooled film, or do you load it into cassettes from a bulk roll? I assume the former, but want to verify. If it's the former, a camera problem is more likely; think of things like degraded foam seals along the back.

Which makes the best print in your opinion out of the 4 in the line of cars on a street shot ?

Thanks

pentaxuser

This light leak looks just the way you would have it with a movie camera, film on daylight spool, loading under light. Print-through on perforation, edge affected as there may be a tiny gap between film edge and daylight spool, image area unaffected (if you leave the completely overexposed leader aside).
I rather suspect a factory error than camera or bulk loader.

koraks said:

That's a light leak. The film received exposure in that area as it was rolled up, with the light hitting an underlying layer of film through the sprocket holes of an other layer. What's interesting here is that a light leak of this magnitude generally also extends inside the image area, which it apparently hasn't in your case.

Light leaks like these are caused in general either inside the 35mm cassette or on the film uptake area inside the camera. Are you working with factory-spooled film, or do you load it into cassettes from a bulk roll? I assume the former, but want to verify. If it's the former, a camera problem is more likely; think of things like degraded foam seals along the back.

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Factory-spooled. The camera is an essentially brand new Pentax 17. I'd hope it wouldn't have a light leak.

Is it at all possible that I might have caused this through improper use of the dark bag? I can't imagine how that would work, but I figured I'd ask. ---- I'd imagine that improper use of the dark bag would make streaks across the entire width of the film.

dcy said:

I see more shadow detail (i.e. the tree) at EI 160 than EI 200. I guess that means that EI 160 is the proper exposure?

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It may mean that it's better exposed at 160 but it doesn't necessarily mean that 160 is the proper exposure index for this film. You can't determine proper EI by "amount of shadow detail" only — you would have had more shadow detail at EI 125 and a bit more still at EI 100. The point of testing is not finding out how much shadow detail there is but is the shadow detail placed where it should be.

Both 8-minute negatives seem perfectly printable to me. The 10-minute negs do seem slightly over-developed, but the advantage of D-23 is that contrast is still manageable and highlights are rarely blocked. None of the 4 negatives show problems that couldn't be solved in a darkroom.

Your EI 160 is close enough that I wouldn't bother testing any more and would keep it at that. The important thing is to be consistant with how you meter, as only understanding how your camera meter works and what it's telling you will ensure consistancy in results.

I would use the 8 minute development time for normal contrast scenes and go up to 10 for low-contrast.

dcy said:

Is it at all possible that I might have caused this through improper use of the dark bag?

Click to expand...

Yes, although it's a little less common to see this particular problem in that stage of the process. Given the fairly sharp definition of the sprocket holes, the problem most have occurred as the film was still quite tightly spooled. Of course, it only takes an instant to fog film, so it's very well possible that you popped open the cassette, started to remove the still-spooled film and then a ray of light inadvertently slipped past the sleeves or something along those lines.

dcy said:

I'd imagine that improper use of the dark bag would make streaks across the entire width of the film.

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Well, yes, although it's possible that the brunt of the fogging exposure hit the leader that was exposed anyway during loading the film into the camera. Maybe if you have kept the leader, you can find some hints in the area where the fully exposed part gives way to the blank part leading up to the first frame.

Nitpicking about a small change in EI (160-200) is quite irrelevant if you used the built-in camera meter in in theses high contrast mid-days shots with large portions of sky. Althought cameras can do a good job at averaging the scene to decent exposures, they still will be all over the place because any small change of angle (ei lot of sky in the frame or not) will change the computed exposure dramatically.

Negatives looks dense, prints will tell but they probably need grade 2 at most and not above. But here also, the way the negatives are scanned/photographed can gives false impressions.

npl said:

Negatives looks dense, prints will tell but they probably need grade 2 at most and not above.

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Dense as in... overdeveloped?

Development looks on the brisk side yes, but exposures are kind of variable, which as @npl says is logical given the type of light meter used. I agree they look like they'll print OK at no higher than grade 2 and I'd put my money on grade 1 or thereabouts. Any scanner will easily make sense of them, no worries there. For the most part I'd back off development a little and at the same time ensure you steer clear of underexposure.

Also, on second thought, your hypothesis that the light leak happened in the changing bag makes good sense as it must have happened when the film was already being partly unspooled. You can see that the sprocket holes are offset vertically a little, which means the spiral of film was sliding off of itself a bit already, which will typically happen as you take it from the cassette.

Alex Benjamin said:

Both 8-minute negatives seem perfectly printable to me. The 10-minute negs do seem slightly over-developed, but the advantage of D-23 is that contrast is still manageable and highlights are rarely blocked. None of the 4 negatives show problems that couldn't be solved in a darkroom.

Your EI 160 is close enough that I wouldn't bother testing any more and would keep it at that. The important thing is to be consistant with how you meter, as only understanding how your camera meter works and what it's telling you will ensure consistancy in results.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I've updated my notes:

Kentmere 200: Shoot at EI 160 + Develop in D23 1+1 for 8min.

Alex Benjamin said:

I would use the 8 minute development time for normal contrast scenes and go up to 10 for low-contrast.

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This is roll film. Worse... it's half-frame, so I have 72 shots. There's no realistic way that I can adjust the development process based on the scene. I'll have to hope that for low-contrast scenes I can make up for it later in the darkroom.

dcy said:

Thanks! I've updated my notes:

Kentmere 200: Shoot at EI 160 + Develop in D23 1+1 for 8min.



This is roll film. Worse... it's half-frame, so I have 72 shots. There's no realistic way that I can adjust the development process based on the scene. I'll have to hope that for low-contrast scenes I can make up for it later in the darkroom.

Click to expand...

I like to get my development times dialed in for a straight print on grade 2 on a normal day. If it is a very overcast day, I will print on a grade 2.5-3 and on a full sun, harsh shadows day, grade 1-1.5. Might not be the best way to do it, but it works for me.

cjbecker said:

I like to get my development times dialed in for a straight print on grade 2 on a normal day. If it is a very overcast day, I will print on a grade 2.5-3 and on a full sun, harsh shadows day, grade 1-1.5. Might not be the best way to do it, but it works for me.

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That's a good idea. I have an old Durst C35 enlarger and dialing in the color filters is a pain and extremely imprecise; and so far I've been too cheap to buy a proper set of Ilford multigrade filters. So a good strategy for me would be to adjust the development time so that on a typical shooting day for me the print comes out right with no color filters at all.

Right now I am too inexperienced with enlarger to put this into practice. But it's a good long-term goal.

dcy said:

Thanks! I've updated my notes:

Kentmere 200: Shoot at EI 160 + Develop in D23 1+1 for 8min.

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This will get you prints that you can work with — judging on the few negs I've seen — but wait until you actually do the prints to decide. Both koraks and npl stated that your negs (even the EI 160 @ 8:00) look a bit on the dense side. I happen to like that, and do end up printing around grade 1 1/2 to grade 2. This gives me the look I like for the project I'm working on, but it may not work for you. You might prefer slightly thinner negs and pump the paper contrast a bit. This part is not science, just taste.

koraks said:

Development looks on the brisk side yes, but exposures are kind of variable, which as @npl says is logical given the type of light meter used. I agree they look like they'll print OK at no higher than grade 2 and I'd put my money on grade 1 or thereabouts. Any scanner will easily make sense of them, no worries there. For the most part I'd back off development a little and at the same time ensure you steer clear of underexposure.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Alright. Maybe shorten the development time a little bit and maybe next time alternate exposure between EI 160 and 125 and see how it goes.

koraks said:

Also, on second thought, your hypothesis that the light leak happened in the changing bag makes good sense as it must have happened when the film was already being partly unspooled. You can see that the sprocket holes are offset vertically a little, which means the spiral of film was sliding off of itself a bit already, which will typically happen as you take it from the cassette.

Click to expand...

Thanks.