Tri-X: Shadows always way too dark, help!

[Sirius Glass]

You are underexposing. Increase the exposure by half a f/stop to a f/stop.

 

[faberryman]

I surely will! And yes, I'll be just fine.

Just remember that if the needle is not exactly in the center of the donut, you are slightly underexposing or overexposing; or put another way, you are exposing at a lower or higher ASA/ISO than you have set on your ASA/ISO dial. Again, exposure latitude is your friend.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Uh! I have already had Photography #101 in college and Advanced large format #103 when I returned from Vietnam so I'm just "tongue in cheeking" you when I pretend to not know what I'm doing. I bought my first camera in 1959 and have been shooting ever since then. I also had a wedding business for years and if you don't know what you're doing there your done. I did just fine and will continue to do just fine. Did you try the three exposures I suggested? Are they all the same? Gotta go now, but let me know how they come out.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Just remember that if the needle is not exactly in the center of the donut, you are slightly underexposing or overexposing; or put another way, you are exposing at a lower or higher ASA/ISO than you have set on your ASA/ISO dial. Again, exposure latitude is your friend.

Why don't you just set the dang ASA/ISO to a lower or higher number, depending on the amount of over or under exposure you want and match the dang lollipop in the middle where it belongs. That's the way it was made to operate by the manufacture. That's why many newer 35mm's had plus + and minus - exposure compensation around the ASA/ISO dial. Why make life harder than what it is? Oh, we called your doughnut a lollipop in the old days.

 

[faberryman]

Just keep on matching your needling as close as you can.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Just keep on matching your needling as close as you can.

How's your three exposures coming? I'll be back around 8:00pm to check.

 

[faberryman]

How's your three exposures coming? I'll be back around 8:00pm to check.

I do not need to do the test. I am quite confident there is a difference between the four stops underexposure, correct exposure, and five stops overexposure you suggested.

 

[silveror0]

...Once I took a photo course where the instructor taught us how to meter shadows without a spotmeter: carry in your bag a small box, with a hole, and the inside lined with black velvet; I dropped out of the course.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

If you want lighter shadows, don't shoot it at ISO 400. Try 250. You want to get those shadows a bit higher on the curve. You really should do a test to determine proper EI with your camera and developer. Meter very carefully!!

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

...and then you'll most likely have to adjust your development for the increase in exposure!

 

[Saganich]

First thing is to figure out what ASA you should be shooting with the developer your using. I find that to be critical to getting shadows with good detail. After that figure out the developing time that helps rein in the highlights. Do those two things for every film/developer combination and you will be OK at least 50% of the time.

 

[Sirius Glass]

First thing is to figure out what ASA you should be shooting with the developer your using. I find that to be critical to getting shadows with good detail. After that figure out the developing time that helps rein in the highlights. Do those two things for every film/developer combination and you will be OK at least 50% of the time.

Picking up on that thought, change the developer to XTOL.

 

[pentaxuser]

Picking up on that thought, change the developer to XTOL.

View attachment 181512​

That's fine but there's always the danger with Xtol that as "Bones" in Star Trek would say: It's worse than that it's dead Jim, dead!

Only kidding, folks. It's just that in the past there seems to have been more premature dead XTols than dead Clantons at OK Coral

pentaxuser

 

[Sirius Glass]

That's fine but there's always the danger with Xtol that as "Bones" in Star Trek would say: It's worse than that it's dead Jim, dead!

Only kidding, folks. It's just that in the past there seems to have been more premature dead XTols than dead Clantons at OK Coral

pentaxuser

That was a packaging problem that was corrected many years ago and has not come back since. You know that so exactly what is the reason you raised the very old history.

 

[moleskin0r]

Wow, thank you for all your replies! The first and the second picture were taken with a Nikon AF600, which might as I see know just be (another) root of the problem in terms of exposure. The last one is taken with a F90x. I think I might shoot several rolls this weekend, and I'll just try to take care of what you said, and think more about metering.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Now we understand the root of the problem. Cameras are pretty smart now-a-days, but they do get fooled by certain scenes and this is one of those times your camera got fooled metering.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Wow, thank you for all your replies! The first and the second picture were taken with a Nikon AF600, which might as I see know just be (another) root of the problem in terms of exposure. The last one is taken with a F90x. I think I might shoot several rolls this weekend, and I'll just try to take care of what you said, and think more about metering.

There is nothing you can do, other than use fill flash, for the Nikon AF600. As far as I know it's only DX coded with no override. If you use a non-coded cassette it goes to ISO 100. These had very
spartan metering systems and can get fooled very easy. They are really made more for out-of-doors Panorama cameras. You could have used flash to try an fill in the shadows, but risk closer objects to be blown out or over exposed. As for the F90 shot? Again, the metering might have been fooled a bit, but certainly not as bad as the AF600. The F90x or S(same camera) has three meter modes. Spot, Center-weighted and I believe an eight segment 3D matrix meter pattern. I'm only going by my Nikon 8008S that I have since they are twins with the 8008S just having a few less features. The F90x also has matrix metered flash, which is very useful. In the last shot of the arms up close the arms seem to make up the main center portion of the scene and are light than all surrounding portions. If the camera were set at Spot metering it might have just take in the arms or one arm, which is the lightest part of the scene. Light meters will usually try to measure for average grey in the scene it thinks you are taking, say an outdoor shot with about an equal portion of light objects and darker ones, and will get the exposure for that average scene pretty darn close. If you measure something lighter in the scene than middle grey the meter will tell you to expose less since it want to put that lighter item on a grey tone. If you meter something darker in the scene the meter will want to put that on middle grey also and say to expose more so we can make this a grey tone and not black. You have to out think a spot meter or even center-weight. With spot metering on the arm scene you could have taken a reading, in manual exposure only, of the darkest darkest item you wanted render and the lightest and then pick and exposure right in between or slightly more. Now with 3D Matrix the camera measures 8 different spots in the scene and averages those out for you. Nikon's Matrix metering of the time was very, very good and you usually got dead on exposures. Still, if you are in a situation with real odd lighting it still pays to bracket a 1/2 stop on each side of the cameras indicated exposure. Just to be on the safe side anyway. Maybe you already know all of this I don't know. I just had time while having coffee and thought I'd try and help. Whatever you do have fun doing it 'cause life is to short. Enjoy your hobby!

 

[removed account4]

hi OP
don't bother with 1/3 stops bracket your exposures by FULL fstops,
and use something that doesn't have vit c in it, vit c developers give flatter/thinner
negatives than something like ID-11 / D76 / HC110, and process your film
by the recommended time / agitation method the dev company suggests
( usually 1 full min, then 10sec/min ) if your over exposed negatives are still thin
bracket again and extend your development by 30% ..

good luck !

 

[pentaxuser]

That was a packaging problem that was corrected many years ago and has not come back since. You know that so exactly what is the reason you raised the very old history.

The clue was in the word "kidding" It was just that in quite recent past, every time the word Xtol was mentioned several people would quote the sudden death syndrome with a kind of a "you can't trust 'em, Jim" flavour. I use it myself and have done without incident for several years. My sudden death will be more likely than Xtol's then you or Bones can say: "It's better than that he's dead Jim, dead"

Just a bit of dry British humour which has clearly failed to make it across the Atlantic, never mind being able to reach the shores of the West Coast.

pentaxuser

 

[John Wiegerink]

The clue was in the word "kidding" It was just that in quite recent past, every time the word Xtol was mentioned several people would quote the sudden death syndrome with a kind of a "you can't trust 'em, Jim" flavour. I use it myself and have done without incident for several years. My sudden death will be more likely than Xtol's then you or Bones can say: "It's better than that he's dead Jim, dead"

Just a bit of dry British humour which has clearly failed to make it across the Atlantic, never mind being able to reach the shores of the West Coast.

pentaxuser

Actually it did make it over here! I used to watch Benny Hill all the time. We now watch Keeping Up Appearances. Both are dry, but funny.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks and hurray for the Anglophiles in Michigan

pentaxuser

 

[John Wiegerink]

"If you seek a pleasant Peninsula, look about you" is our State motto. The people are just as pleasant also.

 

[darkroommike]

Any number of article on the "interweb" on how to hack the DX coding on film cassettes. I would expose your film at an EI of 200-250 and try developing about 20 per cent less. You'll get negatives that are much more scan-able and printable. If you need a full ISO 400 shoot Tmax400 not Tri-x for negatives intended for scanning. I also have a Lite-Touch with the 28mm lens, (USA version of the AF600). Tmax400 rocks in this little pocket camera, it was my backup when I worked for the local paper.

Most folks both underexpose and overdevelop their negatives. Some folks, in love with the harsh soot and chalk look, make a fetish of it.

 

[bernard_L]

...and then you'll most likely have to adjust your development for the increase in exposure!

Sorry, but that is a common misconception. Nothing personal; but need to set that straight.

• If you must decrease the dev time to accomodate a large scene dynamic range, you better know it inadvance and you must expose more, because the effective sensitivity will be less.
  
• But, the converse is not true : if you expose more (for whatever reason), and you have no issues with scene d.r. (above point), then you can use standard processing time. Especiallly with Tri-X, that has such a long and straight E-logD curve.

Just to have concrete numbers. Suppose you expose 2x, and the dev gamma is 0.6 (just skip to end result if this sounds unfamiliar). The film density will be raised by 0.18, and the exposure time under the enlarger will need to be increased by 50%. Hardly a problem with modern papers that are so fast.

hi OP
don't bother with 1/3 stops bracket your exposures by FULL fstops,

+1
As I wrote above, experiment with similar scenes setting your meter at ISO 200 and 100. And try ISO 50; costs you just one frame, and you learn something.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Sorry, but that is a common misconception. Nothing personal; but need to set that straight.

• If you must decrease the dev time to accomodate a large scene dynamic range, you better know it inadvance and you must expose more, because the effective sensitivity will be less.
  
• But, the converse is not true : if you expose more (for whatever reason), and you have no issues with scene d.r. (above point), then you can use standard processing time. Especiallly with Tri-X, that has such a long and straight E-logD curve.

Just to have concrete numbers. Suppose you expose 2x, and the dev gamma is 0.6 (just skip to end result if this sounds unfamiliar). The film density will be raised by 0.18, and the exposure time under the enlarger will need to be increased by 50%. Hardly a problem with modern papers that are so fast.


+1
As I wrote above, experiment with similar scenes setting your meter at ISO 200 and 100. And try ISO 50; costs you just one frame, and you learn something.

Well it has worked for me for 25 years. I know my materials inside and out, how they respond to different situations, and how to make them work in in those situations. Common misconception or not, I'm happy.