Tri-X Testing gone bad :(

FYI the above who said they didn't know the developer: Tetenal Paranol S is a clone of Rodinal.

B,
I'll suggest you use the Ilford agitation method next time: 4 inversions for 10sec every minute, not every 30sec as you did.

I agree with Bill Burk. I think they look like good enough negatives, that is they are mostly printable. I'm in my 80's but my ophthalmologist tells me she wishes she had my eyesight and I don't see grain. TX-400 is my go to film.

DAK

Mr B said:

markbarendt - I've got a feeling I know what the problem is, see attached negatives

Click to expand...

Negatives look fine.

No, I'm not joking. Sure you definitely could have reduce the exposure for a bunch of them, but these look very workable.

Extra exposure isn't necessarily over exposure, they are different concepts.

Negatives look fine. Definitely can be printed.

Don't change your exposure at all yet. My advice up front is to change how you agitate. Try agitating slowly for the 1st 30 minutes and then two slow agitations every minute. Try to make the agitations you do each minute last about 5 seconds. My theory is that the reason your indoor negatives look so good is that you have built up a fair amount of contrast.

You may also want to develop for about a minute less, but don't mess with that until you see how the agitation effects the negatives. Don't ever change more than one variable at a time otherwise you will have no idea what did, or didn't work.

Good luck. And go to DPUG because your scans can easily be fixed as well. There may not be as many people there but they are quite knowledgeable.

Thanks for posting the negatives. They do look a little dense...one thing you may want to check is the exposure on the om10. I read somewhere that sometimes these can develop a sticky shutter problem (due to some magnet issue). Thus this could give you significantly longer shutter speed than anticipated. This may not have been noticeable with color negatives as even 3 stops excess exposure seem to give fine prints. Just a thought to rule it out before you tweek your approach too much.

Sometimes especially on a flat bed scanner TRI-X can be difficult to scan. Your film might look soft and really grainy in a scan but look much much better when printed in a darkroom. I use D76 with TRI-X and love it but i don't do much scanning so that is that.

I'm not a fan of Rodinal type developers for faster films, though Rodinal is my standard developer for slower varieties. It emphasises the grain in a mushy, clumpy way in my experience - I'm not a chemist, I simply go by appearances and experimentation so I can't tell you why this should be. The film appears to be overexposed, the edge rebate data seems okay so it's probably not an overdevelopment problem, though it may be slightly so. This will add to the greyness of the images. The grain looks slightly out of focus in places which suggests the film isn't lying flat and adds to the general mushiness. Tri-X uses a thinner film base than Ilford and Foma, and it's an absolute swine to keep flat in a scanner. Make sure your lens and filter are clean, greasy fingers on front or rear elements, or internal fungus will radically reduce contrast.

Getting the correct exposure, film, developer, time and agitation combination requires a bit of experiment, remove one variable at a time or you won't know what's the offending factor. Once you've done your homework you should be getting crisp, contrasty, easily printed or scanned negatives every time.

To my trained eye, your negatives appear to be overdeveloped compared to the way my Tri-X looks. Next batch, consider reducing your development time by 20%. It will improve scans and prints.

mr b

[added the next day ] if you haven't already, take your camera to a clinic and have it cleaned/adjusted/lubricated
to make sure the lens and shutter and camera are working correctly it will make your life easier
when trying to get the kinks out ...[/aded the next day]

the next rolls of film you take, "bracket your exposures"
what that means is your light meter says shoot 125S @ f 11 ... you expos3 3 shots
same shutter speed, f 8, f 11 and f 16
and continue for the whole roll, no matter what the meter says expose one stop over and under ...
process your film the same way .. and see what you like the best.
expose another roll of film the same way,
develop it for 30% less, and another 30% more ...
THEN !!
expose a roll that is the exposure you like the best, and the development time you like the best

often times ISO and development times that are published are just starting points ..
we are not all at the kodak or ilford or foma lab .. sometimes their times &c are perfect, sometimes not
the 3 roll method lets you fine tune your exhibition method ( print in a darkroom? scan ? ) and exposure-development methods...

sometimes my negatives are so dense you can't see thought them even with a bright light bulb, but they contact print like a dream
and if i try to scan them it is a waste of time ...

good luck with your next roll, this roll was nice, i am sure with all your apug-advice your next roll will be even better !

john

The rebate detail looks perfectly developed, so a sticky lens diaphragm or faulty light meter seems the most likely culprit. The negative frame edges seem slightly fuzzy, which is another indicator of a few stops overexposure.

Thanks to everyone for your help since my last post, I've got my eye on a manual adaptor on ebay for the OM10 so that I can try out John's three roll approach, this does seem like a very logical method.
In the mean time I'm going to get to work in my digital darkroom on what I have whilst dreaming of one day going fully analog
Cheers for all your advice
Mr B

May be a working OM-2n will help to remove some of the variables in the process. ;-) If it is clone of Rodinal 1+25 may be good for sharpness but it will exaggerate the look of the grain a bit.