What are some fine grained, high resolution B&W film & development combinations which are good for lowering the contrast?

loccdor

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Quite a lot of the slower films out there are higher contrast than the 400 speeds. But I like to use the slower films for the detail.

What are some good films plus their developing recipes for shooting high contrast scenes? Think of bright full summer sun with harsh shadows.

I like Scala 50/HR-50 but it can lack midtones on scenes with a harsh brightness range. One thing that comes to mind as an alternative is Fuji Acros 100.

I'm shooting in 35mm, full frame or half frame. Curious to know what has worked for you.
 

ags2mikon

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I live in the desert southwest and our light here is HARSH! I have used Ilford perceptol, and diafine and Kodak D-23 1:1 and I like the d-23 1:1 the best. The perceptol had a substantial speed penalty, and I didn't like the diafine midtones. The d-23 1:1 is the best of the 3. I mix the replenisher 1:1 and go 10 rolls per liter and then start over. The d23 stock was a bit mushy. I start with d76 1:1 times + 15%. When I use the Jobo I subtract the 15%.
 

DREW WILEY

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Why would slower films have higher contrast? - unless you're re-purposing what were essentially micro or technical copying films, like old Tech Pan, which has been done.

Yeah, D23 can get mushy. And tiny formats get restrictive, depending on how much enlargement you actually need. For up to around 8X at most, I simply shoot TMax100, which has ample scale for high contrast situations, and then develop it in either prepackaged or home brew Perceptol 1:3, which allows full box speed of 100 in the case of TMX, yet behaves quite a bit differently than Perceptol 1:1, because it allows just enough more grain growth in this particular film to render good acutance. In other words, the prints look sharp yet not grainy, and are capable of about 11 stops of scene range texture without need for blaah compression development.

In the past I shot Ekfe 25 which had a long scale, but is now no longer made. I shot Pan F at 25; but it can't handle high contrast at all. With large format sheet film things are easier because you don't have to worry about grain so much, since the enlargement factor is less.

"Micro" style films tend to have that miserable "soot and chalk" look with blank highlights and empty shadows regardless of whatever kind of special developer is involved. And Agfa 25 was disappointing for me too.
 

Milpool

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Honestly TMX or Acros would be my recommendations. You’re unlikely to be able to really take advantage of the higher resolution microfilms offer, and the tradeoffs are relatively short exposure ranges, abysmal speed and nearly always odd/poor tone reproduction unless you are photographing low contrast scenes.

Some of those films could/can be beaten into relative submission but you need special low contrast developers - always Phenidone-based. I haven’t really seen anything I’d call better than passable from these efforts, but that’s only my opinion.

The easiest specialty film to work with was Tech Pan but of course that is long gone. CMS 20 (whatever it actually was) was more recalcitrant but sort of semi kind of half decent if developed in the last iteration of Adotech. I don’t know if that’s around anymore. No idea what other repurposed / rebadged / respooled things are available.

The Ferrania thing (P30 ?) was supposedly very fine grained with high resolution. Again though, apparently strange spectral response, slow speed etc.
 
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xkaes

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loccdor said:
Quite a lot of the slower films out there are higher contrast than the 400 speeds. But I like to use the slower films for the detail.
Click to expand...

The lower the "native" ISO that a film has, the better resolution, and to lower the contrast you basically can use any developer, but you need to lower the ISO (over-expose) the film and under-develop it (shorten time or increase dilution or both).

I use Agfapan 25 at ASA 12 and D-76 (1+3). I could use D-23, etc., of course, but that would decrease the ISO even more, and the grain in Agfapan 25 is fine enough -- for me anyway.
 

Paul Howell

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I have tired Tmax 100 with Phil David formula for Tmax 100, it is very low contrast with range of up to 10 stops. Although I dont use BTZS I did want to try a low contrast developer, it does work, but it would a number of rolls to fine it.

DI-13 Film Developer

Developer DI-13 Film Photography Chemicals
stores.photoformulary.com
 

isaac7

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Years (and years) ago I used Panf + with this:

Windisch Pyrocatechin

Developer Film Windisch Pyrocatechin Catechol Photography Chemicals
stores.photoformulary.com

Lost about a stop I think? So slow but really did a great job taming the contrast problems I was having on sunny days.
 
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loccdor

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Thanks for the ideas. A lot of these I had not looked into.
 

JensH

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My most used developer, I take the original recipe from windisch's book and mix it by myself. This Pyrocat is a classic Pyrocat only variant (no Metol etc.) with very low sulfite.
Works very well with TMX 100.
Can be fine with PanF+ (my EI is 16 to 32), but the longer range of TMX (EI 50) is even better for very contrasty scenes.
 

DREW WILEY

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Pan F has an exaggerated S-curve no matter what. It can be lovely in low contrast scenes; but even beating into submission with a sledgehammer of a developer is going to be rather disappointing with respect to higher contrast scenes; it simply isn't the right film.

The point isn't even necessarily a low contrast developer. With a long scale film like TMX100, the native straight line portion of the curve itself can handle the range. You don't want to overdevelop it, but you don't need to under-develop it much either. I almost never "minus" develop films; yet I do encounter many high contrast scenes. It's having the correct film that counts.

And unless your developed Dmax density is simply over the top, causing the film curve to shoulder off, the flexibility of today's premium VC papers can handle the situation.
 

chuckroast

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Try this:

  • Expose FP4+ at ASA 100
  • Load it onto a steel spiral reel
  • Put a small funnel upside down in the tank
  • Slip the loaded reel over the inverted funnel
  • But the cap on the tank

Then:

  • Mix Pyrocat-HD or Pyrocat-HDC 1.5:1:300
  • Presoak the film in the tank for 3 min in water at 68F/20C
  • Pour the developer in the tank
  • Agitate continuously for 2 min
  • Then let it just sit there
  • At 16 min, give the tank 15 sec more of agitation
  • Then let it just sit there
  • Pour out the developer at 30min
  • Stop, Fix, Wash as usual
The key to making this work is:

  • Using a wide spaced stainless spiral wheel with low profile winds - I use old Nikor reels and tanks for this.
  • Getting the reel of the bottom of the tank, hence the inverted funnel.
  • Relatively high Pyrocat-HD[C] dilution.
  • Increase contrast by either decreasing dilution or increasing time.
  • Decrease contrast by decreasing time. You can try to increase developer dilution but this will reach a point of diminishing returns.
  • The second agitation should always be at roughly the halfway time.

This approach is called "semistand" and has lots of ways to go wrong so you should be prepared for a few mess ups before you get the technique down. If you see streaking, try agitating for 10 sec twice during the standing time - once at 1/3 the total time and again at 2/3 the total time.
 

koraks

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loccdor said:
Think of bright full summer sun with harsh shadows.
Click to expand...

Give sufficient exposure for the shadows. Then cut back development time to reel in the highlights. This works on pretty much every film and developer, regardless. It worked back in the day with wet plate collodion, it still works today with modern materials. It ain't rocket science.
 
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loccdor

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I don't find that all films and developer combinations give a pleasing result with pull processing, so while I understand the idea, it's helpful for me to solicit specific recipes as a starting point.
 

albireo

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Start simple.

Kentmere 100. Set your camera meter to 50 ISO or even 32 depending on scene contrast.

Develop in Adox Rodinal 1+75. No less than 500ml of finished solution in tank.

Start with 12 minutes in total.

Invert gently, but regularly, during the first minute. Then, 1 inversion at the start of every odd minute. 3..5.. and so on.

Tweak based on desired results.

Not fine grained enough? Replace Rodinal with HC110.

Still not fine grained enough? Replace HC110 with XT-3 1:1. Reduce time to the 8-9 minutes ballpark depending on contrast.
 
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Milpool

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Please ignore all the stuff I wrote about micro/copy/document films. I misread/misunderstood your original post and thought you were venturing down that "high resolution" path.

I would still recommend TMX or Acros as they will be the finest grained general purpose films with the most resolving power, but will echo the advice a few have given above which is to either underdevelop a little (if you want a lower contrast negative) or simply develop normally and let the film handle the rest. As long as you meter carefully so that you give sufficient exposure, even fairly extreme contrast conditions are no problem for any of these films. The easiest to work with would be TMX because when developed in many standard developers such as ID-11/D-76 or XTOL it tends to naturally have a relatively long, gradual shoulder (in the extreme highlight end of the characteristic curve). Delta 100 seems to be very similar. I haven't used the new Acros but if it is like the original, that film had significantly higher contrast in the extreme highlights than TMX / D-100. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It just depends on how you prefer to work and how extreme the contrast of the subject is, so I don't want to overstate the case. Under the majority of circumstances even for relatively high contrast subjects most of these films will do substantially the same thing and keeping things simple is the way to go in my opinion. I have not found any good reason to use "special" developers or processes - when it comes to tone reproduction they don't add any value. What you gain somewhere you lose somewhere else (at best).

loccdor said:
Thanks for the ideas. A lot of these I had not looked into.
Click to expand...
 
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loccdor

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Milpool said:
TMX or Acros
Click to expand...

Thanks. I have a lot of the old Acros. I'll try shooting it at 50.

As far as high resolution goes, I am digitizing some half frames at 7000 pixel length, but I think most slower films can handle that. The resolution of Scala 50/HR-50 is nice but I'm certainly not approaching its limit. I didn't reach the limit of Velvia 100.

albireo said:
Kentmere 100
Click to expand...

Good suggestion. It had slipped my mind. I've shot it before and found it to be relatively low contrast. Doesn't hurt that it's quite cheap, too. The Rodinal should give it some nice detail that could benefit half-frame.
 

albireo

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loccdor said:
Good suggestion. It had slipped my mind. I've shot it before and found it to be relatively low contrast. Doesn't hurt that it's quite cheap, too. The Rodinal should give it some nice detail that could benefit half-frame.
Click to expand...

I had missed you're interested in half frame.

If you're on Facebook , try to find a German film user called Rudiger Hartung. He uses a Pentax 17 and had posted, some time ago, a few results that had impressed me. I think he took the pictures on a trip to Sardinia. Midday sun and strong contrast so similar to what you're doing.

If I remember correctly he used that 20 ISO Adox film and Rodinal 1+25. Truly nice tonality, and close to grainless on half frame. I'll see if I can find a link.

EDIT found it.He actually uses HR-50, sorry. We've gone full circle Nevermind.
 
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Donald Qualls

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Another very fine grain film with very normal contrast is ORWO DN-21. This film is sold as a cine print film; it's the same as Lomography Berlin. ISO speed is 12 with normal development. I've only seen it in 35 mm.
 
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loccdor

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albireo said:
Rudiger Hartung
Click to expand...

Aha! I stole my Rodinal HR-50 recipe from him. It's a good one.

This is using it with half frame. It's only on crazy scenes like this where I wish I could just get a little more midtones. The shadows on the rocks have detail before my contrast curve, but I find if I try to make them look how I like, the water loses its good tonality.

Maybe a job for selective dodging and burning? But I rarely adjust local contrast on my photos, I don't usually have the time.

 

albireo

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Get very close, and place a nice incident meter near those rocks top of frame. Set the meter for half box speed when using that HR-50. Cut development time a little wrt what you used here. I think a little trial and error will get you there.
 

koraks

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loccdor said:
Maybe a job for selective dodging and burning? But I rarely adjust local contrast on my photos, I don't usually have the time.
Click to expand...

Making a good print (or digital version) takes some effort. I'd try to let go of the concept that a straight print/scan should somehow always result a satisfactory result.
Getting pleasing tonality in a print virtually always in my experience involves printing at one or two grades higher than what a straight print requires, and then selectively burn/dodge areas. With a photo like the one you posted, you could smash the entire scene flat through compression - but it'll be just, that: flat. If you want to bring out the 'drama' in the rocks while retaining the sparkle in the water, you'll have to expand the tonal scale in both areas. Since you can never do that in a single exposure, this means dodging & burning (or the digital equivalents thereof) will be necessary.
 

xkaes

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loccdor said:
I don't find that all films and developer combinations give a pleasing result with pull processing, so while I understand the idea, it's helpful for me to solicit specific recipes as a starting point.
Click to expand...

It seems like a lot of people are saying the same thing -- over-expose and under-develop. How much? That depends on the film and the developer and your "taste" which means you need to run a few simple tests.

I know, I know, There's that ugly word again.
 

Saganich

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I would recommend a divided version of D23 over a diluted version...(or maybe Diafine). I think the divided developers work well when taming the high end while potentially keeping good contrast in shadows.
 
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