What did I do wrong!!!

louispreynolds · Jul 24, 2014

Okay so I was sat in the darkroom processing some delta 100 that I had exposed at 400. I hear that the general rule was, for every stop you want to push, add two minutes. So that's what I did. The total time was 8 mins.
I think the dilution was the economy dilution for the developer.
Then the fixer was the full dilution etc.

Then I came out with this. What on earth has gone on here then!! They are like contact prints on the negative!!

Kind regards,

Louis

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

R.Gould · Jul 24, 2014

Louis, they look way over developed or way over exposed to me, What developer did you use and what was the dilution,?,
Richard

baachitraka · Jul 24, 2014

They look very dense to me...

Neal · Jul 24, 2014

Dear Louis,

They need more fixing. And hurry!

Neal Wydra

polyglot · Jul 24, 2014

Way over developed (too much contrast) and insufficiently fixed (milky background). Get that back in the fixer right now before they fog!

Developing longer mostly just increases contrast, it does not increase film-speed very much. It's only useful if you want to shoot a very flat (low contrast) scene.

Have a read about BTZS to learn about the effects of extending development time, or read Way Beyond Monochrome.

brbeck · Jul 24, 2014

I maybe incorrect but they also look under fixed. They are way too dense in between each negative.

louispreynolds · Jul 24, 2014

polyglot said:
Way over developed (too much contrast) and insufficiently fixed (milky background). Get that back in the fixer right now before they fog!

Developing longer mostly just increases contrast, it does not increase film-speed very much. It's only useful if you want to shoot a very flat (low contrast) scene.

Have a read about BTZS to learn about the effects of extending development time, or read Way Beyond Monochrome.

Brilliant. Concise an accurate answer. Thank you very much - never ever had that problem before. The very FIRSt roll I developed came out perfect!! Maybe I was paying attention more then.

So, learning corner here - does the developer make the engage appear, and then is it the fixer that makes the negatives transparent?

Thanks again.

Louis

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

baachitraka · Jul 24, 2014

Fix it one more time....but then you will see some very contrast prints.

pentaxuser · Jul 24, 2014

What was the developer? My curiosity is peaked because whatever it was and based on the two stop push time, the correct time at 100 was 4 mins and at economy dilution. So whatever it was, the correct time is very short at 4 mins and presumably at other than economy dilution is even shorter?

This is fairly unusual for most developers.

Thanks

pentaxuser

polyglot · Jul 24, 2014

louispreynolds said:
Brilliant. Concise an accurate answer. Thank you very much - never ever had that problem before. The very FIRSt roll I developed came out perfect!! Maybe I was paying attention more then.

So, learning corner here - does the developer make the engage appear, and then is it the fixer that makes the negatives transparent?

The developer converts exposed silver halide into metallic silver, which looks black. The more you develop, the more conversion happens: where there is no exposure, the developer does nothing no matter how long you develop, and where there is plenty of exposure, the amount of black is basically proportional to the development time. So development time controls contrast.

The fixer strips out all the unexposed/undeveloped silver halide. If you don't use fixer, the undeveloped halide will "print out", i.e. with light on it, it will turn metallic anyway. That leads to fog. So yes, the fixer makes the film transparent.

I suggest having a read through the FAQ in my signature if you're new to all this.

DannL. · Jul 24, 2014

A simple problem with a simply "fix". The film base should be clear, and your film base has not been cleared. Fix the film as required. Your fixer may have gone bad, or you may have missed that step.

darkosaric · Jul 24, 2014

And you are touching emulsion side with fingers - don't do that even to bad negatives .

louispreynolds · Jul 24, 2014

pentaxuser said:
What was the developer? My curiosity is peaked because whatever it was and based on the two stop push time, the correct time at 100 was 4 mins and at economy dilution. So whatever it was, the correct time is very short at 4 mins and presumably at other than economy dilution is even shorter?

This is fairly unusual for most developers.

Thanks

pentaxuser

I used the ilford ilfosol 3 and the concentration was the economy solution (I'm out of the country and can't remember the actual dilution.

The 'push' rule that I came across could've actually been wrong it was a passing rule I saw on the internet that for every stop you want to push, you increase development time by two minutes.

The delta 100 dev time I'm pretty sure (for the economy solution) was about 4 minutes. As I exposed at 400 that's a two stop push. Two lots of two extra minutes = 8 minutes development time = two stop push from 100-400.

I was probably foolish for not even double checking that general 'rule' I came across about pushing film, but most of you seem to think my problems lie with the time of fixing!

Thanks,

Louis

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

louispreynolds · Jul 24, 2014

polyglot said:
The developer converts exposed silver halide into metallic silver, which looks black. The more you develop, the more conversion happens: where there is no exposure, the developer does nothing no matter how long you develop, and where there is plenty of exposure, the amount of black is basically proportional to the development time. So development time controls contrast.

The fixer strips out all the unexposed/undeveloped silver halide. If you don't use fixer, the undeveloped halide will "print out", i.e. with light on it, it will turn metallic anyway. That leads to fog. So yes, the fixer makes the film transparent.

I suggest having a read through the FAQ in my signature if you're new to all this.

Awesome explanation. I will take a look, I'm 17, learning but very passionate about my photography and love just reading about techniques!!

Thanks for you time.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

baachitraka · Jul 24, 2014

Two stop push may not be two stops in reality so it was over-developed and under fixed.

louispreynolds · Jul 24, 2014

darkosaric said:
And you are touching emulsion side with fingers - don't do that even to bad negatives .

How interesting. What are the bad effects of me touching that side?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

baachitraka · Jul 24, 2014

Cleaning negatives is no fun.

Scratch: need not explain their effects.

louispreynolds · Jul 24, 2014

I meant that particular side as opposed to the other side?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

darkosaric · Jul 24, 2014

Hi Louis,

As baachitraka said - cleaning and scratches. You risk even more on not dry negative.

BTW it is nice to see young guys are developing films .

Everybody has their own rules - my rule is not to push any film. When I must push - then I push iso 400 films. They are in general more "pushable" than lower iso films.
Ilford delta 100 is awesome film - and you are doing a wrong to this film by pushing it - true grainless and tonality of this film you can get with iso 100 or even lower (pulling it).

darkosaric · Jul 24, 2014

louispreynolds said:
I meant that particular side as opposed to the other side?

Avoid touching both sides. But emulsion side is more sensitive to dirt and scratches, top side can be cleaned when film is dry - if you are careful.

FM2N · Jul 24, 2014

Massive dev. Chart says your dev. And film is 11 minutes at 100 so shot at 400 would be closer to 15 minutes.

R.Gould · Jul 24, 2014

Hi Louis, when push processing I add 20 to 25% to my total developing time per stop, for instance, if my developing time was 5 minutes at ISO 100 and I pushed the film to 400 then my total developing time would be around 7.5 minutes, you need to add a percentage of time as opposed to simply adding minutes. Nice to have someone young interested in traditional photography, Good luck in the future,
Richard

Sirius Glass · Jul 24, 2014

Neal said:
Dear Louis,

They need more fixing. And hurry!

Neal Wydra

Proper fixing will also get rid of the pink-purple tint.

louispreynolds · Jul 24, 2014

Excellent. Thank you all got your contributions, I've learnt a lot!!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

pentaxuser · Jul 24, 2014

I find it difficult to say whether these are under/over/correctly developed based on the negs. A separate picture of several would help without the background and your hand.

It depends on which logic you follow. Based on your figure for D100 in Ilfosol3 at 4 mins I will assume that you have used the time for 24 degrees C. It seems that the economy dilution of 1+14 adds 50%. This percentage seems pretty consistent with all of Ilford's tables so we'll assume this bit is correct.

So that 6mins plus a percentage for pushing two stops. If you go with Richard Gould's percentage that's about 8 mins which is what you used so the negs may be OK when printed. The cardinal rule is that a neg is OK if it prints well between grades 2-3.

I'd try a darkroom print and see how it looks.

The other "logic" is that you use the Massive Development Chart figures. These agree on 50% extra for the economy dilution. So far so good. However the chart shows an 11 min development for 1+9 when pushing D100 to 400 so that's 50% extra for 1+14 = 17.5 mins but that's at 20C. Using R Lambrecht's chart for development temperatures gets you back down to 12 mins which is 4 mins more.

pentaxuser

What did I do wrong!!!

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency