Why are short development times an issue?

I know that its often said that short development times can be an issue
Besides timing errors becoming more significant, what other issues can short times give?

Been using Acros and Tmax RS at 68F - which has a 5:15 time- and I'm worried once I start printing, I'll have problems
Thanks!

I don't think 5:15 is ridiculously short, but maybe pushing things a bit? I assume it's mainly about consistency - the longer the dev time, the less variances effect the final neg.

I'm in Texas and in the summer, our tap water is like bath water. I use distilled for the dev, and filtered tap water for everything else. It's a pain to ice-bath everything down to 20c. I may well end up with different temps and process times for summer and for winter.

One thing for shorter dev times - your chemistry should stay closer to initial temperature. I haven't done extensive tests, but for 7 to 11 minute dev times, I have seem up to 5°F variances before the stop bath due to room temperatures (when I think to stick the thermometer in during the last 30 seconds).

They are not recommended due to the possibility of inconsistent results. Say it takes 15 s to fill and an additional 15 sec to empty a developing tank. For a 4 min developing time this represents a 12.5% error, for an 8 min time only a 6% error. When do you start timing? When you start to pour or when you are finished. What is happening to the film during this time? It is not completely covered with developer. Most film manufactuers recommend a minimum of 5 min.

The risk is un-even development. The best way to check is a sheet of film in a sheet film holder exposed to a distant light source. This will give an evenly exposed image. Process at times less than 4 min as a test and print on Grade 5 and see if it is even. If you are using roll film, lay some out on a counter and expose briefly to light. You can't use a lens for this because the common lenses for photography don't give even coverage for a sensitive test like this.
If you have a densitometer you can compare center to edges numerically.

Gerald C Koch said:

They are not recommended due to the possibility of inconsistent results. Say it takes 15 s to fill and an additional 15 sec to empty a developing tank. For a 4 min developing time this represents a 12.5% error, for an 8 min time only a 6% error. When do you start timing? When you start to pour or when you are finished. What is happening to the film during this time? It is not completely covered with developer. Most film manufactuers recommend a minimum of 5 min.

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Well said. Or if the wife or kid calls you from the other room right before development end time and because of the distraction you go over 10-15 sec as a result it's not such a big deal with development times of 10 min+ vs if it was 10-15 sec on a 4 min time...

Uneven development and inaccurate timing, as the above posters mentioned. I tend to worry when it gets under 4 minutes, as can happen here in Hawai'i, but then I just take extra care, for instance, to fill the tank in the dark and drop in the reels before putting on the lid and continuing normally with the lights on.

David A. Goldfarb said:

Uneven development and inaccurate timing, as the above posters mentioned. I tend to worry when it gets under 4 minutes, as can happen here in Hawai'i, but then I just take extra care, for instance, to fill the tank in the dark and drop in the reels before putting on the lid and continuing normally with the lights on.

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I do not like development times less than four minutes. When the chemical temperature is too high, I place all the chemicals in the refrigerator for an hour or two until the temperature is low enough for a long enough delivery time.

Yes, consistency is the challenge at short development times.
After a fair bit of practice I can tray develop 8x10 sheet film in Xtol at 34 Celcius for 2minutes 40 seconds BUT the film is pre-soaked, it's fully immersed in half a second, agitation is constant, the flip to the stop bath takes a moment, and the whole sequence is called by a talking timer that counts down seconds in the darkness. Any hesitation in moving the film can result in a "tide marK'.
No way would I try anything like this with film on a reel in a tank that takes time to fill.

When making solarized negatives with Tech Pan in Solarol developer, my favored development time before the Sabattier effect exposure was under a minute. A prewash was absolutely necessary. A prewash prevents some problems with somewhat longer exposures.

Richard S. (rich815) said:

Well said. Or if the wife or kid calls you from the other room right before development end time and because of the distraction you go over 10-15 sec as a result it's not such a big deal with development times of 10 min+ vs if it was 10-15 sec on a 4 min time...

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That's funny, reminds me the time I was developing by inspection a sheet that truly needed 30 more minutes... But we had to go somewhere "NOW" so I shrugged, stopped, fixed, rinsed and went wherever it was we had to go.

That negative is my benchmark for one that is as thin as I would ever want to have to print again... It successfully prints on grade 3 but just barely.

I think it's been said in so many ways, but with development times around 4 minutes, a little running trickle of developer that reaches the film first, will develop that area more than the film that gets its developer a few seconds later, leaving blotches. With longer development time, there is less risk of blotches.

This is more apparent in sheet film development in trays with sheets stacked on each other. There you might lay down a sheet on top of another, and that sheet underneath didn't get fully covered with developer until the next time you riffled through the stack, possibly 30 seconds later. I've had sheets a little stuck together that way, with a four minute development time it would be visibly blotchy.

Bill Burk said:

I think it's been said in so many ways, but with development times around 4 minutes, a little running trickle of developer that reaches the film first, will develop that area more than the film that gets its developer a few seconds later, leaving blotches. With longer development time, there is less risk of blotches.

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No doubt this is true. I just wonder why color development is so successful at very short times (e.g. 3'15" for C41 at 38 C).

Redfox61 said:

I just wonder why color development is so successful at very short times (e.g. 3'15" for C41 at 38 C).

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Mainly because one is wide awake and ensuring the development is done to the second. I've done thousands of C41 rolls and nary a problem, I have also done hundreds of rolls at times not much longer with high developer temperatures with B&W film without any issues.

I never pre-wet, pre-wash or whatever you call it, just whack the developer into the tank and away one goes. I believe if you are careful and stay wide awake (attentive is another word for it) you shouldn't have any issues with short developing times.

I will admit that these days I use a Jobo rotary processor equipped with a lift, which helps to get developing times down to the second, but I've done squillions of rolls using some really short development times using inversion processing in warm climates with higher developing temperatures as well.

Mick.

Bill Burk said:

I think it's been said in so many ways, but with development times around 4 minutes, a little running trickle of developer that reaches the film first, will develop that area more than the film that gets its developer a few seconds later, leaving blotches. With longer development time, there is less risk of blotches.

This is more apparent in sheet film development in trays with sheets stacked on each other. There you might lay down a sheet on top of another, and that sheet underneath didn't get fully covered with developer until the next time you riffled through the stack, possibly 30 seconds later. I've had sheets a little stuck together that way, with a four minute development time it would be visibly blotchy.

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Bill,

I submerge sheets one-at-a-time in 5-10 second intervals (30 seconds to get the entire stack in) just to avoid the problem you mention. I then keep track of the sheet order and submerge them into the stop at the same interval so they all get the same development time.

To the original question: Short development times are just fine IF you can submerge the film quickly and be consistent with timing. Kodak et al. don't recommend times shorter than five minutes simply because these things are often too finicky for most manual processors (i.e., people). For years I developed sheet film in HC-110 at times around five minutes and had no problems. One simply needs to be careful when introducing film into the developer, when agitating and moving the film to the stop. For roll-film in tanks, first fill the tank with developer then submerge the reels with the film quickly (with the lights out, of course!) if pouring in the developer takes too long. Getting the film to the stop can be done the same way.

Initial agitation is very critical with short times. Always get to agitating right away and be consistent.

If you watch out for these things, a 5'15" time should be no problem.

Doremus

Thanks Doremus,

That makes sense.

Longer times help my negatives come out with even skies, which is one of my goals.

For my film tests, I notice the short times are a bit "ugly" in this regard, so I am leery of the 4 minute mark.

With black and white negative large format film in trays, things are a bit different than they are for everyone else (e.g., roll film on reels).

In a tank or on reels, development for shorter times would be fine. I hope that helps explain why this is not a concern for color process consistency.

Thanks. I'm using a Paterson tank, so fill and drain isn't that slow. I pour, start timer, and start dumping 10s before end time

Bill Burk said:

I think it's been said in so many ways, but with development times around 4 minutes, a little running trickle of developer that reaches the film first, will develop that area more than the film that gets its developer a few seconds later, leaving blotches. With longer development time, there is less risk of blotches.

This is more apparent in sheet film development in trays with sheets stacked on each other. There you might lay down a sheet on top of another, and that sheet underneath didn't get fully covered with developer until the next time you riffled through the stack, possibly 30 seconds later. I've had sheets a little stuck together that way, with a four minute development time it would be visibly blotchy.

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Yep

Redfox61 said:

No doubt this is true. I just wonder why color development is so successful at very short times (e.g. 3'15" for C41 at 38 C).

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First of all the film is presoaked. Second the film is constantly agitated by the Jobo machine.

Welcome to APUG

Sirius Glass said:

First of all the film is presoaked. Second the film is constantly agitated by the Jobo machine.

Welcome to APUG

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I don't think that colour film about to be developed, is pre-soaked very much in industry, if at all.

I have never ever seen a C41 processing machine anywhere in a shop or kiosk that pre-soaked C41 film and there have literally been thousands of them in the past.

I also have never ever pre-soaked C41 and generally I do process C41 in my Jobo with constant agitation, but not always. The most important colour negative C41 process I have used, was when using "Color Print Film". This is a process whereby you use a standard C41 negative and either contact print it or projection print it to the Color print Film, then develop in C41 to end up with a very good colour corrected transparency film. I have processed this film in 5x7" tray development a reasonable amount in the past with nary a development streaking issue that I can remember. This is essentially how they manufacture movie film after shooting colour negative film.

Color Print Film, was the standard of the graphic art industry for producing extremely good colour corrected transparency film to be used for four colour reproduction when the original in camera film was C41 colour negative film. The lab I worked in would have done about 25-50 4x5" sheets of Color Print Film per working day, day in, day out. All of that film was processed in a Dip "N" Dunk processor, no pre-soak at all.

Mick.

If a film tank can be filled to the top with developer in say 4-5 secs and certainly a Jobo can then the very bottom of the film gets 4 minutes the lower 4/5th gets a second less etc so the top 5th gets say 4-5 secs less. Over 4 mins ( 240 secs) the top of the film gets 2% less developing time.

Can 2% really make any difference when the consensus seems to be that to make any perceptible difference to a film over a 10 minute cycle 30 secs extra is the minimum required. That's 12 secs over 4 minutes when in the case given above the max time less than the required 4 mins is about 4 secs?

I may be missing something in the example and my reasoning but what?

Isn't the short time problem argument made worse by the fact that if the development time is 4 mins for the proper negative then most of the negative has stopped developing(say zones I to VI) before the 4 mins is reached so we are talking a difference to the hightlights' developing for say 4 secs max

pentaxuser

Mick Fagan said:

I don't think that colour film about to be developed, is pre-soaked very much in industry, if at all.

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I think any industrial processor would have been painstakingly designed so that even results were guaranteed. The problem really only happens to amateur (for the love) photographers.