Why Isn't All Roll Film Given N1 Development, in Light of Multigrade Paper?

Ok, the title is a little over the top, I know, but bear with me

(With the exception of photographers push-processing to intentionally create prominent grain, or workers in alternative processes who need a very dense negative, etc.)

As I understand it, resolution decreases and grain clumping increases with increased development. The rule of thumb that I learned in The Edge of Darkness and repeated in other texts is that if you're shooting conventional film in high contrast situations, e.g. daylight and you want good shadow detail, if you reduce your exposure index by 1/3 to 1/2, and pull back your development by 33%, all of a sudden your beginner-looking negatives are going to look a lot better.

Even more interestingly, working with dilute non-solvent developers given reduced agitation, you can extend shadow detail without blowing out your highlights. Some writers speculate (quoted in The Film Developing Cookbook) that developing roll film in a dilute non-solvent developer comes somewhat close to giving each frame individual development, because highlight areas quickly exhaust the developer in between agitations.

Ansel Adams, as well as others shooting 8x10, probably don't have to worry much about granularity, so can happily develop to N+1, etc. without worrying about reduced resolution and increased grain. But for the rest of us, why not just develop to N-1 to gain the increased resolution and reduced grain (if aesthetically desired, of course: I'm discussing this issue within the aegis of the classical "fine print" which generally prizes sharpness and resolution over prominent grain), and then bump the filter up to #4 or #5 if you need more contrast?

Thanks for your wisdom!

One shoe size does not fit all. For example, even though I shoot quite a bit of 120 roll film, I almost never "minus" develop it. Compared to sheet film, medium format is quite small, and especially 35mm, so is apt to need a greater degree of enlargement, in which case you'd want a somewhat more contrasty negative on average than the other way around. And "resolution" isn't necessarily decreased with a bit of grain growth - again, generally the other way around, at least with many current films, depending on the specific developer, of course. "Solvent developers" tend to decrease graininess, yet also decrease edge acutance - so there is a penalty to perceived sharpness.

There are a number of modern films with grain so fine it's nothing to worry about even with modest med format frames. But good luck with bumping paper contrast way up to "grade 4" or "grade 5". I reserve that kind of grade talk for back when real graded papers were dominant. But even with VC papers, it's best to aim for versatile negatives somewhere in the middle, rather than extreme ones, because you just never know what is really best for an image until you start printing it. "Pre-visualization" only gets you so far;
and it's best that it's not a dead-end one-way street.

My own habit, is that you are frequently dealing with high contrast scenes, select a film with a longer tonal range to begin with, like TMax. That works better than "minus" or "compression" development. But to each his own. I realize beginners tend to get hung up on various schools of Zone System theory and so forth. That might give one some useful clues. But don't accept in a rote manner what you read. You still have to find your own style or look, so to speak. And that requires a fair amount of experimentation.

AA's classic system is based on printing grade 2, it was part of the standardization. So your scene you visualize a white house in Zone VII, it meters Zone VII so it is N 0. but there is picket fence that is somewhat faded and falls in zone VI. If you develop N-1 the house is Zone VI the fence will fall in Zone V, or gray. Yes you can print grade 3, but the separation between the house and fence may not hold. In my experience dagging zone V to VI is not a given. As the Zone is based on sheet film, 4X5 to UL with modern films grain will not be an issue, the trick is a negative that matches the shooters visualisation.

For those who are not practicing visualization and wants a negative that is thin to minimize grain then maybe Phil Davis's Beyond the Zone System is the ticket.

AA broke his own rules an awful lot. He had to. I'm sure he kept several grades of paper around. Today's excellent VC papers largely alleviate that dilemma. Besides, paper grade spacings varied between brands. It wasn't ever as cut and dried as some of those old Zonie textbooks and their gurus would imply.

The Zone System can be applied to any film format. With roll film, you just have to think of the preponderance of images on the roll, rather than each individual sheet, when it comes to assigning the proper amount of development. Or else, carry more than one film back, if your camera happens to accept those.

All that N crap went out the window years ago with the development of high quality multigrade paper and dichroic filtration. But for some, development manipulations are still fun. Just like any analog photography adventure.

ame01999 said:

all of a sudden

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Alarm bells are ringing.

Of course, a good negative cannot be summarized in terms of "good resolution and fine grain". To begin with, there's probably an image on that negative, somewhere.

Wisdom IMO is to spend a little less time reading books on how to make a good negative and instead go and look at some art and figure out what appeals to you, and why.

There is a good argument to standardize on developing small-format film to a bit lower contrast index and then print them on a higher-contrast-grade paper (or a higher-contrast filtration for VC paper). AA recommended a "Normal" development for small-format film that printed well on grade 3 (not grade 2) paper. The reasoning is that granularity is then somewhat reduced. With modern films like Delta and TMax, that's much less of an issue. Still, there's nothing wrong with aiming for a "normal" negative to print at a higher contrast than grade or filter #2.

FWIW, I like to develop my 4x5 negatives so they print well at about 2.5-3 contrast filtration.

Best,

Doremus

Paul Howell said:

AA's classic system is based on printing grade 2, it was part of the standardization. So your scene you visualize a white house in Zone VII, it meters Zone VII so it is N 0. but there is picket fence that is somewhat faded and falls in zone VI. If you develop N-1 the house is Zone VI the fence will fall in Zone V, or gray. Yes you can print grade 3, but the separation between the house and fence may not hold. In my experience dagging zone V to VI is not a given. As the Zone is based on sheet film, 4X5 to UL with modern films grain will not be an issue, the trick is a negative that matches the shooters visualisation.

For those who are not practicing visualization and wants a negative that is thin to minimize grain then maybe Phil Davis's Beyond the Zone System is the ticket.

Click to expand...

Doremus Scudder said:

There is a good argument to standardize on developing small-format film to a bit lower contrast index and then print them on a higher-contrast-grade paper (or a higher-contrast filtration for VC paper). AA recommended a "Normal" development for small-format film that printed well on grade 3 (not grade 2) paper. The reasoning is that granularity is then somewhat reduced. With modern films like Delta and TMax, that's much less of an issue. Still, there's nothing wrong with aiming for a "normal" negative to print at a higher contrast than grade or filter #2.

FWIW, I like to develop my 4x5 negatives so they print well at about 2.5-3 contrast filtration.

Best,

Doremus

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Good advise but I thought common practice?

ame01999 said:

Ok, the title is a little over the top, I know, but bear with me

(With the exception of photographers push-processing to intentionally create prominent grain, or workers in alternative processes who need a very dense negative, etc.)

As I understand it, resolution decreases and grain clumping increases with increased development. The rule of thumb that I learned in The Edge of Darkness and repeated in other texts is that if you're shooting conventional film in high contrast situations, e.g. daylight and you want good shadow detail, if you reduce your exposure index by 1/3 to 1/2, and pull back your development by 33%, all of a sudden your beginner-looking negatives are going to look a lot better.

Even more interestingly, working with dilute non-solvent developers given reduced agitation, you can extend shadow detail without blowing out your highlights. Some writers speculate (quoted in The Film Developing Cookbook) that developing roll film in a dilute non-solvent developer comes somewhat close to giving each frame individual development, because highlight areas quickly exhaust the developer in between agitations.

Ansel Adams, as well as others shooting 8x10, probably don't have to worry much about granularity, so can happily develop to N+1, etc. without worrying about reduced resolution and increased grain. But for the rest of us, why not just develop to N-1 to gain the increased resolution and reduced grain (if aesthetically desired, of course: I'm discussing this issue within the aegis of the classical "fine print" which generally prizes sharpness and resolution over prominent grain), and then bump the filter up to #4 or #5 if you need more contrast?

Thanks for your wisdom!

Click to expand...

For 35mm work, develop so that your negatives print well on grade 3 (though this varies from brand to brand). I use filtration (using a color head) that works out to be about grade 3 on Multigrade 5 (the most recent version). MG 5 has a bit more contrast than the previous version. The filtration I use is described by Ilford to yield grade 2.5, but it comes out closer to 3 by my estimation. I also use a condenser enlarger. There is no need to describe this as "N-1". It should be your normal development scheme. You should not need to vary it. 90% of my negatives print perfectly doing this.

I think the answer to the original question could be tonal separation. In my experience, negatives given sparing development and printed through a higher contrast grade filter don’t have the same smooth tonal gradation as normally developed negatives printed at G2. But I must state that I’ve never done a formal comparison.

snusmumriken said:

I think the answer to the original question could be tonal separation. In my experience, negatives given sparing development and printed through a higher contrast grade filter don’t have the same smooth tonal gradation as normally developed negatives printed at G2. But I must state that I’ve never done a formal comparison.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure, but what you say might be true if you take this to extremes. Extremely high contrast paper may cause uneven contrast across the print due to variations in the illumination across the negative. At 3 vs 2, I doubt this would occur.