BuyFilmNotMegapixels
Hello, what would happen if I had an ISO 400 film – which was also exposed as a 400 film – developed as ISO 100? Would there be more contrast?
AntiLynd
‘Develop as ISO 100’ – I assume you mean shortening the development time, is that right? If the contrast increased as the development time was shortened, and decreased as it was lengthened, then the negatives with the highest contrast would probably be those that were barely developed at all – perhaps dipped in for just two seconds, or left in cold tap water for ten minutes. And a film that’s been in the bath for three hours would show absolutely nothing at all – just a single, contrastless grey mush.
You see: it’s, of course, exactly the opposite. If you do nothing with the film, you get no contrast. And the longer you leave it in, the steeper the curve becomes. Both — deliberate extension (aka ‘push’ or N+x) and shortening (aka ‘pull’ or N-x) — can serve useful purposes. But you have to be clear about what you’re doing. To me, it sounds as though nothing sensible is going to come of it. Or rather, any responsible staff member at the photo shop would send you away with your development request, telling you to sleep on it. Two stops of pull is almost halving the development time actually required. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that, if you really did expose your 400 film as 400, you’ve probably even experienced some underexposure — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but means you’d actually need to conduct some additional development to really achieve 400 (it also depends a bit on the developer, but that’s getting too far afield). Shorter exposure times require longer development; longer exposure times require shorter development – that’s the rule of thumb I could actually have boiled my post down to ;)
TR
The question is fundamentally flawed: there is virtually no flexibility in speed when it comes to development. You cannot have a film developed ‘as 100’ or ‘as 400 ASA’. You develop a film until its contrast is suitable for the subsequent positive process. People always make such a fuss about development times. Yet there will be hardly any visible difference whether I develop the film for 7 or 9 minutes. The contrast can be easily adjusted using multigrade paper. For about 20 years now, there has been no need to get too technical about the negative process. If you are going to scan the film, you should develop the negatives a little softer (i.e. for a shorter time).
BuyFilmNotMegapixels
Thanks for the detailed answers – I feel much clearer about it now! ;-)
AntiLynd
People always make such a fuss about development times. Yet there’ll be hardly any visible difference whether I develop the film for 7 or 9 minutes.
Well, I’d put it this way: the difference between 7 and 9 minutes does make... a difference. A fairly significant one in theory, and a quite noticeable one in practice. But that’s the problem, and I see it just as you do: this difference is hyped up and
turned into pseudo-science by some people [and I’m thinking here, even if it sounds a bit harsh, mainly of older gentlemen with plenty of time on their hands] to such an extent that others, who are still in the process of mentally preparing to develop their first film, think that a difference of 2 minutes will result in a total disaster......and get the impression that they might as well give up on developing altogether if they haven’t first made absolutely certain that they’ll adhere to all the parameters 100% by the book. This fear of simply getting started is, of course, partly their own problem, but this atmosphere certainly doesn’t help to improve the situation. Fortunately, things are much more relaxed here in the forum :)
Rolf-Werner
I’d been told here that it’s better to give a film rated at 400 ASA (I’ve forgotten the exact type) an exposure equivalent to 250, but then develop it normally. I gave it a go, and sure enough, the black areas were slightly darker than on the other films (100 and 200 ASA) that I’d exposed in the same way. It didn’t change the contrast, though; if you adjust the exposure time accordingly when enlarging, the image quality is the same again. At least I was able to print the images with the same gradient. You just need to add one or two stops or adjust the time.
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I haven’t tested what happens if you actually change the development and keep the exposure the same. Perhaps that yields better results? The professionals certainly swear by it. In my experience, a particular type of film has a greater influence on the contrast than the exposure or development of that film. In other words: one type generally produces a sharper contrast, the other a softer one, regardless of how you expose or develop it.
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One thing is clear, though: if you don’t develop the bright areas (on the film) properly to the end, the blacks will wash out later. Where there’s nothing, you can’t bring anything out through exposure. It’s better to use overexposure or overdevelopment and compensate for this later during enlargement. The reverse doesn’t work. So it’s exactly the opposite of how it works with transparency or digital.
Tandemfahren
Hi Rolf-Werner,
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You’ve really made me smile. In fact, with your thoughts and experiments, you’re already (almost) on the right track.
However, I still don’t understand why everyone feels the need to reinvent the wheel all over again these days. The underlying mechanisms were thoroughly researched many decades ago and set down in books, some of which are still available today.
The classic since time immemorial is ‘The Negative’ by old Ansel. It’s even available in German, a quick read, easy for anyone to understand, and you’ll be well versed in the subject in no time.
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Magical light to all, have a relaxing Easter egg hunt on Sunday,
Frank
Rolf-Werner
Of course I’ve read the book – and actually put it into practice too :)
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But if you never expose or develop individual negatives, but always whole rolls of film, the theory behind n+ processing is really just that – a theory. After all, on a 12-exposure strip, you ultimately have 12 different images with varying densities and so on. So I’ve never actually put it into practice. Maybe I’ll get back into 4×5” photography at some point, but I’d need to find a camera and an enlarger first.
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The light was brilliant here yesterday. A bright high-pressure system, northerly air, crystal clear. Today the wind came from the south; it got milder and, naturally, more hazy. Overall, though, it was more suited to colour photos – how are you supposed to capture spring greens and blue skies in black and white? ;)
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Happy Easter to you too
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Rolf
ultra8
There’ll hardly be any visible difference whether I develop the film for 7 or 9 minutes.
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So very wrong.
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The difference can actually be quite significant. You only read such nonsense in forums. Please perform exposure on a 100-speed film and perform development for two different durations. The negative may turn out normal or far too dense. Or normal or far too light. Dense and light negatives are very difficult to print. Even multigrade paper isn’t a cure-all in this case.
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Sure, just getting something onto paper between gradient zero and five is a far cry from working on a fine print. If you have higher standards, you need a solid understanding of film, *correct* exposure and development.
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Regards
Jörg
Rolf-Werner
Experience with the material also plays a part here. Some films are very forgiving and simply become paler or more dense if you under- or over-develop them, but they don’t immediately change the contrast (or at least not significantly). Others alter the contrast curve straight away, becoming either flatter or steeper. You can’t make a blanket statement; you have to test them out and then stick with what works best based on your experience. But I suppose this was about the basics rather than fine art.
The question was probably whether, if you develop in such a way as to gain two stops (100 instead of 400 ISO), the contrast also increases. And the answer would be: yes. But by how much with that specific material, and whether that benefits the subject matter – that’s another question :)
grommi
"I suppose the question was whether, if you develop the film in such a way as to gain two stops (100 instead of 400 ISO), the contrast increases as well."
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The terms are getting rather mixed up here. There is the nominal sensitivity, i.e. what’s written on the packet. Then there is over- or underexposure, and on the other hand, over- or underexposure.
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An overexposure of two stops – such as 100 instead of 400 ISO, for example – doesn’t initially change the contrast; the negative simply becomes two stops darker overall. To prevent the highlights from blowing out without detail, it makes sense to underdevelop, and this reduces the contrast. This is then called ‘pulling’, i.e. reducing the speed. This is associated with a gain in shadow detail. Suitable for very high-contrast subjects.
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The opposite applies to ‘pushing’. You start with an increased ISO sensitivity and expose, for example, as if the nominal sensitivity were 1600 instead of 400 ASA; this is an underexposure of 2 stops. To prevent the negatives from becoming unduly thin, it makes sense to overdevelop, and this naturally increases the contrast, combined with a loss of shadow detail. Here, one could say that you’re gaining an extra 2 stops (of speed), with the aforementioned limitations, of course. Suitable for low-contrast subjects, or if you absolutely need the ‘speed’, or want the ‘look’ of a pushed film.
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Whether one needs to read the ‘holy grail’ of negatives remains to be seen. If you do read it, you should also understand it. A few basics never go amiss, though.
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I cannot confirm at all the oft-repeated myth that low-contrast negatives are better suited for scanning. Scanning goes far beyond the limitations of the Zone System, and I much prefer a high-contrast negative to a dull one.
hallertauBW
Good evening everyone,
I have to say I completely agree with grommi on this.
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I can’t confirm at all the oft-repeated myth that low-contrast negatives are better suited for scanning. Scanning goes far beyond the limitations of the Zone System, and I much prefer a high-contrast negative to a flat one.
I’ve never been able to understand the idea that flat negatives are better for scanning either. I use an RPS7200, which allows me to scan all 36 negatives in one go, and then I decide on the monitor which ones to enlarge onto paper. I always use exposure bracketing, and the ‘flat’ ones get weeded out. This applies to both paper development and hybrid processing.
Regards
Guido
Urnes
If the scanner’s Dmax is too low – and there really is a world beyond 35mm where decent scanners are rare and expensive – it makes perfect sense not to over-enhance the film’s contrast. I can always boost individual parts of the image later, but after all, I can’t scan in information that isn’t there to begin with.
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Describing a negative as low-contrast without having seen it or knowing how the person who took it works is always a relative matter.
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Regards, Sven.
grommi
"But you can’t scan information that isn’t there, after all."
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Anyone who doesn’t notice that whilst scanning simply isn’t up to the job. And we’re talking here about negative film with a Dmax of perhaps 2.5 – that’s already heavily developed and hardly usable for silver prints. It’s no different with large format than with 35mm. But even cheap scanners can handle that. Amplifying a weak negative electronically often results in really ugly "grain". It’s not as noticeable in large format, but it’s still a botched job. High-contrast negatives are no problem. With transparency film, it might be a bit tight; they have Dmax values up to about 3.5. Just have a look at the spec sheets.
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Best regards – Reinhold
Urnes
Hello Reinhold,
There’s a striking difference between the specs on paper and real-world performance, and also between cheap and expensive scanners. You can really see the difference.
The grain is a botched job as long as it’s there and you can see it. What I mean is, you can take it too far. Ultimately, though, it’s the image that matters, not how it was produced. In the darkroom, we talk about craftsmanship rather than botched work when we layer three 400-speed negatives of a subject on top of one another to achieve the grain of a 100-speed film.
Regards, Sven.
grommi
Hi Sven,
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Of course, photo forums are constantly discussing how images are created, and I think that’s important too. Without all the information available online, I wouldn’t be nearly as far along as I am now, especially since there are virtually no ‘real-life’ analogue photography groups left in ‘everyday’ life. And with my Canoscan 8800F, which certainly isn’t one of the better film scanners, I simply get better results with high-contrast negatives. After a few thousand scans, I reckon I’m not too far off the mark. With this scanner, I haven’t yet come across a single negative whose full contrast range I couldn’t reproduce in the scan. And since no seasoned professionals in this thread have obviously asked about contrast during development, I thought it appropriate to voice my differing opinion here regarding scanning. In any case, developing using the zone system does not by any means exhaust the potential of negative film when it comes to scanning.
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Best regards – Reinhold
Urnes
Hi Reinhold,
I just wanted to point out that you shouldn’t take the whole thing too dogmatically. The important thing is that the picture looks right in the end.
Best regards, Sven.
