[niels hansen]

Alex, I can go off that, although Clayton's guidance is 1.5 times normal timing for a 2-stop push. Normal for HP5 is 6 minutes, a two-step push in theory would be 9 minutes, although I'm feeling sporty and figured another minute might be worth trying.

click, yeah, you can buy a squeegee. I had no problems at all with water spots with the last roll. After the final rinse I then used a bunch of diluted wetting agent in distilled water, filled the tank and agitated for a full minute, then hung the negative at an angle and used my fingers to try and remove excess water. Worked great this time around.

niels, agreed, B&W film is a different thing vs. shooting digital. I think well shot color film like Portra 400 definitely has a place next to digital though. For what I'm doing right now I bought a bunch of different film; HP5, Delta 400, Tri-X, Tmax 400, and Lomo's Lady Grey. Bought multiple rolls of each kind to try pushing to different speeds. Plus a couple oddball rolls like Foma 400 and developing Ultramax 400 in F76 (which went pretty well). So far it's a lot of fun, I just need to keep shooting to make it through everything to find out what I like the most.

pres
I can see that with that bunch of films you dont need more recommandatins but dont forget the 25 ISOs. How do you make your prints? In Denmark you can get a traditional darkroomequipment for almost nothing. I got my Beseler 4x5 inch enlarger with 6 rodenstock Rodagon lenses for a bottle of Whisky from a professionel photographer, and I had to give a Durst with Schneider lenses away to get place for the Beseler. It is curious that equipment that was far away from my purse 40 years ago ( I am 75) today is worth nothing

[pres589]

I scan negatives using my K-5 II, a Ricoh nee Kino Precision 105mm Macro lens, and a home-made negative... thing sitting on a light box. If I want prints I'll have them done by a shop mail-order style. This also allows me to do post-processing in a digital environment which I like.

I think there's probably something to doing traditional enlargements / prints but this is simply so much easier. Plus I have a really nice idea of what I'm dealing with before printing from the negative. This also doesn't involve a bunch of equipment that takes up space / is something else to move in the future.

[abruzzi]

Developing film at home is fairly easy with limited investment. Printing at home is a much more complicated project. I’ve finally got a darkroom together with an enlarger and have started printing over the last month, and it’s a lot of fun, but it took me a lot time to get everything together.

[niels hansen]

I scan negatives using my K-5 II, a Ricoh nee Kino Precision 105mm Macro lens, and a home-made negative... thing sitting on a light box. If I want prints I'll have them done by a shop mail-order style. This also allows me to do post-processing in a digital environment which I like.

I think there's probably something to doing traditional enlargements / prints but this is simply so much easier. Plus I have a really nice idea of what I'm dealing with before printing from the negative. This also doesn't involve a bunch of equipment that takes up space / is something else to move in the future.

I also scan my black and white negatives on a flatbed scanner, They loose sharpness.
I use the scanned negatives to discover the possibilities concerning contrast and so on
My experience is that if I want a digital BW photo with a good greyscale, I get the best results by using films. I am sure that this can be disputed.
An obvious advantage with the carefully treated analouge print is the permanence. I have tried original ink and paper , their bad permanence is only marginally better than thirdparty inks. If anyone has a hint to better permanence, many will be happy

[pres589]

I don't know that a flatbed scanner is going to give the results of the rig I've got set up. The light box I'm using seems good for the task, I don't know if I should focus on getting a brighter one or not, but it allows me to use the following setting on my camera and lens; f5.6, ISO 100, 1/25th of a second exposure. I use a shutter release and focus the lens using Live View and 8x or 10x magnification. I check focus often during each roll of film I'm copying. I know some folks will move to multiple remote flashes to light up a negative using a camera for negative copying to increase brightness but I'm pretty happy with what I'm getting.

Right now I'm trying to compute development times using F76 and pushing film multiple stops. Almost everything on the MSD is geared towards stock speeds or one stop of push. The next few rolls of film are HP5, Tri-X, and TMax 400 and I want to push all of them to 1600. Using 1+9 dilution, the HP5 seems about right at 11 minutes of normal agitation but this is only from a couple of data points averaged together. I should know by the end of this week how this works out for the HP5 with no idea yet on the other two.

[niels hansen]

I don't know that a flatbed scanner is going to give the results of the rig I've got set up. The light box I'm using seems good for the task, I don't know if I should focus on getting a brighter one or not, but it allows me to use the following setting on my camera and lens; f5.6, ISO 100, 1/25th of a second exposure. I use a shutter release and focus the lens using Live View and 8x or 10x magnification. I check focus often during each roll of film I'm copying. I know some folks will move to multiple remote flashes to light up a negative using a camera for negative copying to increase brightness but I'm pretty happy with what I'm getting.

Right now I'm trying to compute development times using F76 and pushing film multiple stops. Almost everything on the MSD is geared towards stock speeds or one stop of push. The next few rolls of film are HP5, Tri-X, and TMax 400 and I want to push all of them to 1600. Using 1+9 dilution, the HP5 seems about right at 11 minutes of normal agitation but this is only from a couple of data points averaged together. I should know by the end of this week how this works out for the HP5 with no idea yet on the other two.

I guess that your setup for transforming the negatives is better than at least my canon scanner.And never change a winning team.

[Alex645]

Using 1+9 dilution, the HP5 seems about right at 11 minutes of normal agitation but this is only from a couple of data points averaged together. I should know by the end of this week how this works out for the HP5 with no idea yet on the other two.

Over the years, I've tried various dilution ratios and have found 1:1 the ideal for results. If economically that's not viable for you, I understand, but you may want to try one roll at 1:1 (stock F76: water) and compare that to your 1:9 diluted developed negs.

---

Last edited by Alex645; 09-25-2018 at 10:31 AM.

[pres589]

Massive Dev Chart Film Development, Film Developing Database

Not a single film is recommended by the MDC to be developed at 1:1. When I've done my development, I've used 1:9, with 50ml of F76 and then 450ml of distilled water to completely fill the tank I'm using. Negatives are coming out very well this way. I think we might be confusing each other somehow.

[stevebrot]

Massive Dev Chart Film Development, Film Developing Database

Not a single film is recommended by the MDC to be developed at 1:1. When I've done my development, I've used 1:9, with 50ml of F76 and then 450ml of distilled water to completely fill the tank I'm using. Negatives are coming out very well this way. I think we might be confusing each other somehow.

My experience with the MDC is that its times/temps are often suspect and are recommendations for starting points at best. That being said, D-76 is used either full strength or 1+1 from "stock" for normal development at box speed. F76+ should follow that convention except that a 1+9 dilution from concentrate is equivalent to D-76 "stock". A 1+1 dilution from "stock" will provide a more workable time with similar results.

Addendum: Using the 1+1 dilution also means less money spent on developer.


Steve

[Alex645]

Over the years, I've tried various dilution ratios and have found 1:1 the ideal for results. If economically that's not viable for you, I understand, but you may want to try one roll at 1:1 (stock F76: water) and compare that to your 1:9 diluted developed negs.

Massive Dev Chart Film Development, Film Developing Database

Not a single film is recommended by the MDC to be developed at 1:1. When I've done my development, I've used 1:9, with 50ml of F76 and then 450ml of distilled water to completely fill the tank I'm using. Negatives are coming out very well this way. I think we might be confusing each other somehow.

My bad; I was thinking with D-76. You're correct, F-76 has a much higher dilution ratio.

Another factor to consider is the ph of your tap water. You may want to run a litmus test to see if it is on the high or low side. In that case, I would recommend using distilled water for the developer and wetting agent steps.

[pres589]

Alex, dude, in the post you've quoted you see where I wrote "distilled water", right?

So yeah, 1+9 at 11 minutes for a two-stop push to raise HP5+ from 400 to 1600 effective ISO. I'll share results when I get that done.

[Alex645]

D-76 is used either full strength or 1+1 from "stock" for normal development at box speed. F76+ should follow that convention except that a 1+9 dilution from concentrate is equivalent to D-76 "stock". A 1+1 dilution from "stock" will provide a more workable time with similar results.

Steve

Alex, dude, in the post you've quoted you see where I wrote "distilled water", right?

So yeah, 1+9 at 11 minutes for a two-stop push to raise HP5+ from 400 to 1600 effective ISO. I'll share results when I get that done.

Steve, so is the 1:9 on the MDC referring to how to make F76+ stock? Isn't it for turning stock to working solution? If you go to the MDC D76 they refer to 1:1. D76 stock being made from powder, the 1:1 I presume is the stock to water ratio for making working solution.

And yes, dude, like you totally wrote "distilled" and that word evaporated from my brain. Looking forward to seeing your results

[pres589]

Yes, there's basically 1+9 for "stock dilution" of F76 and then there's Clayton's suggestion of 1+19 for pushing. You can see both on the link to the MDC that I shared previously in this thread. There aren't a lot of recipes that use 1+19. My plan is to try pushing using 1+9 and much longer time in the developer. I may try some semi-stand development using 1+49 so that there's adequate chemical to exhaust during development. That will probably be done with Kodak UltraMax as I like to make things even more questionable and I liked the results I got with UltraMax & F76 previously with traditional methods.

Liquid developer seems really easy to deal with. I mix in a 500ml beaker and dump the developer after each roll. 50ml F76 + 450ml water and I'm ready to go.

[stevebrot]

Steve, so is the 1:9 on the MDC referring to how to make F76+ stock?

"Stock" for D-76 is just another name for full-strength after mixing with water...so, yes. By extension, F76 1+19 is equivalent to D-76 1+1.

Compare the times/temp in the MDC for Tri-X 400 for D-76 vs. F76+.


Steve

[stevebrot]

So yeah, 1+9 at 11 minutes for a two-stop push to raise HP5+ from 400 to 1600 effective ISO. I'll share results when I get that done.

I suspect you will need a little more time or temp to get EI 1600. Be sure and include a few bracketed test frames including an exposure wedge as well as textured true white and textured black to test for true EI for time/temp/dilution. Ideally the true EI will be frame with the widest range on the exposure wedge and texture in both the white and black surfaces under direct inspection of the negative with a magnifying loupe.


Steve