[TonyW]

... The two things that make the most sense to me are a combination of underexposing and over-development or just too much contrast in the photo. However I'm still kind of curious how the sky turned out white, shouldn't it still have turned out as a darker grey?....

You will probably find that there is some shadow detail in the scan from the lab and that detail can be recovered by a shadow boost and highlight lowering in your editing program which may get you a better looking print.

If the negative appears as a direct reversal of the image posted here then this suggests under exposure and over development. Exposure will tend to affect the lower (shadow) density areas whereas development takes most effect in the highlights. Under exposure leading to loss of shadow detail (gross under leading to no detail) whereas over development will block up the highlights and with conventional analogue printing papers will cause issues trying to retain delicate highlight separation. Digital should give you a little more room to play in post.

So to try and answer why the sky turned out white not a darker grey is most likely due to being overdeveloped causing blocking of detail. The original negative may have that detail but should be examined to find out if a better scan needed

FWIW: I have used thousands of rolls of MF Tri X and also probably many hundreds of LF 5x4 etc. Never have I found any of the films to be truly rated at 400 ISO the more accurate speed being around 1 full stop less at 200 ISO for all sizes. No idea about the newer Tri X brews but worthwhile considering if the ISO is correct for your system conditions.

[LesDMess]

Kodak TRI-X 400 has a very generous exposure range, perfectly suited when metering is not precise - or does not work. These are straight-up automatic scans.



As pointed out, with some highlight adjustments in post processing, I can easily recover a couple more stops.

I suspect that since minilab scanners (Noritsu, Fuji Frontier, Agfa) generally overexpose and overdo contrast and sharpening, that this may have contributed greatly to this look which kinda looks like Techpan.

However, because you're using b&w, you can take a loupe to the frame and visually examine it. If you don't have a loupe and lightbox, reversing a 50mm lens and using a window will work too.

[BigDave]

I think the picture is awesome the way it is :-)

I agree. Sometimes great images can be a matter or luck. Remember, luck counts!

[photoptimist]

However I'm still kind of curious how the sky turned out white, shouldn't it still have turned out as a darker grey?

The simple exposure meter assumes the overall scene should be rendered as light gray (something like 12% or 18% gray depending on who you believe). The meter has no idea that there's sky in the image, or green leaves, or anything. It just measures the average amount of light coming through the lens and estimates an exposure setting that would make that scene light gray.

But your's was not a light gray scene. Looking at the histogram of your image, the scene had roughly 50% brightly lit parts (the sky and sun dapples) and 50% extremely dark parts (all the shadowed leaves and branches). The meter did not know that. To make that particular scene light gray, the meter made the camera open the aperture more and that blew-out the sky.