Avoiding Disaster: What to Do When Your Black and White Film is 2 Stops Underexposed

[@uomoartificiale]

Very interesting video. The only thing I'd add to what you said is that this applies mostly if you shot in situations where you have lots of light filling the scene, and the shadow regions of you negative were raised enough to "kick" the emulsion properly. Two stop under in a bright day is recoverable, but if you work in less favourable conditions you may well be dead on the water. I usually shoot b&w film in low light conditions, in documentary situations and backstage theatre. There's definitely a look that comes with a underexposed negative of tri-x 400 pushed in development to 1600 and beyond. In those situations the contrast is already extreme, and misjudging an exposure by even a stop means the difference between having a couple of light strokes on the negative and having some faint sign of nothingness. what you described applies beautifully to fine art and architecture, less so if you shoot street or documentary styles. But this is very formative and useful nonetheless

[@Distphoto]

Yes, totally agree 100%. Was trying to portray that in the video and prob could of done a better kid (though it was already really long and had to cut out some of my ramblings :). Pushing film for street or shooting low light film photography on a tripod are a totally different to what I was out shooting. Much more flexible with the exposure like you said… just wish I had used a more flexible film. Thank you!

[@josephasghar]

Not surprised you were distracted, shooting a KZbin video and all. Tried that myself and it wasn’t for me. As you say, it adds a whole new layer of complexity (also makes one feel incredibly self-conscious). Good job rescuing those negatives!

[@Distphoto]

Thanks! Yeah, it takes some getting used to for sure...

[@markholm7050]

I grew up in the St. Louis suburbs while the Arch was being built, so I have a soft spot for it. I love the way your photo captures the subtle texture differences in the skin panels.

[@Distphoto]

Thank you! The contrast in the arch panels is what jumped out at me as well.

[@philipu150]

Intriguing, and another excellent video. At least you didn't come home after shooting and put your film in the fixer first. I did that with a roll about a year ago. It was only one, non-essential role, but talk about being ready to throw in the towel... I have spent a lot of time over the past several years (very intermittently, as time allowed), testing for similar results. Initially I began testing for 4x5, to be able to handle any lighting situation, including extreme luminance ranges, since my goal was natural light portraiture both indoors and out. One significant difference is that I had streamlined all my work to the greatest extent possible, meaning, one film, one paper, one developer. I had settled on D-23 for a compromise of economy, simplicity, and reasonable versatility, used with HP5. Not having used it before, I was, in part, starting from scratch. For handling extra-high values, I settled on SLIMT, after problems controlling divided D-23 in tray development. As you know, the inventor, David Kachel, provides both film and paper pre-bleach techniques. I've experimented with the latter very little; my sink isn't overly accommodating to extra trays. Anyway, as you may also be aware, he subsequently changed his recommendation to increasing the exposure index for any use of SLIMT on film. I don't find it necessary for an N-1 contraction, but a 1/3- to half-stop is needed for N-2 in my case. I have since returned to testing divided D-23, after finally re-establishing my command over my processes (after more than a decade's absence prior to ~2017) and tend to use it for roll film. It does a pretty good job supporting lower values. I find that I can push to 800 in soft lighting which would need a contrast increase anyway. 1600 is only for 35mm in available darkness, as we used to call it in photojournalism. I tried John Sexton's "slosher" technique (super-dilute, semi-stand) some years ago in this process, but had little luck with it. He uses different film and developer. D-23 is known for starting to lose shadows at 1:3, which I have re-proved for myself. Although the need inevitably arises from time to time, I am really, really tired of testing at this point. It's great to have technically great negatives, but it's even greater to have compositionally satisfying ones, and that's where my focus is at the moment.

[@Distphoto]

Oh man not the fix first... that hurts! I did pull a good one when trying to test the light seals on the fuji befiore I left. I was super pressed for time overtired and worked had not eaten etc... The first test roll I shot (or what was supposed to be) I got home from down the street where I shot it, loaded the film on the reel dropped it in the tank and then turned the lights on before putting the cover on... It has been a long time since I messed up a roll by doing something like that. But glad it was a test roll that I just had to go redo (with very little time) not something important and think of it like a reset that slows me down a bit more (at least for the moment) I have always wanted to try D 23. Seems like such a flexible and simple developer. So much to try but Like you committed to one film one developer etc... is best to learn (though I am all over the place at the moment myself! I think that is the problem with most compensating techniques and SLIMT is no exception, you always lose film speed. I definetly go into testing mode... but mostly only get technical (or overly so with large format where it makes a bit more sense!

[@flyingo]

Mistakes are the best opportunities for learning. Nice job.

[@Distphoto]

So true, Thank you!

[@charliemcdarris6403]

Been there, done that with shooting 400 at 100. Great job. Negs turned out great considering all. Like your developing techniques and will try them in the future. Awesome channel. We appreciate all you do.

[@Distphoto]

Thanks, will be paying more attention now (at least for the time being :)

[@justlikeswimming5988]

Oh my gosh, just found this video, did the SAME THING as you (wish I'd seen this earlier) - thanks for giving me hope as I develop this underexposed film using your method. And thanks for sharing your logic, helps me understand developing better!

[@Distphoto]

Glad it was helpful! Best of luck with the film!

[@michaeljenner1795]

When I was shooting film, reducing contrast was always my goal. I would shoot film at half it's listed ASA to overexpose by one stop, then develop normally or use a softer developer, standard D76 1:1 was fine. I also used HC110 B a lot. It's always easy to add contrast later on, but it's really tough to print high contrast negatives. Yes, you can use a color head and split contrast printing, but that means hand dodging and burning and can get quite complicated, drawing out maps of what exposures are needed in each area with what filters. I avoided condenser enlargers due to the "soot and chalk" (Ansel) results in spite of sharper prints. Cold light heads can mitigate this as well, but I liked having the color filters available for changing contrast. I have to be honest. I've been trying for years to get good grayscale prints from inkjet printers and I think I'm as close as I can get, but I have to use glossy paper to get the Dmax, the solid blacks I want for good contrast. When working in the darkroom, I liked a more subtle surface, like glossy papers air-dried, Azo, Ilford MG paper, or Agfa Portriga (it split-toned so nicely). I preferred that eggshell finish. When using large format, 4x5 or 5x7, I liked using Azo and selenium for the three-dimensional feel from split toning. I can almost get that with inkjet, but it's a challenge and it's never quite as satisfying. I do like what you're shooting. I'm attracted to similar subject matter. I haven't shot film in years, but I have a cache of 120 FP4+ and I'm tempted use it. Thank you for the inspiration.

[@Distphoto]

I inkjet print and try new things but ultimately get more enjoyment in the darkroom. But both can be very beautifull! Glad to have inspered / tempted you to get out and shoot the FP4 👍🏻 I used to develop everything a little pulled and soft but find it harder to get the punch I am after in the local contrast sometimes. Now I am usualyy going a little contrastier on the development and have been finding it easier to get what I am after. (most of the time!) Cheers!

[@hankroarkphoto]

No need to be fearful of dense negatives (as long as all the important stuff is on the linear response area). Bruce Barnbaum’s negatives are renowned for being dense: having seen some of them I can tell you they are so dense they might break a toe if dropped on them. Nice solution to the challenge!!

[@Distphoto]

Thanks! Agree, Bruce Barnbaum is who got me over the fear and got me seeing the benefits of placing shadows up further. His prints prove the validity... (Also why typically underexposing is not my thing in general)

[@CertainExposures]

It looks like KZbin swallowed my previous comment and your reply but I’m back again to say that’s a tasty print! Do you have a box of before and after masking prints hanging around? You mentioned that could have been another solution.

[@Distphoto]

Yeah, not sure why they disapeared… I do have some masked and some unmasked 👍

[@marcels.6514]

What a great video. Videos like this make your channel so interesting. Thank you very much for that! Looking forward to your reducer's adventure as well as your darkroom session in where you print this negative. Keep on going .... thumbs up!!

[@randallstewart1224]

Agreed. That particular formula has some fairly unpleasant ingredients. I'd love to see how well it works, but I'd prefer that he do it.

[@Distphoto]

Thanks Marcels! Glad you enjoyed it! Will do!

[@Distphoto]

I'll see what happens... Have to find the Hydrochloric acid 30% for a reasonable price... I had gotten it from Photographers Formulary in the past bu they no longer carry it... But I will find some 👍🏻

[@michaeljenner1795]

I read in a darkroom photo magazine years ago about an instructor whose photo student habits just annoyed the heck out of the professor. The student, when developing 120 black and white film, would talk on his cell phone and not pay much attention to his development procedure. He would simply roll the ss tank back and forth, on its side across the bottom of the sink the whole development time. He told the student that this would increase the contrast and make his negatives hard to print. Later on, he inspected the student's negatives and most 120, it did not have hot edges on the top and bottom where more development had taken place. In fact, his negatives looked absolutely perfect. The professor tried it for himself, using a motor for a color drum to turn it evenly the whole time. He got the same results. He learned something from the student and never chastised him again. I recall asking Kodak, back in the 80s, how to avoid the hot edges with 120 and they said, the only way they knew of, was to use a tray for development and hold the film in a U shape and dunk and lift in the dark. I did not think that was a reasonable method.

[@Distphoto]

I have seen others gray develop 120 film… I find random agitation in small tank gives great results and not as labor intensive. Rotary for roll films has always given me problems as well 🤷🏻‍♂️ Cheers!

[@jw48335]

I keep DDX on hand for stand development for exactly these scenarios, i.e 2-3 stop push while maintaining highlight detail. 5 minute distilled pre-soak, agitate 1 time at 1 minute, ddx 1+9 for 45 minutes for 2 stops, 60 minutes for 3. The neat thing is, I have never seen bromide drag in probably 30 rolls done like that. Also, I don't hesitate to use the 45 minute option for box speed through +2. Normally I use a Jobo with Flic BW&G, but I fall back to DDX when I have concerns about contrast or when I want to push. Something In this approach, it protects the highlights, probably exhaustion with lack of agitation. plenty of shadow detail. I've used it with Kent near 100 to go to 400, I've used it with Delta 100 to go to 400, I don't know that I've used it with T-Max, cuz I don't generally prefer T-Max, but I would be shocked if it didn't work.

[@Distphoto]

I will pick some up and give it a try. Always scares me when area of sky or even tones as well. Have you noticed anything weird going on in the skies? Feel another video / test maybe. I do love the idea of stand for the right situation I think it is probabally the best aproach... just not for everything for 4x5 I to love the Jobo. I just can not get even development with the jobo on my smaller formats which I am a bit bummed about. Thanks for the info!

[@jw48335]

@@Distphoto I had to look back and search for where I originally got the DDX stand technique from, because I knew I got it from KZbin. Found it! Figital Revolution channel has several videos on it, with a bunch of comparison results. My experience has been consistent with his - no drag issues, ~2 stops of speed with great highlight protection. It's funny - I had finally gotten a Jobo and all the sudden I didn't want to use it 😁

[@Distphoto]

@@jw48335 Thank you gonna go check it out!

[@ebreevephoto]

Did you develop both rolls at the same time? Or do one and review and continue? I love contrast so they look great to me - but I have a ton to learn about printing still... Keep these great learning experiences coming.

[@Distphoto]

Thanks! The smart thing to do would have been one evaluate and then the other, however I had a dozen other rolls to develop at the time so just when with it. Will do!

[@bernardkelly235]

Excellent video. And as someone else commented, it probably helped that there was so much sunlight. I have to wonder, though, what speed Tmax 100 should be shot at? ISO 64? Lower?

[@Distphoto]

Thank you! It really depends on how you meter and your developer and method of development. I normally shoot it at 80 developed in HC110 1:64. I am sure that Xtol 1:1 would give me box speed... just have not fully tested other than shooting normally. But seems to be good.

[@alvinbirdi6502]

Really interesting approach to managing underdevelopment and high contrast. Would pyro stand development work better? Looking forward to the printing video.

[@Distphoto]

Thank you! Very possibly. When I did use stand development in the past I used Pyrocat HD. That developer in general does a good job with highlights. However, I did have problems with bromide drag and uneven development when using stand. That is why I chose not to. But I am open to giving it another try. Again this is just my experience and I have seen spectacular results and prints made with this method. The other reason (and I do not have directly comparable negatives to back this up) is continuous or more agitation in should give better tonality and contrast throughout the negative. This might not be as important for scanning film as you can manipulate and bend the film curve to your will, but will have an impact for matching local contrast to printing papers. But I do believe for some situations stand development might be best... especially if there is no clear even tones like skies where unevendevelopment will be more aparent.

[@ianland4768]

Xtol has been my developer of choice for 35mm and 120 for years, and I would have done exactly what you did, go dilute for longer, and minimal agitation. I've never had any success with stand development, especially in scenes with large areas of single tones (like sky), so I never go that route. I use Pyrocat HD for my 8x10 and 5x7 sheets but I've not yet ever had to rescue a sheet from underexposure, but I suspect Pyrocat would work quite well in this kind of situation too.

[@Distphoto]

Thanks! Glad my thinking was not too far off. I go back to Pyrocat HD from time to and have some on hand. It is a great developer!

[@oudviola]

Very interesting technical discussion. Not something I do myself, but fun to hear about just in case. Question, would a restrainer like KBr or ammonium thiocyanate be useful, or would it restrain shadows and highlights equally, which would be the opposite of helpful in this situation? Of course, rather than owning up to the forgetful mistake, you could always just call it a creative choice! After all, there are no wrong notes in musical performance, only ornaments! But it's always reassuring to know that we're not the only ones that make mistakes on site in the heat of the moment!

[@Distphoto]

Indeed. It was an interesting mistake the way this negative turned out. It is very interesting to print. Not sure about the restrainer in film development as I have never tried… interesting question. Will look into that. Thanks!

[@erchata]

muy buen video ufff 😅 menos mal que te diste cuenta y pudiste solucionarlo, me encanto la foto del "Arco" muy buena imagen, un saludo.

[@Distphoto]

Thank you!!!

[@danem2215]

The shadow detail on the arch looks almost digital. I mean that in a good way. I haven't been able to get such a nice tonal range like that with my prints.

[@Distphoto]

In the scan the shadows were lifted in lightroom a bit... I liked how it looked so in the darkroom, I actuallly made two masks to try and replicate it. The contrast in the arch is really strong even when printed normally it looks great. The clouds though need lower contrast. A compromise was to use one mask to lower the overall contyrast and then another additional exposure to print back in the shadows. I might need to tweak them a little but am happy with the progress I have made. I want to do some videos on getting good local contrast in prints. You basically need to look at a scene and decide what you want areas of the scene to print like. Then come up with a plan to make it happen. Usually you will have different local contrast areas and need to change these areas through printing. Hence the arch could use a high contrast filter setting and the clouds need a lower contrast and a pre-flash. If this was exposed and developed with pull development the arch would not have the local contrast built in to the negative like this one does. The overall contrast may be "correct" but the local contrast suffers. So you have to find the areas you want the contrast to sing and be able to know if you can manage the other areas through printing to get them to sing as well. All that rambling being said. Sometimes a scene will look better low contrast too.

[@jotaserna944]

A veces la dificultad nos conduce a echar mano de mayores argumentos y de absoluta creatividad. Esto no se encuentra en los libros!

[@Distphoto]

Indeed, Thank you!

[@jotaserna944]

@@DistphotoGracias a tí, Matt!

[@JosepheyesStreet]

Needing out on this HARD

[@Distphoto]

Nice 👍

[@andyvan5692]

a couple of ideas, how about developing the conrasty way ( and use split-grade printing, aka use filters to deal with this contrast at the print stage).second idea is to not print this in the darkroom, but develop normally and scan and use photoshop to deal with the exposure, add exposure, do shadow and highlight adjustments there, Then print inkjet way, that way you use the muscle of the algorithms to fix the problem, as this is partly what they are designed for.

[@Distphoto]

Not printing my negs in the darkroom, for me, breaks my heart. Just do not get the satisfaction when doing inkjet. I revisit it now and then but just does not scratch the itch for me at this time. That could change though in the future. And it is better than no print at all. So I basically did develop the contrasty way just trying to contain some highlights I new would be very dense. I am using different filters (and masks to get the print I want out of this. Even with a slightly compensating technique the clouds require a pre flash and a long burn in with a 00 low contrast filter setting to show seperation. More contrast than what I ended up with would have been a real challenge to not get hallowing burning the clouds. The other prob is there are hard lines in the arch that need to be burned around... so again if I had given more agitation more frequently it would have made it even more difficult. probabally still doable (maybe not by me) .

[@andyvan5692]

@@Distphoto I only meant that for EMERGENCIES, those that are way over the limits 🙂, eg. so you use photoshop to split the "overexposed" and normal areas,so you can level out this damaged section and get an image out, NEVER for general use, just for instances of blown highlights, or for shadow recovery (I did this, but on a hasselblad H2f), and was wowed by how much shadow recovery I could do, the highlights were a problem, but my photoshop tutor said that you can not just do an image, but make one up (new take on the old "joinder" picture), to make good out of bad, or unusable. but I applaud your creative use of photochemistry to get yourself out of this pickle, and some nice negs out of this episode too.

[@Distphoto]

@@andyvan5692 oh yeah, I have for sure had to do this with neg defects and the like and it is amazing what can be done in PS for sure 👍. Thank you!!!

[@ironmonkey1512]

You have to imagine most darkroom chemistry focuses on a busy darkroom with short intervals. Do you split grade print?

[@Distphoto]

In my experience some does and some doesn’t. I use a lot of hc110 and that can be made (as most can) to be gone either direction. But most are probabally intended use is for shorter times Yes I definitely print with multiple filters and contrasts on most prints but not all. If the shoe fits per say. Cheers!

[@JosepheyesStreet]

Also any filter used?

[@Distphoto]

Yes I used a red bw 092 for the darker sky shots and a bw yellow for the others.

[@dennyoconnor8680]

Diamox is designed to push film 2 stops all day long (shrug) *follow the box directions exactly* See massive development chart Likely never will happen again - but hey, just remember this old man's advice

[@Distphoto]

Thanks, will check it out! (hopefully never again 😀)

[@ЕвгенийМалышкин-з6к]

👍

[@Distphoto]

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@user-yc4eo4ig5o]

Pyro or cathecol developers. Give a try to 510 Pyro or obsidian aqua. 510 Pyro know very well and with a semistand 1:300 🎉

[@Distphoto]

Have used Pyrocat quite a bit and it is very nice and tames highlights pretty well... However I do lose a bit of speed with it, Stand might improve that. Still need to give 510 Pyro a try as many have said it is a great developer. Thanks!

[@user-yc4eo4ig5o]

@@Distphoto tanning staining developer are very easy to print, the acutance enhancement of the edge effect is a plus, tend to produce thinner negatives but are extremely compensated.