Need to obtain obvious grain

And no, I did not mean for that to rhyme. :)

 

I'm after obvious grain and contrast in my prints, for a

special 'project' I'm working on. Never tried this before, I have

always been an FP4-lover (fine grain, and prettier than that of Tmax

or Delta, in my opinion). I got a lot of information from the

photo.net archives already, but I need more. I'm after that fifties

unflinching in-your-face-style type of look (think William Klein,

the Daily News, ...).

 

Here's what I've done. I used a Canon EE17 (instead of going by

the 'shoot loose, crop tight' advise, which is against all my

habits, I just bought this small half-frame camera which should give

the same result as cropping half the image) and Tri-X pushed to

1600, with a lot of agitation during development in Rodinal (I chose

1+50 rather than 1+25 because I read that a longer development time

would increase grain).

 

The results would please a lot of people, as the grain was

surprisingly small and unnoticeable... Unfortunately not the effect

I was after.

 

What are other suggestions to increase grain? Ideally I would use

Tri-X (the grain looks nicer than Tmax or so) exposed at 400 or 800,

and developed in Rodinal (because that's what I always use), but any

suggestions would be more than welcome. I was thinking of trying

Delta 3200 or Tmax 3200 rated at 800, but I'm afraid the negative

would look rather flat, plus, the grain of those films is still not

spectacular, even at 3200 ISO.

 

If all else fails, I guess I'll have to use a grey-filter and expose

tri-x at 6400 or so, but I would rather not do that since I cannot

set that shutter speed on my rangefinder cameras, and I would like

to use aperture-priority for this...

 

Any help would be enormously appreciated. Thanks in advance.

When Tri-X was reformulated, it became quite a fine grained film, and finer than TMY. For coarse grain go to delta 3200 or the kodak equivalent and soup in Rodinal. Golf balls!

I wasn't aware there was that much difference between the old and the new version! Thanks for the info. I guess I'll try Delta 3200 again; now I remember that the last time I used it, I didn't develop myself (in rodinal) but I had the lab do it, so that explains the relatively fine grain I guess.

 

Gonna try that now, although I'll have to look for a nice and small rangefinder where I can set my ISO value up to 3200 :-)

 

Thanks! Any other suggestions would be welcome as well.

For maximum grain you should shoot tmax 3200 at 1200 and process it in

Buetlers. Buetlers is a flat developer using only metol and gives extreme

sharpness and grain. Since it developes out kind of flat you can print it high

contrast and excentuate the grain even more. It has a very interesting look

and you can get quite a lot of edge affect with the addition of potassium

iodide.

 

If you don't want to mix your own developer you can use Rodinal at 1 to 100

and get good grainy results though not as grainy as Buetlers.

Try the fastest color negative films: scan, desaturate, play with contrast.

OVER EXPOSE not under expose AgfaPan 400 @ 200 and then increase develevopment in

Rodinal 50% or so.

When I am looking for grain I shoot Neopan 1600 or Tmax 3200, Develop in D76 stock. When developing, I dont just give it a lot of agitation, I heavily shake the tank, very heavily. This will give you what I like to call "chunky" grain.

 

Afterwards, print with a number 4 filter.

 

Skip Delta 3200, I have always found that this film gives heavy contrast with much lower grain than Tmax 3200.

Kodak 3200 developed in Tmax developer for 3200 EI is pretty grainy. The higher dilution you use for developer the more grain you will get. I think you can use Tmax at 1:9.

 

Use 1/2 the neg so you can enlarge more.

 

If this doesn`t get it, start experimenting with paper developer like dektol

Try a roll of Lucky SHD 400. The grain is quite a bit coarser than TMY or new Tri-X, but has the sharp, gritty feel I'm used to from Tri-X. And the film is very, very cheap, but be pepared; it's also on a thin base and is quite curly. I've only used it in 120, but I like it a lot (and in a 6x9 cm negative, the grain isn't obtrusive).

 

Now, push the SHD 400 two stops (i.e. expose at EI 1600), then develop in Dektol 1+9 for about 12 minutes, agitating vigorously every 30 seconds.

 

Revel in the grain!

Try the rest, and then try the best. Huge grain is very easy. Ilford or Kodak 3200 speed film and overframe the image you want. Either stand way back or use a wide angle lens and shoot. Develope film in Dektol film developer (or any film developer) and then crop the subject you want to use out of the negative. Huge sharp grain and nice flat contrast. For higher contrast just over develope twice as long. For development time just use the same time as film developer time. There are lots of ways to get grain but try developing the film in paper developer. You can even use any speed film. I just prefer 3200 because it gives great contrast. The reason it gives good contrast is because the grain gets far apart and therefore the contrast goes down on the print.

Try doing what you are already doing, but slightly overdevelop by increasing the temperature slightly during development. Also, then washing in cold water will increase grain via reticulation.

 

Scott

Jonas--Try Kodak TMZ exposed at EI 6400 and devlop in Rodinal. You'll have all the grain you'll need. Additional contrast can be obtained at the printing stage using magenta filtration.

Try HP5 rated at 3200 ASA and devved in Ilford PQ Universal (Print developer) diluted 1+6, 20 C , 8 minutes.

All of the above, but also consider shooting with a wide-angle lens and then blowing up only a portion of the negative. That will exaggerate the grain as well.

I quite like the grain and tonality of HP5+ in Acutol.<div></div>