My first roll processed at home

[dealy663]

Hi,<p>

 

I've processed my first roll of film at home this weekend (Back 28

years ago I processed my own film as a kid). It came out looking like

recognizable photographs. I have some questions about how things

turned out, and what I may have done wrong. <p>

 

I processed a roll of Tri-X 400 shot in a Nikon F100, mostly outdoors

in daylight. I used D-76 full strength and followed the instructions

for normal processing at 68F (which I think is 6.75 min). I agitated

every 30 seconds for about 5 seconds. I used Kodak Fixer and Hypo

clearing agent followed by a normal wash of 5 min or so.<p>

 

Here is a link to the pics: <a

href="http://pangloss.grandprixsw.com:8000/photography/pub/April%202005/040605/index2.html">Tri-X

400</a><p>

 

All the B/W pics on pages 2 and 3 are from this roll. My questions are:

<ul>

<li>Is this amount of grain normal for normal development of 35mm

Tri-X?</li>

<li>It appears that the midtones are somewhat compressed. That most of

the data is in the shadows and highlights. Is this likely the result

of the way that I developed the film?</li>

<li>If you look at the image BuildingClouds.jpg at the bottom of the

frame you can see that it is quite faded there. The first 5 or so

frames on this roll all had this problem. Any idea what I did wrong

there?</li></ul><p>

 

All images were shot with either a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 or a Nikkor 85mm

f/1.8. They were processed in a Jobo tank that can hold 2 reels of

35mm. The images were all scanned with an Epson 4990 flatbed at 2400

dpi with no grain reduction enabled.<p>

 

Thanks in advance, for any suggestions.<p>

 

 

Derek

[monsoonphoto.net]

Hmm... that link appears to be down right now.

[neal_wydra1]

Dear Derek,

 

My first reaction to "BuildingClouds.jpg" was reticulation. Unfortunately for my clever analysis, all the images on the roll should have had a similar look. Looking at the other images, you may have some grain aliasing going on. Is it possible that your scanner software dis a bit of "clipping" at both ends?

[rowland_mowrey]

Neal;

 

It reminds me of reticulation too. Something does not look right with these pictures but I'm not sure what.

 

Derek;

 

Can you see the grain or 'reticulation' using a loupe?

 

Ron Mowrey

[rich_ullsmith1]

Wish my first roll looked like this. Ya got a good eye.

[dealy663]

I just rescanned a few of the frames, but this time at 16-bit and without doing any adjustments in the Epson scan software. In the original images I think I messed up the scans by trying to get some reasonable contrast in the image, via the small preview frame that Epson Scan provides.

 

I'll be adding the new scans to my website tonight on pages 3 and 4 after I make a few adjustments and remove the dust.

 

I don't know what reticulation is, but I'll look it up shortly.

 

D

[dealy663]

Ok, I've uploaded a new batch of pix. Some are rescans of the originals that I was complaining about, and others are new pix from the same roll. The album shows the pictures by date, so the newest pictures are starting on page 3. Now that I understand the Epson software a little better I'm much happier with the scans, and how the Tri-X turned out via my own development.

 

Now if any of you have suggestions on what I can do about those hideous Newton's rings I'm getting with the 35mm film holder I'd really appreciate it.

 

When my film was hanging to dry it developed a longitudinal curve that runs down the center of the film for its whole length. So the middle of my film is bowed down in the holder and touching the glass of the flatbed generating the Newton's rings.... blech!

 

D

[StuartMoxham]

The new scans look much better. The funny thing was that I jumped straight to your new scans and thought I don't see anything really wrong with these do I really have bad eye sight or am I going mad. Now I read that the building and clouds on page 3 is a new scan and most of the old stuff is on page 2 where I found the old building and clouds image and wow it was really bad. Glad to see that you sorted out your scanning problems and I have not lost the plot after all.

[neal_wydra1]

Dear Derek,

 

Congratulations, the new scans look much better. I don't know what your film holders look like but there is anti-Newton glass available. If there is only a few that you really want to fight with you can get a box of Gepe slide mounts with anti-Newton glass. I find they help my film scanner a bit with slide film.

[gaius1]

The only solution I have to Newton's Damn Rings is to leave the sleeved negs under a pile of heavy books for a week. It's slow but it works well enough.

[silent1]

Okay...

 

On the rescan of Building Clouds, what you have for grain is about what I'm used to seeing in negative scans of Tri-X. I develop it in HC-110 Dilution G, for a long time (twenty-one minutes at 68 F), with agitation only every 3rd minute for 10-15 seconds (5 inversions), and this is very close to what I get. Some of it is aliasing -- the scanner resolution interacts with the real grain size to make the grain look bigger and more prominent than it would be in a print -- but some of it is just the character of Tri-X.

 

The "faded" area at the bottom, affecting only the first few frames on the roll, is probably a sticky second curtain in your shutter, starting slow and overexposing the first couple mm of the frame before it comes up to speed or catches up; it appears to have worked out as the shutter was exercised in shooting the film, but would indicate your camera body may be due for servicing. Of course, there are other things that can cause overexposure or overdevelopment locally, but few of them would affect only the first few images on the roll.

 

Other than that, I'd say it looks pretty good for your first home developed film since the late 70s. There may be a trace of reticulation (which is caused by inadequate temperature control, sudden change from cold to warm or vice version from one bath to the next), but it's not obtrusive if so, at least once the scans are normalized.

[dealy663]

I don't really see how I could be getting grain reticulation because of temperature variations. All of my chemicals sat in the same water jacket for about 2 hours before I began the development process. Everything remained a constant 68F for development. My final rinse was done via the tap water for 5 or 6 minutes, and that measured out to be 70F but I would assume reticulation wouldn't occur at that late a stage.

 

Am I wrong about this?

[f_lix_ortega_hortig_ela]

The second batch seems fine to me. I have just developed TriX with d76 1:1, the results

ares similar. You can see the pictures there:<br>

<a href="http://www.lasfotos.de/guile/2005-03-24%20Lisboa%20TriX400%201/">http://

www.lasfotos.de/guile/2005-03-24%20Lisboa%20TriX400%201/</a> and <br>

<a href="http://www.lasfotos.de/guile/2005-03-24%20Lisboa%20TriX400%202/">http:/

/www.lasfotos.de/guile/2005-03-24%20Lisboa%20TriX400%202/</a>.<br>

They are scanned with a Minolta Dimage III scanner, and need a little cleaning, that's work

in progress (I have little time to digital process images :( ).

[john_finch]

I think your temperature control was fine. The wash at 70 was within limits so no, probably not reticulation. Apart from which, as has been pointed out, it would be over every frame.

 

BTW.. nice work

[holger]

Hi Derek, as to the films longitudinal curving: to me this happenes mostly in our heating period, when the air is very very dry, so drying off seems to happen too fast and uneven. I now let the negs dry in the shower cabin, with a wet towel in it, so the film drys of slowly. Before I hang the film up, I wet everything in the shower cabin too, no dust problems since then. Maybe this helps, Holger