Negatives are very dense ( dark )

[hoshisato]

<p>I shot some Efke ir820 in bright sunlight at F/11, 1/2 seconds (bracketed +/_ 1 stop). Developed in APH 09 1:40 for 11 minutes. The negatives are even but very dark, including the unexposed areas. When I hold them to the light, I see the details but when I put it on a piece of paper, the negatives almost appear opaque. I can scan them, but the results are not pretty. <br /> My guess is that they are overdeveloped. What would your next steps be in such a case, use the 1:80 dilution of the developer and use the same development next time and expect (greatly) improved results?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

[hoshisato]

<p>See <a href="https://plus.google.com/115355372800233634836/posts/LBSun63zp32">here</a> for an example of one of the better negatives.</p>

[john_shriver]

<p>That the are between frames is dark indicates fogging.<br>

Many IR films are easily fogged, by heat, or by light piping through the non-antihalation base. Did you load it in a very dark place?<br>

Is your film developing tank IR-opaque?<br>

Is your changing bag IR-opaque?</p>

<p> </p>

[hoshisato]

<p>I tried to be very careful to avoid fogging: I did load the film in a dark place and I think my Patterson change bag is IR opaque but to be sure I did use my change bag in a dark place too and I put the camera in the change bag to take the film out and put it into the tank without risking fogging it. It is 120 roll film. I now start to have doubts about my Patterson tank; I wanted to wrap the tank in aluminium foil but we had run out and I went ahead without the foil.</p>

[robert_meyer3]

<p>I have had this problem in the past. My best results have been to print such negatives using a point source head.</p>

[lwg]

<p>What type of camera were you using? It's possible that the bellows are not light tight (assuming it has bellows). If it is a light leak the fog will not be even. I suspect heat fogging if it's just a very high but even fog. If that's the case they should be printable, but you will get more grain and long exposure times.</p>

[hoshisato]

<p>I'm using a Pentax 645NII medium format camera, no bellows.</p>

<p>Please tell me a bit more about heat fogging; as far as I understand it, the film is sensitive to light just outside our visible range in the red spectrum but it is not so sensitive to IR that it registers heat and cannot be used to photograph in total darkness. Am I completely mistaken or are we taking about different things?</p>

[hoshisato]

<p>My Pentax 645NII does imprint exposure information on the side of the negative, I sort of forgot about that but I'll disable that for the next try. Still, if that were the problem, I would have expected more fogging on the side of the negative the camera writes.</p>

[hoshisato]

<p>*update* - I had only one Efke IR 820 film left and wanted to change two things:</p>

<ul>

<li>I disabled the imprinting of the exposre data on the negative</li>

<li>I wrapped the development tank in aluminium foil</li>

</ul>

<p>All other things were kept the same; the result is some healthy looking negatives. My guess is that it was the imprinting of the exposure data on the negative that was spooking, but due to the unscientific approach of changing two things at the same time, it is difficult to draw a conclusion for certain.</p>

[chris_waller]

<p>I've developed both Kodak HIE and Konica 720 nm in a Paterson tank with no problems re. IR opacity. (I have some Efke 820 to try but haven't got round to it yet.)</p>

<p>At what ASA did you rate the Efke 820 and what filter did you use?</p>

[hoshisato]

<p>Like I wrote above, I am sure the problem was related to the imprint of data on the negative by the camera, once I switched that off, the negatives came out beautifully. So stupid I didn't think of that feature which I had left on by default as I like to copy the data into the scanned images as EXIF data.<br /> <br /> I am using the Hoya R72 filter. As for rating, I used the tip posted elsewhere in this forum and used manual exposure and set the camera to 0.5 seconds at f/11 and bracketed around that as was recommended for sunny days. <br />Coincidently, I had left the camera at 100 ISO and with the filter on, the camera judged the exposure only about half a stop over- or underexposed, depending on the subject. This could mean that for different lighting conditions, with the filter on, I may rely on the TTL metering to get the exposure right at EI 100.</p>