john_hicks___

Give it about 1.4X your normal development time.

 

Bear in mind that pushing is defined as underexposure and overdevelopment, which increases contrast so you get a printable neg.

A drop or two of Edwal LFN in the developer will dramatically reduce foaming, if that's the cause.

 

Otoh I've run Acros in a variety of developers in the Jobo (and a few manually) and haven't seen any foaming at all.

 

So I think you do have a problem with air bubbles, but it's that you're giving _far_ too gentle pouring and agitation and they don't get dislodged. Pour in the developer quickly, _bang_ the tank several times, then give continuous brisk inversions for the first 30 seconds, followed by two or three quick inversions every 30 seconds.

 

There's no reason to be gentle. You aren't going to hurt the film.

HP5+ is capable of rendering a fairly straight-line curve shape through at least 14 stops; even if your negs are grossly overexposed you'll still have printable contrast although the negs may be really dense.

 

Otoh if you didn't compensate for metering snow, you probably underexposed the film a couple of stops if it was shot at EI 400, so perhaps by giving almost two stops of "extra" exposure you've actually gotten correct exposures.

 

At any rate, it's most likely not garbage.

What at first appear to be rear focusing knobs actually control back swing; the two knobs move their respective bases along their tracks. There really isn't any useful rear focusing. Although you could of course turn both knobs together it'd be hard to do that and hold a loupe too etc. About all you can do is position the back front-to-rear to suit the lens in use, balance the camera etc.

 

If I ever get around to it I'll replace the two independent knobs with a single axle, giving up swing but gaining focusin.

One thing I've thought Leica should've done was to simply buy or license Olympus' Winder 2, MD-1 or MD-2 of course properly modified for M cameras rather than produce that absurd M winder.

 

I don't use an M7, but I suspect an equivalent of the OM-4 Memo function would be very useful.

The emulsions are the same in both formats.

D400 in D-76 1:1 11'30"/68F constant rotary agitation (Jobo).

Whether or not you need to add development time is simply a matter of your opinion and experience; if you have no experience with pushing that particular combination then you really should test first.

 

Kodak implies that if you normally print on grade 2 paper, underexposing and printing on grade 3 will give acceptable results. This is valid _or invalid_ for other brands of film too. Otoh if you normally print with a higher grade and then you need a yet higher grade to print an underexposed neg you may be out of luck.

Delta 400 in D-76/ID-11 1:1.

I'd give about 1.5X or so the normal development time for a one-stop push. That's just my rather general opinion and experience; I haven't used Plus-X since the early '70s.

 

Kodak says it doesn't need any additional development time...I've seen that before for other Kodak films...what Kodak is actually saying is that they believe a one-stop underexposure doesn't need development to higher contrast to be printable. Would you consider a one-stop underexposure to be acceptable?

 

Bear in mind that pushing actually means underexposure and overdevelopment in order to print the neg on a relatively "normal" paper grade.

> capacity of 270ml

 

That's the minimum; the maximum with a cog lid is about 550ml, while if the snap-on red lid is used (no Jobolift) the tank could be completely filled.

 

> They claim it interferes with the formation of edge effects

 

It probably does to some extent, although I believe most edge/adjacency effects occur within the emulsion rather than simply at the surface.

 

> and exaggerates highlight development at the expense of shadow detail. It also lowers film speed and causes a shorter tonal scale.

 

See http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Rotary/rotary.html for a refutation of that erroneous (and nonsense) assertion, although the article isn't meant to be such. Look at the curve plots.

Insufficiently-vigorous agitation. Invert the tank much more vigorously but not for a longer time.

Are you dissatisfied with DD-X?

It works fine at 1:3. Use about 1.5X your 1:1 time as a starting point, I'd suggest using 100ml/roll stock if you can, and don't try it out the first time on an important film.

1500-series reels can (most likely will) cause a strip or excess or decreased density along the edge of the image area of either or both sides of the 120 film strip. This is very common, and results because the emulsion is in intimate contact with the smooth plastic spiral surface.

 

2500-series reels, otoh, have tiny nubs molded into the inner surface of the spiral to hold the film away from the smooth surface and allow full access by processing solutions. It definitely works.

 

For me that made all the difference; for 120 films 1500 reels were unusable while 2500 reels work fine.

> packaged product doesn't

 

It's hopeless. This bit of wisdom will probably continue until the last of the fixer sinks to the bottom.... <g>

_Supposedly_ the reason is that HP5+ in Rodinal 1:50 can't reach Agfa's targeted CI, .65, that they use for their development recommendations. I have no idea whether or not this is true (I think not) but I vaguely recall reading it somewhere or other from people I'd expect to know.

 

Anyway, it does of course "work" as does Rodinal 1:100

 

What films are you comparing the HP5+ to?

Been there, done that, enough to get comfortable with the learning curve...and for what I do, ordinary enlarged silver prints, staining developers didn't offer any significant advantages _most of the time_ and ordinary materials could yield equally-good prints.

 

Two situations in which I'd likely use a staining developer (with an appropriate film, of course) are those in which quite a bit of highlight compression is needed while much less compression is wanted in the lower values (and printing on VC paper would imho be a required part of this) and if I intended to contact-print on an "alt" material that needs a significantly higher-than-usual printing density.

 

No doubt staining developers such as PMK, DiXactol, Pyrocat-HD, Rollo etc can give superb results, as can non-staining developers such as D-76, Rodinal etc.

 

_There is no magic juice_!

 

What counts is intimate familiarity with your materials, whatever they are.

I think the C33 has a small round single-multi switch on the winding-crank side and if it's set to multi...so you can wind etc with no film in the camera...it'll just wind film on through. I don't have one to look at and it's been a few years, so I may be wrong.

> not getting this

 

Well, just bear in mind that pushing film involves _underexposing and increasing contrast_. If what you're shooting and the lighting is amenable to this, fine, but if not....

This is really a toss-up with no clear winner; you'll need to do some testing.

 

You can push any EI 400 film a stop without any serious loss in quality; I think that's a little better overall than using Delta 3200 at EI 800 or so, but that's strictly a matter of personal opinion and taste rather than a clear, obvious advantage. The EI 400 film pushed will have quite a bit finer grain and better sharpness but will also have somewhat less shadow detail/density and more contrast.

 

I think the "changeover point" is about EI 1600; to me a pushed EI 400 film is just too harsh with empty shadows while this is just above the normal speed of D3200 in a PQ developer.

 

A caveat; D3200 in Microphen, DD-X or Xtol has a nominal speed of about EI 1250 or slightly more. This is in all respects a normal neg with "normal" contrast etc...while D3200 in D-76 or the equivalent gives only EI 800 based on shadow density and contrast is rather high...so the qualities you get with the fast film depends not only on the competency of your lab but on what developer they use for it.

 

I think the lab people are so hot on TX because they believe it has a much larger slop factor, or "latitude" than the other films. In reality it may not.

DD-X is fine although you may prefer other developers for other characteristics. I suspect the lab uses DD-X because it's economical enough, easy enough to deal with since it's a nice, stable liquid concentrate and perhaps most important, its speed-enhancing properties will at least slightly compensate for the extremely common tendency of people to just point and shoot and underexpose their film.

 

Personally I'd just use my standard Delta 400 or, if I didn't have any, HP5+ wold do fine, either of them exposed at EI 400 at first and subsequently adjusted as results indicate. I'm sure TX would be in the same class as HP5+.

 

There are _way_ too many variables involved. First of all, we may assume the lab would use different development times for each film type so that they're all developed to the same CI but otoh it's highly likely that the lab takes the shortcut of developing several film types together. The result is that while one film may be developed "correctly" others may be underdeveloped or overdeveloped. All would be printable, but what may appear to be a difference between two films would probably actually be because they weren't developed to comparable specs.

 

The paper the negs are printed on has as much if not more effect on tonal repro than the film type, and ideally they should be matched. A film that has somewhat of a shoulder such as D400 and D3200 may look mucky when printed on a long-toe paper but would be good on a shorter-toe paper, while otoh a film that doesn't have any significant shoulder may benefit from being printed on a long-toe paper in that highlights would tend to be more detailed and less burnt-out.

You'll get about a stop more "real" speed, based on shadow density, with Microphen or DD-X, while otoh Rodinal usually gives about 2/3 stop less "real" speed than the nominal speed obtained in D-76/ID-11.

 

So iow, while you certainly can push in Rodinal you'll get significantly more shadow density for the same overall contrast by using a speed-increasing PQ developer.

You'll likely find that you need to use a stronger developer solution than otherwise in order to have enough capacity to develop that amount of film, so although you'll use less total volume you'll use more stock.

 

It's false economy, although the problem isn't obvious right away.

 

To be cheap...

 

Use Rodinal 1:50 to 1:100. The concentrate keeps a _long_ time and at high dilutions that'll make lots of working solution.

 

Or buy a pound of metol and five or 10 pounds of sodium sulfite (Photographers Formulary) and make D-23. Use as you would D-76/ID-11 1:1 to 1:3 but with a somewhat longer development time.

 

BTW, there's no need to maintain 68F as long as you use an appropriately-compensated development time for whatever temperature you have as long as the temperature is between around 65F and 75F or so.

If you're using a stop try it at half-strength or a plain water rinse. Otherwise, maybe a too-hot wash or final rinse?