hydestick

Is your safelight, well, safe?

 

Take a sheet of paper, place it on your enlarger, put a few coins on it and leave it there for 15 minutes, then process. If you can see outlines of the coins...

 

I mention this as some variable contrast papers are not at all safe with the common yellow-brown safelights sold for use with variable contrast paper. Foma, in particular, needs a low powered red safelight.

Ill try that next time!

Do you get a real white on your paper? if not it would be past its shelf time or maybe overdeveloped.

I didn't see the scene of you taking the outdoors picture. Might it have been a dull day? - If so red filters can help against fog & haze.

The portrait looks backlit. - Lens flare?

Further suspects: Not that great lens, shot wide open? - Some get pretty soft. IDK yours / no gear bashing intended.

OOF?

Camera shake?

Underexposure? (due to too high contrast? or metering for the window too?)

 

Don't challenge every variable at once.

 

To get quite printable negs processed by others either use the silver film stock at the speed they are recommending and have it soaked together with their stuff or shoot something like XP2.

Yeah I bought some XP2 a few weeks ago so we will see what a difference that makes.

Bashing is welcome btw :p a fast learning curve is a sharp one so stab me with your insults.

As to the lens: I’m planning on letting the same guys that developed the film to print some pictures to see if the lens/camera is the problem and not my darkroom/chemicals. But the negatives seem to be sharp/not hazy.

I think to remember is shot on a aperture of 8 so not wide open then and it was a bit cloudy but nothing to bad. Besides it happened of a few different photos shot under different circumstances.

Your negatives could have been underexposed and/or underdeveloped. To check for underdevelopment, look at the numbers at the film edge. With most films these should be very dark, not grey. This could account for the low contrast, although that could also result from poor quality printing paper or developer that was old or too diluted for use. I haven't used the Adox products that you mention so I can't make any specific suggestions about them.

I checked the numbers, they seem to be dark as can be. I might have to try another developer.

Hi! Today I developed my own photographs for the first time. Exciting to do, but I’ve ran in to a problem: photos (shot on Yashica-A) turn out greyish or hazy. Film was developed by a proffesional (didn’t want to screw that part up for now). I got one of those starterkits with Adox Neutol NE and Adoxfix plus printing of Easyprint 312 using my Opemus IIa. Anyone got an idea where this is coming from? My darkroom seems to be dark enough. Thanks for your help!