Looking upwards in York

John King

John King

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After having a good sort out of my B&W negs, I came across these I took just after Covid lifted and just filed them away. I printed them this afternoon onto Ilford MG5 Pearl. They were not straight forward because of the very high contrast on that day, so much dodging was needed. The film was Kentmere 100 dev in ID11 @1-1 for normal time. The lens was the incredibly sharp Nikon 35/70 AFD F2.8 fitted to a Nikon F2a Dev as usual in !D11 @1-1 and printed on Ilford Pearl MG5
 

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Nice photographs. But I can't understand why you used normal development for such a high contrast subject. As I'm sure you know, reduced development , with ID11 at 1+2 or 1+3 would have made the negatives easier to print.
 
Possibly because I wasn't aware how high the actual contrast was, but afterwork has made,even if I said so myself quite reasonable pictures. The filtration used to change the grade was 1.5 so I suppose I could have gone down to grade 1 but then I risked making the blacks a bit muddy. I am not one for fiddling about with dev times because there is always an uncertainty of under development and that is worse than a bit more contrast. In addition reducing the development times also leaves the risk of loosing details in the shadows.

I could also have used split grade printing but that also has it's risks and is a bit of a fiddle with no guarantees. Dodging and burning were the tools I have used for over half a century so leopards and spots come to mind.
 
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John, reduced development isn't "under development". It's the correct development to get the negative highlights to an easily printable density. And it doesn't lead to reduced shadow detail. That is governed by exposure. In any case, the traditional thing to do when planning for reduced development is to give an extra stop of exposure, to keep the midtones nice and bright in the print.
 
To me that does not make sense. If you reduce the development it is not possible to reduce the development on one section, but not affect the remainder of the film. The only way would have been to over-expose then reduce development but not having any exact criteria to work with I prefer to leave it as it is and then dodge or burn as required. Then when printing would be to increase the contrast grade to compensate the over exposed frames.

At the time of taking the photographs I had little reason the think that the contrast would be so high. Apart from that there were other negatives on the full film which would have been adversely affected if I had messed around with the developing.

Dodging/burning can be quite complex involving sometimes intricate cut outs and multiple exposures using thin card to block areas . In these cases it was relatively simple with using my hands. and dropping the paper grade from 2 to 1.5
 
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John, it isn't "my way". Dealing with a high contrast subject by giving extra exposure and then reduced development is something that Ansel Adams wrote about many moons ago. And in the days before digital the Amateur Photographer magazine produced regular articles which explained the advantages of the process.
 
Didn't Ansel Adams use a large format camera where individual sheets of film could be developed separately with different times or exposures? That could prove to be a tad tricky with 35mm. hmmm!
 
If you are using 35mm and like to take pictures in dull flat light and also in sunny conditions, then it's a good idea to use two camera bodies, one for each type of light.. Then each roll of film can be given the best treatment.
There is nothing advanced or unusual about giving extra exposure and reducing development time to tame high contrast. It's a bog standard technique that I learned almost 50 years ago when I took up photography and joined a camera club. Everyone did it.
 
You didn't answer my question as above. (post number 8)

You are suggesting things that are obvious to you now, but all I had was one body and one lens and a couple of extra rolls of film. I am past carrying half a camera shop with me when I go out and take what comes knowing I can usually get around problems I may come across later which I think I did.
 
The contrast seems to have been handled well, either way these seem fine, though I appreciate that quite a lot of work had to go into them. They are presumably scans of the darkroom prints? They seem pretty grainy for 100 ASA.

I've got so many 35mm cameras that I could easily use two different but identical bodies for different light conditions, but I'm simply not that organised and would forget which was which. I also so rarely use 35mm at all that I would take forever to get through the films. I've got one camera loaded with a part used roll of Portra 400 that's been sitting for years, and another with HP5 set at 800 ASA that's been waiting for the opportunity to finish it for approaching 3 years. I think this can be a bit of an issue with film photographers who also use other formats, and digital too; there are just not enough photo opportunities to use the wretched things.
 
Toby Webster said:
The contrast seems to have been handled well, either way these seem fine, though I appreciate that quite a lot of work had to go into them. They are presumably scans of the darkroom prints? They seem pretty grainy for 100 ASA.

I've got so many 35mm cameras that I could easily use two different but identical bodies for different light conditions, but I'm simply not that organised and would forget which was which. I also so rarely use 35mm at all that I would take forever to get through the films. I've got one camera loaded with a part used roll of Portra 400 that's been sitting for years, and another with HP5 set at 800 ASA that's been waiting for the opportunity to finish it for approaching 3 years. I think this can be a bit of an issue with film photographers who also use other formats, and digital too; there are just not enough photo opportunities to use the wretched things.
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Yes I thought they seemed a little grainy too but they are fine on the original prints before scanning. The film was Kentmere which is not the finest of grained film for the speed. I even think Fomopan 100 is finer. It is almost certain to be the effects of the scanner. The original prints are around the size of an A4 print.
I'm about to head upstairs to the darkroom now to print some 120 negs which I have never printed before one of which is very old taken on a an Agfa folder with a Solinar lens so they should be sharp and have a lot less grain.
 
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