Out of date HP5+ develpoed in ID11

Lomo Fisheye two

Now that my brain is back in gear I can get on with developing that errant 35mm HP5+. Hopefully it should go without a hitch.

As far as I can remember (going by recent events that’s a bit dubious) this film is about seven years out of date. With this in mind you would of thought I should have picked a camera that allowed ISO adjustments. I didn't! Lomo's fisheye 2 was the camera chosen meaning that the HP5+ would have to be exposed at box speed (400 iso) Unlike a lot of people I don't have a problem with box speed and anyway it is in the best tradition of the toy camera cult along with Light leaking cameras, plastic lens, unpredictable focus and a lot of fun.

When it comes to box speed Ilford suggest that HP5+ should be developed for thirteen minutes at 20 degrees C. in ID11. From what I can remember of this all round developer it should produce negatives that are not very grainy. Normally I would have developed the film at the indicated time and be dammed. But something at the back of my mind said that fifteen minutes would do a better job and I prefer the negatives to be a bit on the dense side which translates to clear defined rectangles of tone. This must not be over done though as increasing the printing times could lead to over heating the negative making it buckle in the negative carrier of the enlarger. Leading to out of focus or soft pictures.

After all these years I still get the little bit of apprehension as I do a quick check of the film just before the wash stage. I need not have worried as I remove the reel from the developing tank I can just make out a line of rectangles along the film. The proof of the pudding will be when I print them.

 
I am very pleased with the way these negatives have printed. There is no sign of grain even though they have been enlarged to fit 9.5”x12” paper. I have used Silverproof matt paper at grade three and processed in Moersch 6 blue tone developer. Which produces a rich blue black that does not translate very well from scanned pictures.

Looks like coffee not multigrade?

Ilford multigrade paper developer

It has been sometime since I have entered the orange light district. Upon entering recently the darkroom looked a mess, something I don't remember leaving.! It could do with a good clear out and clean up but that will have to wait. I'm in desperate need of print therapy. I do a quick clean of the enlarging easel and lens. Then check the chemicals in the paper processor.

 The developer has gone a very deep brown, the stop and the fix look OK they were all fresh the last time. Even so I change the fix. Now what to do about the dev? In the end I emptied out half so I could refill it with fresh. Your thinking 'it's knackered why bother?' but I prefer the tone you get when fresh and old are mixed together. The slight depletion gives a warmth to images I like.

Contact prints.

I opened a partly used bottle of Ilford multigrade and poured out some of the contents to be met by a liquid the colour of black coffee! That's a new one on me never had that before! Which makes me think - ( expletive ) Mmmm! I'll use it anyway see what happens. I do not have a choice as I do not have a fresh bottle on the shelf.

First test print

It was my intention to get on with some enlargements, but I decide to contact print three sets of freshly developed 35mm negatives as this will test the strength of the developer. It turns out that the dev is more depleted than I had expected ( you were right). The contacts are taking nearly two minutes to reach full development and that is a very long time for resin coated paper, which is usually fully done in a minute.

Before I start work on the enlargements I drain another litre of developer and add some more 'black coffee' (developer) to the mix. Then load the first negative into the enlarger. I find I can be a little apprehensive getting ready to do my first print after a long absence. I'm not sure why, as it always works well.  

Second test print

With the first test strip exposed, into the dev it goes. Ah! I was a little quick off the mark the developer has not reached 20C yet as it takes a little over a minute to fully develop. As it turn out the test strip shows that I was being optimistic with the F8 aperture I had set. The test strip is not showing any exposure in the first four, five second segments. Indicating it will take more than fifty seconds to reach a base exposure time. That's far to long so, I adjust it to F5.6 effectively doubling the light. The next test strip I start at fifteen second and go on from there at five second intervals. Sometimes I can over develop the negatives and this is the first indication of it. Which I don't mind. The trick is not to over do it as it leads to loss of detail. That's better! the test strip was fully developed in less than a minute.

How the areas were dodged showing
how much extra light was added to each
section

With the second test strip in the holding try I take my time looking at the segments. My vision for the image has already formed and with a plan. All I need now is get off the fence and decide what time the first print should be exposed at. I plump for twenty two seconds at F5.6 at grade three on Kentmere RC gloss 9x12. I have already noted that the Ro9s negatives are a little softer than the normal Ro9 and not as grainy.

I need to point out here that I always work from wet test strips and automatically add a dry down factor without thinking. Ansel Adams used to tell a story of how he came to recommend that you should always work from dry test strips and prints. He had produced a particular photograph that was a delight to the eye so much so that he went ahead and printed a large number of them. Only to throw the whole lot out the following day as they did not look as good as when they were wet. I don't very often do long print runs and if I do it is not until I have studied the print dry in day light.

Final print.

As I look at the photograph in the holding tray with the rooms light on I can see it is over exposed, dull and muddy looking. It lacks the luminosity I have come to expert from analogy prints.

I already new that the picture would need dodging to recreate my vision. I inspected the test strip again and cut the overall exposure time to fifteen seconds. I then dodged the foreshore and wooden posts while I added a further seven seconds to the water above them and the sky.

 

Again I studied the second print in the holding try. Although it had improved, It still fell short of my vision. It is a good idea to have a notebook to hand in the darkroom so you can keep track of the adjustments. I have now cut the overall exposure to eleven seconds. I will add a further seventeen seconds in three sections. First of all I will add four sec's from the edge of the water to the rest of the picture. Next, seven sec's from where the wooden posts finish and finally seven more seconds to the upper part of the sky.

These last adjustment have improved the image no end. Bringing it very close to what I had in mind and giving it the luminosity it lacked. There maybe some fine tuning needed when I print it on FB paper but I will only do that once the photograph is fully dry.

With the three prints side by side
You can see how the image has changed.

The coffee coloured developer has worked well even with the heavy oxidation of liquid. A change in colour does not always mean it has lost it's potency. Now that the photograph is dry the image has a very gentle warmth to it. I have found that the tone a photograph takes is more pronounced once it is fully dry.

 

T max 400 a wonderfully smooth finish.

Whilst putting an order in and perusing a suppliers web site I suddenly had this urge to find out what the cost of using Kodak's T Max 400 would be in 120 format. I have no idea where this thought came from or why! Anyway I had a look and by chance it was out of stock. I still do not understand why I should want to use it. In the main I have not used film faster than 200 ISO for decades. I have been happy to go about my picture making at 100 or 125 ISO.

Some months later out of the blue I find myself buying ten rolls of 120 out of date Tmax 400 which just so happened to be part of a job lot. If I'm honest I would not have purchased them at all if it had not been for the Tmax. All I can gather is my creative subconscious has an idea of some sort that will reveal it's self over time!

I am no expert in the way the mind works but I get a sense of when it is the right time to get things done. I sometimes find myself sitting back waiting for that feeling to get on with projects, when it happens I find I am very creative for a short intense period of time. Once that need to be creative is fulfilled the project has to be more or less complete, which happened in this case with the images that accompany this article.

We had a pile of logs in the garden waiting for me to chop up when I had the time. They were starting to nag at me to get on with the job when I noticed the way a particular branch was lit - it brought out the texture of the wood in an interesting way. For some reason it also made me think of a severed arm the more I explored the pile of wood the more macabre it became to the point where another branch looked like a limbless torso. My god! my mind has gone into overdrive and it was not Halloween! It just goes to show how powerful your imagination can be - I could no longer bring myself to cut the wood up! 

Some weeks later I was looking out the window at the logs again - I know! But what struck me was the quality of the light. It was very bright in a soft way as though some one had put a soft box in front of the sun. I went out to look at the sky it was covered with very thin cloud, like a mist. All at once the idea for making images of the logs fell into place.

To make the images as surreal as possible I had to separate them from the landscape, which meant I had to set up a background in this case - I felt that white would do the best job. I worked as quickly as I could because I was not sure how long this wonderful soft light would last. I had no time to test the white background idea just go with the flow. The lumps of wood were very large and heavy for a set of still life images.

T Max 400 grain, film developed in RO9.

 As to what film I should use there were no second thoughts - the out of date T Max 400. I pulled a number of rolls out of the cupboard before I loaded them into my Bronica SQAi. I used my hand held light meter to check how bright it was. The rest as they say is history.

The light lasted the best part of the morning and a number of rolls of Tmax. Which was fortunate I was in a creative wonderland that stopped abruptly after about a couple of hours. The flow of ideas had gone so it was time to pack up and move on. The intensity of the project had left me worn out! The images do not convey the size and weight of the logs I had been moving around. It was time to sit down, regain my energy over a cup of tea and consider how they would be printed.

I was excited and apprehensive all at the same time. Excited to see how the negatives and prints turned out but also apprehensive at the possibility that the light readings could be wrong as there was not time to double check so the film could be empty of images. My other concern was with the development of the film. I had a time of 10 minutes at 1+50 for the RO9 I would be using. Having not used this film developer combination before I could not tell how well they would come out until the wet negatives were hanging up to dry. In these situations I process the film one at a time so I can adjust development if needs be.

I was shocked in a pleasant way when I first looked at the dripping negs. The detail and tone were superb. The superlatives kept coming as the printing got under way. The negatives have a super fine grain with great tone and detail. I printed them on Kentmere RC gloss paper because of the arctic white tint which tends to increase the contrast of the negatives. I would have used FB paper but I did not have any cool tone paper in stock so used the next best thing. I needed the bright white background to enhance the surreal look, not that they weren't that already.

It became clear that if I wanted to keep the stark white background then there would need to be some burning in of the light wooded areas to bring out the detail and maintain the softness to the shadow. It would have been criminal not to exploit all the fine details the negatives held. This extra work did not take away the Eminence pleasure it was to make these prints - even the ones that went wrong - believe me I make some stupid mistakes sometimes that I can't believe!

I really did not know what to expect from the T max 400 especially as I was using RO9 ( it depends on which manufacturer you use as some are finer working than others) not known for it's fine grain and less so with film as fast as 400 ISO. The grain produced is quite fine considering the developer used I suspect it would be even smoother with a developer noted for it. These T grain films really are a jump on from the more traditional emulsions. Is it better than Delta? it is difficult to say without doing a straight comparison between the two. I'm exceptionally pleased with the results.

Oh by the way the pile of logs are still there! Thanks to a friend the pile has grown in size and weight and will take even longer to chop up!

UPDATE:

The log pile finally disappeared a couple of months later.

Toned print developers.

Print developers add another layer of creativity to the analogue experience. Most of us start out using the manufactures suggested developers and do not move on from this but there is life beyond this with a whole range of cool and warm tone developers to enthrall the eye. You don't have to use these developers with the respective papers but they do add warmth to a cool paper and vices versa.

 

Please don't get me wrong! I started my printing journey with Ilfords Multigrade developer, it still has a well earned place on my print developer shelf. It sits along side a number of other manufacturers toning developers. You need not stop here, for there is a range of powdered developers to consider as well. The choice can be mind boggling so it is a case of picking one that catches your eye and giving it a try.

 

I did this with Moersch 6 blue and it has become a favorite. It has been used with warm, natural and cool tone papers. It produces rich blacks and the highlights have a hint of blueness to them. That's the thing with toning developers they are subtle in their colour. It opens up another way of communicating with the viewer. The thing with these types of developer is the more tone you want the longer the development time and the weaker the mix needs to be. The type of paper being used also influences what sort of tone is produced.

 

Technical data:

All the pictures here were made with medium format film, FP4+ and Foma 100 from a 6x6 negative printed on Silverproof matt paper.

Increasing depth of field (DOF)

Hyperfocal distance is not something that trips off the tongue in this modern age of auto focus. In fact digital camera lenses do not have the facility to take advantage of this compositional tool. You just have to compare today’s lens with yesterdays they don't have aperture settings and therefore you can not play with hyperfocal distance settings.

So what is Hyperfocal distance?

When a lens is set to infinity, the depth of field (D.O.F) closest to the camera is known as the Hyperfocal distance for that aperture. If you have an older lens its barrel will be marked with these distances.

How to change the Hyperfocal distance.

Set the lens focus to infinity, and then read the lower mark for whatever aperture you have set. If you then refocus the lens to the lower mark known as the optimum distance you will increase your depth of field by fifty per cent of the optimum.

For example:

This was made using a
 telephoto lens at close distance.
 The use of hyperfocal distance has
 pulled the area of sharp focus
to the front of the ball.

I have used an old 50mm Nikon lens (pictured) to show how it works. I have set the focus to infinity and the aperture to F16. The good thing about this lens is that it shows the upper and lower limits of each aperture with lines on the lens barrel. Looking to the right (marked A) you can see that the last line on the lens barrel is opposite the five meter mark (about fifteen feet). By resetting the focus to optimum in this case five (A). Then look at the lower limit (marked B) for F16, it is about two and a half meters (eight and half feet). The resetting will extend the overall sharpness of the picture by an extra two and a half meters which is 50 percent of the optimum.

The longer the lens the greater the increase is. For argument, an 80 mm lens with an aperture of F22 set, would have a depth of field from 2.8 meters all the way to infinity when optimum focus is used. Instead of 5.6 meters to infinity.

If  hyperfocal distance had been
used with this picture the
 front post would be sharp.
 

In some cases where you do not have aperture lines on the barrel of the lens some cameras and lenses have a shut down button. This allows you to see before you press the shutter where the hyperfocal distance ends. So you can adjust it if needs be.

Being able to increase the depth of field (D.O.F) can be very useful when using medium and long telephoto lenses for subjects close to the lens, allowing narrow fields of sharpness to be moved. This makes sure the front of the item is in focus.

Street Photography part 3

 

It was a wise decision to use the look down viewfinder. It has aloud me
to make some extreme angle and candid images without to much fuss. If
someone catches my eye after making an image of them I always offer a card
so they can get in touch if they would like a copy of the image.

You get some looks when people suddenly realized that you may have included
them in a picture and or have a camera in your hand. You become a demon
that needs a scowl to keep you at bay so they can carry on their way with
there soul intact . I'm pleased to say there are others only to happy to chat.
But here is the rub I do not always print my images to include all the detail and
therefore they may only be a shadow.

 

I have found that the longevety of a project can be dependent on the kit you
use. Which bring me onto the camera system this can help or hinder the
possiblities in some cases. I know some people think I'm cracked to be lugging
a round a Bronica SQAi and that it is film based. You have to remember that it
is a pro set up meaning by changing the viewfinder I have a new angle of view
and therefore a different composition with the same lens, film combination. By
doing this it keeps the possibilities fresh. Likewise a change of lens would do
the same along with a change of film format from 120 to say 35mm.

 

The Bronicas look down viewfinder shows the picture back to front where left is
right, right is left. This can change the look of the compostion making it or
bracking it. It can also be frustrating when it comes to dealing with a fast moving
street scene. This is where familatery with the way the camera works comes
into play.

 There are no rules to street photograph you do not have to use the same kit all
the time as hinted at above it is good to mix it up by doing so it keeps it fresh.
Oh! And Keep an open mind.

 

 Time moves on and so do I with camera in hand scouting for the next picture.

 

 

 

Techinal Data:

Monochrome images scanned from prints using flat bed scanner.  Ilford multigrade RC paper.

Pictures and article are the copyright of Mitch Fusco 2023.

Here are links to Previous posts  on Street photography project if you have missed them.

Street part 2 

Street part 1