Over agitating?

Ok guys. I'm still learning a lot with the entire shooting developing scanning film, but I developed some Ilford XP2, which actually needs the C-41 process. I developed it in Ilfosol 3, 8 oz tank, 1,5 oz ilford, 6,5oz distilled water, developed for 21 minutes at around 20°C, agitated every 2 minutes for 10 seconds. This is the result


XP2+nikon-4 by DarthVador, on Flickr

Shot with the Nikon F2 + 50 1.2
 
That looks very good to my eye Kevin, pretty good tonally possibly a touch of burn out on the white coat but acceptable. It's more impressive as it's an XP2, not really designed for B&W process but nonetheless looks very fine grained.
 
Photo_Smith said:
That looks very good to my eye Kevin, pretty good tonally possibly a touch of burn out on the white coat but acceptable. It's more impressive as it's an XP2, not really designed for B&W process but nonetheless looks very fine grained.
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Yeah that's what I thought. I developed some Fomapan yesterday to, but that turned out terrible. I still have around 30 rolls of Foma, but I really need to experiment with it, because so far, I haven't been able to get my developing right on that. Any experience here with Foma?
 
I use Foma quite a bit and have found it can be quite contrasty rated at box with normal processing.
What I have found is it's quite beautiful rated between one third and two thirds down I rate the 100 at EI64 and the 200 at EI 125 the 400 at 250 etc.
You'll need to develop it in a compensating developer, which normally means higher dilution I use Rodinal at 1:50 or even 1:100 you could use HC110 or Ilfotec HC also.

Here is the 100:
76223944.jpg


The 200 at night
145436077.jpg


The 400
95321312.jpg


Foma is harder to get right than other emulsions, I like them they have on old style look about them and can be wonderful.

146007753.jpg

Fomapan 100 (EI64), Rolleiflex 3,5F 1:100 in Rodinal
 
I use 9 minutes in Rodinal 1:50 with Fomapan 100 in 120 and find it to be a good combination (maybe rating it around 80 would be better).
1 minute slow inversion
1 slow and gentle inversion per minute. (10-15 second inversion)
 
Foma 200 also works nicely with Beutler with VERY gentle agitation. It's a compensating high acutance developer and makes very nicely-graded sharp prints.
 
Stop skipping around and pick one thing and learn to use it.

A developing test with 6 frames or 12" of film is all that is required.

Over agitation does not exist. Cut your time 10% for continuous over 5/30 sec .

what does exist is insufficient or some non random method that leaves certain areas with insufficient replenishment. People call these surge marks and try to repair with less agitation, exactly the wrong fix.
 
You're right, It's just that I'm in between places, and I have around 6 different types of film, now using just 1 developer. I have to see which will be available in Ecuador, where I'm going to stay more then 1 year. The films I'm developing right now don't have any importance, so it's pretty much like experimenting. Once I move to Ecuador, in 1 month, I'll be picking 1 developer, and 1 favorite film.

I'm also trying to come up with a perfect darkroom/developing/scanning space, maybe I should start a new topic to ask people what would be there dream setup if space was no issue?
 
Ronald M said:
Stop skipping around and pick one thing and learn to use it.

A developing test with 6 frames or 12" of film is all that is required.

Over agitation does not exist. Cut your time 10% for continuous over 5/30 sec .

what does exist is insufficient or some non random method that leaves certain areas with insufficient replenishment. People call these surge marks and try to repair with less agitation, exactly the wrong fix.
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Well, sort of. Unless you want (slightly) finer grain and higher edge sharpness, at the expense of (slightly) lower true ISO speeds, and (possibly) less compensation. But you are absolutely right that the penalties for under-agitation are far worse, far more common and (for the most part) far less understood by ignorant 'enthusiastic amateurs' than the penalties for over-agitation.

Cheers,

R.
 

My father. by gholen, on Flickr


Beauty. by gholen, on Flickr

Both pic's are done with TriX 400 pushed to 3200 ASA in D76 1+1. Agitation was three times each three minutes, slow and steady. Total time, 19 minutes.

As you can see, they are both sharp and fine-grained.
 
Try it a few times. It's surprisingly like cooking or brewing. You'll get a feel for how to balance time, temp, and concentration. Nobody wants to go out on a limb with precious pictures, but facing the challenges when they arise is educational.
 
Ronald M said:
Over agitation does not exist. Cut your time 10% for continuous over 5/30 sec .

what does exist is insufficient or some non random method that leaves certain areas with insufficient replenishment. People call these surge marks and try to repair with less agitation, exactly the wrong fix.
Click to expand...

That's partly true, although it is very developer dependant. Continuous agitation with Rodinal would give very grainy results, yet used with little or no agitation will suffer with few processing anomalies.

The issue is that with conventional B&W processing during development a by product called bromide is released which actually retards development causing streaks. Less agitation will mean highlights exhaust faster than shadows which will be OK if you want to hold back the highlights, but not so good if the bromide produced causes the anomalies in high density areas.

Different developers work very differently with respect to exhaustion rates and the amount of bromide produced, so less agitation can sometimes be used to great effect–but it's very developer dependant
 
Roger Hicks said:
Well, sort of. Unless you want (slightly) finer grain and higher edge sharpness, at the expense of (slightly) lower true ISO speeds, and (possibly) less compensation. But you are absolutely right that the penalties for under-agitation are far worse, far more common and (for the most part) far less understood by ignorant 'enthusiastic amateurs' than the penalties for over-agitation.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

Sacrifice all the nuances in the interest of getting quality repeatable results.

Walk before running so to speak.
 
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