Re: paper and film testing

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From: Sandy King (sanking@clemson.edu)
Date: 10/14/02-03:51:18 PM Z


Shannon wrote:

>
>
>I tested times of 5.5 through 22 minutes. The only reason I can think of
>that I get such a narrow range is that I am using tubes. It seems like
>when I processed 4x5 negatives in one of those Combiplan tanks, there was
>more difference between a 5 minute development and a twenty minute
>development. But you can't use those tanks with 8x10 film! I like the
>tubes, and now that I"ve calibrated everything to them I suppose I should
>stick with them. But I'm thinking of switching to trays and development
>by inspection, now that I have a well ventilated place to work.

I don't think the problem is the tubes. I use tubes and get a wide
range of CI with TRI-X film. I am personally convinced that tube
development is the best way to develop film since it minimizes the
possibility of scratching, consistently provides outstanding evenness
of development, and with a water bath you get excellent temperature
control.

Development by inspection is used by a number of well-known
photographers but it requires quite a bit of experience to do well
and ultimately it lacks some of the control of time and temperature
development.

>
>Yes, i mean for the film. What I mean is, I thought people probably used
>different film speeds when shooting for different processes. That is,
>sometimes people say to use a faster film speed when shooting for pt/pd
>for example, because you plan to develop the film longer, for a given
>density range. Therefore your shadows might get too dense unless you
>underexpose the shadows a little.

When I do a print-out from Plotter there is a chart that shows the
effective film speed according for the time of development. I am not
sure why you did not get this in the test data sent to you by View
Camera Store. Perhaps the program has changed since I acquired my
Plotter program for the Mac.

>
>Can't you tray develop more than one sheet at a time?

I guess you could do several sheets at a time but I have found it
very hard to figure out what was going on with just one sheet of film
when developing by inspection. You have to work with just a hint of
light from a green filter and reading and interpreting what is going
on with the negative can be very difficult. In fact, figuring out
when to end development is about like a crap game for me.

Plus I just hate standing around in the dark for long periods of tiome.

Sandy King

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