developing time for tmax400 pulled to 100

greenspun.com : LUSENET : B&W Photo - Film & Processing : One Thread

I accidently shot my Tmax400 at 100, stupid mistake. After looking through the postings, I'm still a little unsure of the developing time. My normal developing time here at school is 12 minutes for 68 degrees. Should my new time be 7 minutes or so? Any advice is appreciated.

-- Pamela Steiner (steinerkravitz@hotmail.com), April 20, 2002

Answers

You could snip part of the roll and try 7 minutes. (pull out part of the roll cut it off and develop it) If that seems good then run the rest of the roll. Or if its more than one roll, snip one and then run the rest at the time you determine. You can probably judge based on the snip whether its about right or too short or too long. Lots of people expose TMax 400 at 200 so you're only one stop from that. I suspect all is not lost. If you're working on a school assignment I'd think you'd get some credit for being smart enough to salvage your work! I read once upon a time that the test of good craftsmen may not be how perfectly they do their work but rather how well they repair their mistakes.

-- Henry Ambrose (henry@henryambrose.com), April 21, 2002.

I had an exposure and development 'brain cramp' last weekend with a Tri-X negative that was 2 stops overexposed and overdeveloped to boot. Bulletproof negative! I was able to use a negative reducer (bleach) and rescue the shot, and it prints great. Email me off list if you need specfics on how do this. If you're only one stop overexposed and are careful not to overdevelop, you may be all right without doing this. Good luck.

Clay

-- clay harmon (wcharmon@wt.net), April 22, 2002.


You have overexposed by 2 stops which is not a huge disaster depending on subject matter. Most people will rate their film down by one stop to ensure good shadow exposure. 2 stops might lose some highlight detail.

If the roll has important images, i would expose another roll of 400 rated at 100asa of the same or similar subject matter in similar lighting conditions and then clip it in fourths and develop each one with a one minute differential starting at 10 and ending at 7. Then make some contact prints of each.

This may sound a little tedious, but it will allow you to better understand the relationship of developing time to neg density. You may discover you like the look of your "mistake". Also, if you are serious about photography beyond the class, you will be doing ths same type of thing (called testing) with all film and developers you use to learn how to get negatives that suit your style.

Finally, if you are a student learning about photography, there are no stupid mistakes. Quite a few photographers would agree that making mistakes (or breaking the "rules" on purpose) is actually one of the most efficent ways to learn the craft.

-- james Chinn (JChinn@dellepro.com), April 22, 2002.


It does not have to be a problem, look here

http://www.photosig.com/photos.php?filmId=472

this guy did it on purpose

-- Reinier (rvlaam@xs4all.nl), April 22, 2002.


I have exposed Tmax 400 at 150 or 100 speed for the past 6 or 7 years. I have found that for a normal developer such as D-76, or T- max developer, development time is decreased approximately 2 minutes per stop of overexposure, so if your normal development time is 12 minutes, 8 minutes should be a sufficient pull-back for your higher values. You will find that your negatives have compressed contrast, so expect to be printing on a grade 3-4 paper (or filter) for a normal contrast look.

-- James Webb (jwebb66@yahoo.com), April 22, 2002.


The reason I read this forum was that I made the same mistake a few days back. I developped the film for 7min in D76 1:1 at 20C (is that 68F?). It resulted in a beautiful soft film, actually quite nice for most of the shots I did. For metal and glass objects, (wax) flowers and playing cards (I'm doing pictures of objects from alice in wonderland) the result was pretty nice. Only a bright white teapot failed because of the overexposure. As I understand more people expose tmax 400 at 100 to get softer pictures. Also nice for portraits.

regards Reinier

-- ReinierV (rvlaam@xs4all.nl), April 23, 2002.


thanks for all the feedback- i made an average of sorts of all the answers posted, and developed for 8 minutes. Everything looks fine, and now maybe I'll be more secure in making this "mistake" on purpose in the future.

-- pamela steiner (steinerkravitz@hotmail.com), April 25, 2002.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ