Hi all,

I've (accidentally) pushed a roll of tri-x 3 stops and exposed it at 3200. I've only got access to D76. The kodak guides that i've seen don't mention dev times for this combo in small tanks. I have seen at digitaltruth a rule of thumb of 4.5x times longer for a 3 stop push. Has anybody tried this? Any recomentadations?

thanks!

-n

-- Naveen Sastry (nks+gp@cs.cornell.edu), May 01, 2002

Answers

Pushing 3 stops is a hard one... You wouldn't do it if you knew (probably). Did you look into peroxide boost technique? It'll be very grainy and cumbersome but you should at least be able to see more details in shadow with this boost (it's a post-exposure but pre-development treatment).

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), May 02, 2002.

I thought the peroxide comes right after the developer and right before the fixer?

-- Russell Brooks (russell@ebrooks.org), May 02, 2002.

be careful you don't over develop too much with this. Since you've lost all or most of the low values due to underexposing the film, you don't want to push the existing mid to high values to densities that are difficult to print.

-- r (ricardospanks1@yahoo.com), May 02, 2002.

Quality is going to suffer greatly, even with a two stop push. When I first started processing B&W around 1974, I used to push Tri-X to 1600 all the time (What did I know?) Looking back at those pictures that survive, it was a big mistake.

Your best bet may be to push two stop and accept the lack of shadow detail that you are going to have anyway. You don't say what the subject was, but you might be able to turn these shadows into a feature.

-- Ed Farmer (photography2k@hotmail.com), May 02, 2002.

Thanks for the advice. The pics were a group gathering outdoors. They were fairly important to me from a sentimental point of view. Recovering anything printable would be my primary objective in this case, ie i don't mind missing the shadows if i can get the main image to come out.

Collating the results, i think i'll try developing for a tad over a two stop push.

thanks again.

-- Naveen Sastry (nks+gp@cs.cornell.edu), May 02, 2002.

Shoot another role @ 3200 in similiar lighting and then cut the film up in your changing bag and try both. Check which is best - if they are important that's what I would do. I recently did Tri-X @ 100. The pics weren't that important so I didn't worry. It makes you check though every time you put film in :-)

-- Adrian Morgan (mourges@dingoblue.net.au), May 03, 2002.

Get a small can of Acufine! It will give you better results.

-- Scott Walton (walton@ll.mit.edu), May 07, 2002.

Try Microphen!

-- Ed Hurst (BullMoo@hotmail.com), May 08, 2002.