Tmax 400 shot one stop under?

[RodinalDuchamp]

I just came back from a thrilling night of shooting. In was stopped/harassed by the police and this threw me off my game.

I shot a very important frame one stop under.

The film was Tmax 400.
I rate it at 200

My initial spot meter reading was F11 20sec ASA 200

I factored reciprocity failure into my final exposure of F11 35seconds ASA 200

However I set my lens to F16!!
I will be developing tomorrow but do you guys think one full stop under will still develop a usable dense negative? The suspense is killing me :(

[koraks]

So you essentially exposed as if it was 200 and then by mistake ended up exposing as 400 after all? I can imagine how it will come out...just fine ;)

[ic-racer]

Print it and see. Maybe your spot area was really Zone II instead of III and you are back at 200 again.

[Larry Gebhardt]

My guess is it will be fine. I shoot TMax400 at 200 all the time. Occasionally I need the speed and shoot at 400 and keep the development the same. I've never had the image ruined by doing so, though there is obviously a bit less shadow detail (really it's more of a loss of contrast in the shadows).

[jp]

I shoot tmax 400 at 400 which it sounds like you did. I don't use rodinal though. You'll be fine.

[Peter De Smidt]

What developer do you use? For me, Xtol 1+1 give a true speed increase with TMY. If I were you, I'd expose a few test sheets exactly how you did for the shoot. Develop one of them, analyze, and adjust.

[RodinalDuchamp]

What developer do you use? For me, Xtol 1+1 give a true speed increase with TMY. If I were you, I'd expose a few test sheets exactly how you did for the shoot. Develop one of them, analyze, and adjust.

I normally use Rodinal exclusively because its the most magical developer on earth. However for the sake of academia this film will be developed in D76. I might do one sheet in each as I exposed 2 sheets on the same subject as a fail safe.

If I can get my hands on a scanner I will post results

[Doremus Scudder]

There's no way to get lost shadow detail from underexposing back, that is if you lost any in the first place. Extending development from what you wanted for the original scene will only get you more contrast than you want.

It is highly likely that your shadows will be just fine anyway.

So, develop as you usually would and see what you get. My bet is that one-stop under will still deliver a pretty good neg.

Best,

Doremus

[RodinalDuchamp]

I developed the first set in rodinal. The negatives look to have nice density but my highlights look very strong. Next I will be doing a traditional development in d76 and compare.

[RodinalDuchamp]

The negative turned out to be usable in exposure but a light leak was detected in the film holder which previous tests did not catch. Hopefully the other side of the holder is intact. I did 1:200 5ml Rodinal to 1000ml water for one hour. I would like to get your opinions on this. I took a picture of the negative with my DSLR and inverted and did slight adjustments. This is a 100% crop. My concern is that the grain is out of hand. Since I haven't seen many 4x5 negative maybe you chaps could chime in?

[koraks]

That looks decent in terms of gain for a 100% crop of a 400iso scan, but I have little experience with this film...

[RodinalDuchamp]

You are right. Actually most of this grain only appeared due to the camera upon closer inspection it looked actually really clean.

[RodinalDuchamp]

The nagarive is printable but a little thin, I think I'll go back and make sure to expose properly

[Peter De Smidt]

Which is why you should have done a test negative. You'd have found out that you should've developed a bit more than normal. Yes, going back and re-shooting would be even better, but that's not always possible.

[RodinalDuchamp]

I guess it will come with experience. I am just getting my feet wet. However shooting 4x5 has engulfed me completely no other format has required this much time and attention to detail.