Learner's calibtration woes.

[Bruce Watson]

I think you are probably overdeveloping your film - by a lot, apparently.

While shadow detail on film doesn't vary much with development time, it does vary some. If you really over develop your film, you will also develop more shadow detail. This would account for your EI showing up as 800.

If it makes you feel any better, I did something similar with HC-110 and Tri-X when I was starting LF film development. I misread the Kodak data sheet, and was over developing my film by about 40%. This gave me an EI of 1000. I knew something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what. The fact that my negatives were really dense didn't register in my mind - I was scanning, and the scanner didn't care how dense my negs were.

I finally got the development time down and the dilution up to the point were my negative density wasn't overwhelming. A film speed test at this new development time gave me an EI of 250, which is where everyone said it should be in the first place.

That said, the massive development chart does list your combination at 20 minutes. Perhaps you mixed your developer 1+2 instead of 1+3?

[Gene Crumpler]

Why don't you use the standard times for development and make some prints. The rule of thumb is to cut the manufacture's ISO by half as a starting point. This should put your shadows at Zone IV. After you try this, you should be able to make adjustments to suit your light source. The print is what counts! KISS

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

You hve to marry the neg to the paper you are using. I put a test strip at the egge so that part of the paper is out from under the neg and make a test strip to find max black where edge and uncoverd match. I find they will match but needs just a little more to get max black This will be the base exposure for that paper. Contact the neg and see where it falls. If it's dark your under exposed.Too light over exposed. See where the shadows fall to determine shooting speed. Check to see where highlights fall to determine developing time. Too contrasty reduce time. Flat increase. I haven't used HP-5 in a long time. Reading the post here gave me information that FP-4 would let me do more with the neg than I could do with HP-5.
I agree with others, no presoak, 2 tilts every30 seconds. If test print is close but just a little contrasty try agitation only on the minute. To a certain extent you can use time for density and agitation for contrast. I've been at this for 35 years, and other will tell you also that the print will tell you a lot more than a densitometer. I just "won" an X-rite 310 of the bay a couple of months ago. The kids just moved out a couple of months ago and now I can afford a toy. Them two guys only ate one meal a day. It started when they woke up. Tax deduction only covered ketsup.

[Jim Rhoades]

Louie Powell's post reminded me that we were in the same class with Richard Kagan, about 4 years ago, I think. He gave out little chips of the O.1 filter taped to a cutout on black paper. I still have mine on my darkroom wall and use it for any testing that I still do. This overlaying of the filter and the Fb+F standard negative and matching it to test negatives has saved me $1,000. for a densitometer. Your eye can see the difference as well as a desitometer. At least enough to make a fine negative and print.

The other part of keeping it simple is to stick with one film and developer until you really know it.