First 4x10 development - more uneven development

[dgc]

I would welcome some comments on how my negatives ended up the way they have. I developed the film in ID-11 stock, in trays, with agitation every minute, after using the same developer for 2 reels of 120 film. The sky was completely blue and clear of clouds.

The first negative (lighthouse more central) there is a broad diagonal band top left - this seems to uniform to be a light-leak.

The 2nd negative (lighthouse right of centre) has uneven vertical banding to the left of the lighthouse, which is clearer in the print. I feel that this a result of the sloshing of the film in the tray during uneven agitation / development.

The negatives were taken backlit by my laptop screen and tend to show more unevenness that actually present on the negative.

Thanks.
David

[koraks]

The diagonal band is extremely likely to be a light leak somewhere in the process - during loading, unloading or development of the film. But its fairly sharp delineation rules out a chemical nature of the fault.

The second image indeed shows issues that are most likely the result of the development regime. Usually insufficient agitation causes the kind of pattern that is present in the middle of the sheet, while excessive edge density (at the short ends of the film) tend to be caused by turbulence at the edges of too small a development tray. I would pick a bigger tray and increase agitation a bit. Agitation doesn't have to be vehement; just tilt the tray a bit, alternating between tilting the long and the short end of the tray. I get good results with continuous agitation.

[Vaughn]

Did you agitate for the first 30 to 60 seconds?

Make sure the film is emulsion side up in the tray. Edited to add: The mark on the first negative looks like one that is left by a piece of film sitting on a bottom of a tray face down with no agitation. Where the emulsion is over the groove of the tray, there is more development happening than where the film is resting directly against the plastic at the bottom of the tray.

I use constant agitation in trays. Look up brush development -- might be something that will help when you have large areas of even tonality (tho I do not have problems such as your with trays and constant agitation (4x5 to 11x14).

[Peter Collins]

Increase dilution so you can lengthen development time? Just a thought....

[Peter Collins]

Here's my complete reply. Computer/cable bandwidth problems here.

Increase dilution so you can lengthen development time? You write that you are using stock solution; that's a high-energy dilution, and I suspect your development times are too short. Should be at least 5 minutes, 7 - 10 minutes is better. ID-11 is, I recall, like D-76/HC-110; Kodak does not recommend times less than 5 minutes in at least some instances. Just a thought....

[dentkimterry]

Let me understand. You developed 2 120 rolls of film first and then re-used the same developer for the 4x10 film?
Perhaps the developer was already exhausted from the 120 rolls?
Best, Terry.

[Christopher Barrett]

Let me understand. You developed 2 120 rolls of film first and then re-used the same developer for the 4x10 film?
Perhaps the developer was already exhausted from the 120 rolls?
Best, Terry.

Yeah, that was my thought... I always one-shot my developer unless I'm working with a replenishment system.

[Doremus Scudder]

David,

You're being a bit skimpy with information. How long was your development time? What is your agitation regime? How many sheets of film are you developing at one time? Did you use a water pre-soak? These would help get you the answers you're looking for.

Nevertheless, let me throw some suggestions at you and see what happens.

First, if you suspect a light leak, check the film rebate. If it is also light-struck, it's happening out of camera, possibly in the darkroom. Check your darkroom for light leaks by turning out the lights and sitting there in the dark for 10 minutes. Check everywhere that the film could see. Put a mirror in your developing tray and look at that as well. I had some streaking problems from a small light leak above my developing tray that I could not see any other way. Any light you can see will fog your film.

Most of your defects appear to be agitation problems. For me, tray rocking is totally inadequate. I'd suggest that you lift your film out of the tray, rotate 180° and re-submerge. Do this constantly for the first 30-60 seconds and then once every 15-30 seconds after that.

The suggestions to find a developer dilution that allows you long enough developing times are good. A water pre-soak may help as well if you are not using one. Also, make sure the tray is large enough that you aren't making a lot of turbulence around the edges when agitating (tray rocking in a too-small tray will do this).

I can't suggest more until I know more about your method.

Best,

Doremus

[Mark Sampson]

Mr. Scudder's recommendations sound very good to me. I don't see developer exhaustion in your negatives, that just gives you flat thin negs.I will add that if you pre-soak your films (a good idea) put a pinch of Kodalk (balanced alkali) in the presoak tray; this will keep the films from sticking together in the tray. Precise users will make up a 1% Kodalk solution, as I did for a while- then I just put a pinch of the powder into a liter of water and used that. Works just as well.

[Bruce Watson]

I would welcome some comments on how my negatives ended up the way they have. I developed the film in ID-11 stock, in trays, with agitation every minute, after using the same developer for 2 reels of 120 film. The sky was completely blue and clear of clouds.

Perfectly clear skies make for nice linear gradients. The slightest problem is really visible. Clear skies are one of the real tests of your darkroom technique.

I could never hit the mark with trays. So I tried BTZS tubes, and still had problems. When I finally moved to a Jobo with a 3010 tank, I got perfectly even skies with no visible artifacts at all. Photograph after photograph after photograph.

But that doesn't really answer your questions -- it just points out the importance of agitation technique for getting good skies.

The problem is you're using roll film development techniques. That doesn't usually work well. Sheet film in tray development tends to want either more (continuous) agitation or less (stand or semi-stand) agitation. What it doesn't want is roll film (once a minute) agitation (which works OK with a tank like the Nikor 5x4 tank, possibly because it holds the film in the same orientation as your 120 reels do, but using a tank is a different animal than using trays).

Another thing that's important with sheet film is getting the whole sheet in the developer at the same time. If a corner is sticking out for a couple of seconds (that's all it takes) you can get marks like your first example. At least, I got marks like that when I was first starting out developing in trays because of my bad technique immersing the film. When I learned how to slip a sheet in with one quick movement that covered the sheet edge to edge, this problem went away for me. But I still had other problems with trays as I said above.

Lots of people get great results with tray developing. Indeed, that's probably the most used technique by far. But I was never any good at it. I hope you can get better, but if you don't there are other ways. Just sayin'...