Film

[photobymike]

Either its black or there are more steps in the shadows....

I dont think he is going to get a "thin negative" "50 instead of 125" like 125 was what he ment to set and expose (so he over exposed by a stop and change..). Here on LF i have seen a lot of pictures that have been (underexposed thin negatives). i say develop normal and he will see the grays in there normal perspective. So many times in the "post your picture" members have done a good job of exposing the negative from a purely mechanical stand point....The faces and skin are underexposed (thin). But on the beach oh boy thats a tricky exposure setup.....Some times the meter gets fooled on the beach... and it is brighter than usual because of the reflections on the sand.... He did not state what kind of film he was using...Still say develop normal and bet he will pick up shadow detail like crazy.

[lenser]

Think of it in terms of the Zone System. From what he describes, it is essentially a normal +1 exposure, requiring a normal -1 development to try to achieve normal contrast control. If he develops normally without adjustment for a stop plus overexposure, the neg will be slightly too dense but have more contrast with an expansion of the tones. If he "pulls" the development, the contrast range should be closer to normal, but there will likely be a slight flattening of the tonality range, again due to the overexposure which would have blocked highlights while opening up more information in the shadows. Either way, a little tweaking in the printing with contrast filtration and dodging and or burning should be all that's needed to deliver a very satisfactory print as long as the actual metering was accurate for the scene choices (which is a whole other ball of wax to being accurate to the film speed).

BTW, although this neg will likely be too "thick", I am reminded of seeing some images of a few actual negs of George Hurrell portraits which, were incredibly thin, but produced dazzling portrait prints with quite phenomenal tonal ranges.

[photobymike]

Yes Tim ..that sounds good to me..... If was me.... i would never under develop film .....but it really depends on silver printing or scanning. Some alternate printing techniques call for a dense negative to make the process work well... Many photographers take a light reading to properly expose the film. When taking a light reading ...its the subject person, car ect... that you have to expose right..... go to the portrait section of LF if you want examples of pictures expose right ..but dark faces with no detail ....

[joselsgil]

Craig,

Were you using any filters? Was the film fresh un-expired stock or older expired film?

[ROL]

Filters aside, you have overexposed your film by about one stop. That's not a big deal if your intention is to print them yourself. In zone terms, you could mark these for N-1 development. In other words, and without film testing, which you should do to determine specifically how much to adjust development, reduce development by about 20% from your normal development time with that film and developer (e.g., 8 min. instead of 10 min.). In practice, if it were me (and it has been, for substantially the same reasons), I would develop one normally and one at N-1, choosing which based on your own observations or visualization of the scene, see which one prints better, and consider the whole exercise to be one of learning.

[hmf]

Crap. You're right. Sorry photo by mike. That'll be a good lesson to all you kids here. Don't try to read the forum posts and reply from your phone while driving and you're old and you don't have your reading glasses and you don't know what you're talking about.

Where I live, you can get arrested for texting while driving. Never mind misreading a post; you could kill yourself or someone else. Please be careful.

Oh, and regarding the original question, the OP should go to digitaltruth.com and check for the development time for his film at EI 50. As others have pointed out, it will be less than for 125, so as to avoid blowing out the highlights.

[Mark Barendt]

Why is it that a reduction in the contrast rate is being suggested?

Did the measured scene contrast change? No

Did the print range expected change? No

Are the highlights really blown on the film? At plus 1-1/3 stops, probably not.

The only thing that has really happened is that "the planned print range" slides up the curve away from the toe a bit.

Sure there is extra shadow detail available but that doesn't mean it's wanted or needs to be included in the print.

Yes, printing time will go up a bit, so what. That will be caught at the first test strip or with the enlarger meter.

My point is simply that for most negative films and most scenes this error can be safely ignored.

[madmax12]

Fresh film , No filters ,Ilford HP4 , So I developed it one at the given developement time 11 minutes and then the other at 10% increase guess I should of waited to process. The neg in the normal looks a little darker than the one if the increase of time . Theuy are drying noe so we will see. I thank you all for the input . Lesson learned I will wait a day after asking question before proceding I will post both they will be scans of the negs so you can see

[photobymike]

Why did you increase by 10% ? you over exposed your film .... if anything 10% less .....My scanner easily takes a one stop over for great scan results.

[Bill Burk]

... I noticed that the exposure Iso was set for 50 instead of 125 for the metering.

It all comes down to this.

If the film is ISO 125, and your meter was 50, you overexposed one and a third stop, moving everything over.

I vote with Mark Barendt.

Don't change development, develop according to your original plan...