Underdevelop?

[Sean Galbraith]

I am very new to home developing and have a noob question.

I've heard the phrase overexpose and underdevelop. I know the overexpose part... but how do I underdevelop? Is it just a matter of doing 4.5 minutes instead of 5 minutes (or whatever)?

[MIke Sherck]

The actual "real" developing time for you may or may not be the same as the manufacturer recommends or the time others use, for a variety of reasons. There are methods of determining how the materials work best the way you use them, everything from determining the film speed of the film you use to its developing time in the developer you use. Check the front page of this site and search the forums for more information.

Now, to generally answer your question, yes, just develop the film for less time than usual. Other options would be to develop it at a colder temperature than usual, or to change agitation in some way. Shortening the developing time is the easiest but don't let the time get too short -- less than five minutes and you run the risk of having too little time to let all the variables average themselves out and getting streaks and splotches from unevenly developed film.

[Bruce Watson]

I've heard the phrase overexpose and underdevelop. I know the overexpose part... but how do I underdevelop? Is it just a matter of doing 4.5 minutes instead of 5 minutes (or whatever)?

IMHO, the "correct" phrase is: "Expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights."

The most pertinent question then is how to accomplish this? And for that, the Zone System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_system) was invented, codified, and taught. The Zone System is a complex way to describe what turns out to be a fairly simple practice to implement. But without the understanding that the complex description imparts, the practice is often fraught with unnecessary mystery.

What the Zone System teaches isn't overexposure, but correct exposure to get the results you want. Likewise it doesn't teach underdevelopment, but instead teaches correct development to get the results you want. Thus "Expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights".

[Wallace_Billingham]

I am very new to home developing and have a noob question.

I've heard the phrase overexpose and underdevelop. I know the overexpose part... but how do I underdevelop? Is it just a matter of doing 4.5 minutes instead of 5 minutes (or whatever)?

Remember that developing film is just a chemical reaction between whatever chemistry you are using and your film. As such you can speed up or slow down the reaction to get different results. Often known as pushing and/or pulling, and used in various systems such as the Zone System.

In a general sense there are 3 main variables that will change your reaction.

1.)time
2.)temp
3.)Chemical Strength

If you reduce any or all of the 3 you will get less reaction and less development. If you expand on any of the 3 you will get more reaction and more development.

If you are new my advice is to use one film and one developer and get to know them well doing "normal" development. Once you have this nailed down you can then move on to other films and/or other developers or developing strategies.

Many newbies try a bunch of different films and a bunch of different developers and get very frustrated

[Sean Galbraith]

Thanks, all.

I'm definitely not changing up variables at this point... I'll experiment later. :-)

[J D Clark]

You really don't want to do either of overexpose or underdevelop. Overexposure could lead to blocked highlights, where the highlight detail is lost. Underdevelopment leads to loss of contrast.

One of the key things, though, is not to underexpose. In that case, detail in the shadows is lost, and no amount of development manipulation will get it back. Most will recommend exposing at a lower ISO rating, e.g., a 400 speed film at 200, and that's probably a good start. However, careful testing could indicate that's not entirely correct for you -- my carefully determined personal exposure index (EI) for each film that I use indicates that I should use the rated film speed for proper exposure (TMAX-400 at EI320, TMAX-100 at EI100) -- this is entirely based on my meter, my local water supply, and other intangibles that will be different for you.

Underdevelopment reduces contrast. In the Zone System, this is a procedure that reduces contrast when the overall contrast range is too great. If you properly expose your film, and underdeveloped negative will make a poor print, and if your film is also underexposed (accidentally), the negative will likely be unprintable. Without additional testing, it would be best to use the recommended development time, rather than arbitrarily underdeveloping.

The Zone System is one way to dial in the proper exposure index, and development time -- there are other methods, too. The other methods use the same paradigm, essentially, as Bruce pointed out: "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights." The "translation" to that saying is: "expose properly, develop properly." That gives you the ability to most effectively use of the available range of the film.

John Clark
www.johndclark.com

[Bjorn Nilsson]

Lots of good advice here and as expected in a large format photo. forum there are lots of references to the zone system. But lets keep that out for a while and just try to in a simple way tell the OP (that is you Sean!) why overexpose/underdevelop is a good thing in the first place.
The "normal" developing times are mostly intended for the user of 35mm film where there's 36 frames in a roll of film. These shots are often made in many different light situations. So the "perfect" negatives on that roll of film are the ones shot in "half-sunny" conditions, something which doesn't happen that often. The shots done in full sunlight are too contrasty (and the shots from that cloudy day are very dull indeed).
But as we are discussing large format where we shoot one sheet of film at a time, we can compensate for that constrasty light (or whatever) with every sheet of film, as long as we keep track of the exposed sheets. (With 35mm I recommend that you load your own film from 100 feet rolls and only load the cassette with e.g. 12 frames which you shoot all at one instance/subject.)
So to compensate for the high contrast of direct sunlight, you can develop a little shorter, say 20% of the "normal" time. But as you develop less, the film needs a bit more exposure to have the shadows correctly rendered, so you expose say 1/2 stop more (which is done by setting the exposure meter at e.g. 250 instead of 400).
I will leave the discussion with this in order not to make things too complicated. But for the sake of completeness, for that cloudy day, you should, hmm, lets see... yes, underexpose and overdevelop. So set the meter at 500 and add some 30% to the dev.time.
Once I learnt about this and the very first time I tried the "trick" of overexpose/underdevelop the whole subject of photography opened up to me. All of a sudden I had nice negatives which were easy to print and there were lots of nice creamy greys which I had seen in all those prints that others made but I failed to accomplish.
In short, try this the next sunny day. It will pay off immediately and you don't need to learn a whole lot before you got a new trick up your sleeve. This because that light which is "50%" very seldom exists.

//Björn

[Sean Galbraith]

Thanks, Bjorn. That was very straight forward and easy for me to follow. :-)

At some point I'm sure I'll learn the zone system... but in the meantime, I'll just wing it.

[Bosaiya]

Let's not forget the other side of the coin: Underexpose and develop to completion.

[Chuck P.]

What the Zone System teaches isn't overexposure, but correct exposure to get the results you want.

Exactly.

To the OP, in ZS vernacular, commonly referred to as "increased" and "decreased" exposure when you intentionally expose in a manner other than what the meter is telling you to do-------overexposure and underexposure implies some type of exposure error. There is exposure error when you can't get the result you want.

When you can wrap your brain around the fact that shadow densities on the negative or the "low values" desired in the final print are controlled by exposure and the highlight densities on the negative or the "high values" that are desired in the final print are controlled by exposure and development, then the concept of "expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights is easily put to practical use.

[J D Clark]

I don't know what kind of film that Bjorn uses, but for the film I use: TMAX 100 and 400 and Tri-X, Kodak publishes normal development times specific for sheet film (tray and rotary processing) that are not based on some kind of averaging 35mm film exposure.

I've never heard anyone suggest underexposing negative film on purpose, and I don't think that's the best way to go for someone who is starting out in the darkroom.

John Clark
www.johndclark.com

[Bjorn Nilsson]

Well, it was more of an example of the first steps to vary development according to subject contrast/desired contrast back when I started to get beyond the D76/20deg/8min standard formula. My previous post was not intended to include a lot of data, rather just simple hints and tips which can pay off very quickly as the OP isn't that well versed into darkroom work.
So, the original question was about overexposure/underdevelopment, which I pointed out to be the first variation recommended. I then added the opposite as a sidenote.
Somewhere down the line (soon though), I'd recommend to get a bit more formal and make some tests to see how much to reduce/extend developing times and adjust the film speed, but I'd rather start by giving the newbee student something simple yet effective to start with as few numbers as possible.
Btw, the ever so popular "push processing" is all about underexposing and then resqueing whatever you can save by overdeveloping. Just about every newbee I've met have asked me about "how much ...". Say John, have you never heard of push processing? :) (Just to be clear, my opinion is that the subject of push processing doesn't work. You simply sacrifice everything in the shadows and get lots of grain and contrast. But as this is the large format photography forum, I recon noone does it here.)

//Björn

[Mark Sawyer]

IMHO, the "correct" phrase is: "Expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights."


Realizing that I'm swimming against the current of convention, I always thought that a more useful train of thought would be "expose for density, develop for contrast".

With that must go the understanding that, as increased development also increases density, one figures that in when determining the exposure. Hence, the "Sloppy Zone System":

"My spot meter shows only three stops difference between the lights and darks. I'll increase the contrast with more development, but keep the negative from getting too dense by decreasing exposure a bit."

or,

"My spot meter says ten stops difference, whoa, that's a lot... I'll decrease the contrast with decreased development, but since that will also decrease density, I'll give it more exposure..."

Mind you, there are a lot of other variables... If I use HP5+, an uncoated lens, and stand development in abc pyro, my negatives will be completely different than yours if you use Tri-X, a multicoated lens, and drum development in Rodinal, even if we had identical exposure/development times.

[Chuck P.]

"My spot meter says ten stops difference, whoa, that's a lot... I'll decrease the contrast with decreased development, but since that will also decrease density, I'll give it more exposure..."

That could be represented on the zone scale by a shadow value placed on Zone I and a highlight value that falls on Zone XI, a luminance ratio of 1024:1.

This certainly is a scenario that calls for decreased development or development modification with a compensating effect----to hold the density range of the negative to within the expsoure scale of the paper----but it's beyond me why you would make it more difficult by pushing the highlight densities even further up the scale? I don't see that there is anything to gain by doing that.

[Sean Galbraith]

Went out shooting this past weekend to try to put some of this into practice. Here are some of the resulting shots. Not the greatest scans (or developing). All Kodak TMAX 100 developed in HC110.

1
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2697/4183141379_cc64a29a45_o.jpg
2
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/4183903170_80fac12990_o.jpg
3
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4182996761_7d95a5e88b_o.jpg
4
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2786/4182996127_5171076401_o.jpg

[Bjorn Nilsson]

Nice shots Sean. You dont say what or how you did it, but by the way your shots look you seem to have gotten the hang of it.
(I was once given access to a big workshop site where a major fire just had taken place. Most people just saw the devastation, while I saw lots of nice new shapes like twisted corrugated burnt sheet metal. Areas of unexpected grays, blacks and whites. While your site wasn't burnt down, I can really see why you made those shots.)

//Björn

[Sean Galbraith]

Thanks, Bjorn.

I had with me very simple instructions from another posting on here (that I can't find at the moment) in a note on my iphone that explained metered reading in the shadow - 2 stops = zone 3. Then I just tried to keep track of which scenes had high contrast and which ones had low contrast (I did so by facing the shot film holders in different directions in my camera bag). Then, when developing I just guessed +/- 30 seconds or so of developing time (5 min was "normal").

[Sean Galbraith]

Found it... it was Gem Singer's wonderfully concise description from this thread: http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=56334



Aim the one degree spot at the darkest area in the scene where you still want to see some detail. Close down two stops.

You have just placed the shadow area in Zone III.

That's usually the proper exposure for the scene.

Now, aim the spot at the brightest area in the scene.

If it's a five stop range between the darkest and brightest reading, use normal development.

Less than five, increase development.

More than five, decrease development.

No need to take a whole series of meter readings and average them. That's defeating the purpose.

Just make certain that you have given enough exposure to get some detail in the shadows. Then, develop for the highlights.

That's the Zone System in a nut shell.

[Brian Ellis]

I don't know what kind of film that Bjorn uses, but for the film I use: TMAX 100 and 400 and Tri-X, Kodak publishes normal development times specific for sheet film (tray and rotary processing) that are not based on some kind of averaging 35mm film exposure.

I've never heard anyone suggest underexposing negative film on purpose, and I don't think that's the best way to go for someone who is starting out in the darkroom.

John Clark
www.johndclark.com

While it isn't necessarily a real common situatation, it's also not unheard of to deliberately "underexpose." It's done in a situation where you want the darkest important shadow areas in the scene to appear black - no texture or detail - in the print.

One situation where I remember doing that was in photographing sand dunes in early morning light using b&w film. For some photographs I wanted the shadows in the dunes to be black - no texture or detail - and I wanted the areas where sunlight was striking the dunes to appear bright but still retain some texture. IIRC I placed the shadows on Zone II which caused the brighter areas to fall on Zones V and VI so I developed for my +1 time to move them to Zones VI - VII.

[ki6mf]

All good advice. In the zone system you expose for the shadows and then vary highlights by varying development time. Normally on a sunny day your are 2-3 stops over exposed. To fix this you meter for shadows, stop down two stops, and cut development time. The problem you run into with shorter development times is you run the risk of not having enough development time to let shadow and highlights developed properly. If you use a un diluted developer and have a normal development time of 7 minutes and you need to cut development times normal time - 3 time periods (based on some calibrations you have done) you run the risk of both shadows and highlights not having enough development time. Your might have to only develop 5 minutes and 38 seconds for example. This can be to short to get proper development for both shadows and highlights.

Jerry Orabona has a explanation for several methods of doing the test for the zone system. Look for film speed tests at this
URL:http://www.jerryo.com/teaching.htm

[Sean Galbraith]

Do the same principles of the zone system apply to colour photography as well? I'm going to the Galapagos in a couple days and am bringing a box of quickloads with me.

[ki6mf]

I would take an incident meter to get readings for color exposures! Zone system has you read the shadows stop down 2 stops and then vary development time to alter contrast on the negative! The development time is dependent on your highlight readings and calibration tests for film speed and development times!