Grain and development temperature

[Fr. Mark]

This is probably an obvious thing but I'm not sure. Does development temperature affect graininess of film or contrast level, everything else being equal? I think grain character ought to be mostly controlled by manufacturers not developers and developing conditions , but I'm not sure. Thanks in advance. Maybe I just need to keep some water in the fridge and stop trying to do good work at 80+ degrees.

[IanG]

Simple answer is grain size is not directly affected by the development temperature. I process at 20ºC here in the UK and 27ºC in the summer in Turkey/Greece, that's with a wide variety of B&W films and there's no difference in graininess..

However it's very important to keep the temperature stable throuhout the entire process cycle including washing, +/- 1ºC of the chosen temperatuture. While most modern films won't reticulate some are still slightly soft emulsions and can suffer from surface effects to the gelatin super-coat, this occurs with sudden temperature changes and causes an increase in apparent graininess, Kodak call it surface artefacts, other micro or incipient reticulation, it can occur both sides of 120 films as the back usually has an anti curl gelatin coating.

Ian

[Bruce Watson]

Simple answer is grain size is not directly affected by the development temperature.

Yes. That said, if you don't have sufficient control, and the higher temperature leads to increased density, then you'll see an increase in graininess. But that's because you developed to a higher density, not due directly to the higher temperature.

[Maris Rusis]

Yes. That said, if you don't have sufficient control, and the higher temperature leads to increased density, then you'll see an increase in graininess. But that's because you developed to a higher density, not due directly to the higher temperature.

I routinely develop a lot of 8x10 film at 90F+ to save time. Can't say I've seen increased graininess. But for the contact work I do grain is a non-issue anyway.