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Thread: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

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    Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    Hi all. I've always been fascinated with development by inspection and although I've dabbled in it I've spent the majority of my photographic life using very precise time and temperature development practices (Ansel's Zone System) based on extensive testing. I am very curious as to how the darkroom worker who uses development by inspection handles pushing and pulling film. My process involves metering a scene and making a compensation in exposure and then a consequent compensation in development time for N-1 and N+1 exposures. If you are developing by inspection, how would you approach these kinds of situations. Sorry if its a dumb question but since I've really only ever used time and temperature development with constant compensations for N-1 and N+1, I've never had to think about it.

    I know many people have different opinion on the usefulness of development by inspection but that’s not what I'm inquiring into. Please leave irrelevant opinions of the technique and other extraneous input out of the conversation. I'm just interested in clarification of how exposure is approached when developing by inspection in practice. Thanks for the help!

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    ic-racer's Avatar
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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    Irrespective of exposure, I develop for a highlight density that I think will print well. The 'bullseye' is pretty big if you print with multigrade paper.

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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    That was mu thinking, to simply expose for the shadow and develop by inspection for the highlight. My quandry deals with knowing that with my method, I make a slight compensation for the shadow when I have an N-1 or N+1 situation. I know that development has minimal effect on shadow density in most situations but it does still have some effect which is why a slight compensation is built into my exposure and development process which yields spot on negatives.

    Anyone else who uses development by inspection have any insight on the subject?

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    Mark Sawyer's Avatar
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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    You should know your development time regardless of whether you're using an inspection method. The "inspection" should be more for ease-of-handling during processing, not "saving" something radically over- or under-exposed.
    "I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."

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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    You should know your development time regardless of whether you're using an inspection method. The "inspection" should be more for ease-of-handling during processing, not "saving" something radically over- or under-exposed.
    Yes, thats a given as far as this convo is concerned. We're not talking about saving anything radically over or under exposed. Just how people who use DBI approach their exposure and development.

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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    Quote Originally Posted by Fragomeni View Post
    Yes, thats a given as far as this convo is concerned. We're not talking about saving anything radically over or under exposed. Just how people who use DBI approach their exposure and development.
    Visit the AZO forum for more DBI discussions but bottom line you learn from experience, caveat emptor - don't learn with 20x24 sheets use 4x5 sized film instead.

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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    Only recently acquired an infrared scope. But not for DBI. I still tray develop by time and temperature and checked by sensitometric test strips.

    But the great thing is, if I see a thin negative, I can leave it in the developer after the bell chimes while I move the rest along.

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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    It's important to have a standard time, otherwise your visual expectations can 'drift'.

    I check my negatives at about 50% of the standard time. Occasionally I find a sheet that I grossly overexposed because I used the wrong film, forgot to stop down the lens, whatever. I can pull those sheets early. I check again at the standard time. If there are some that were underexposed, I might leave them in a bit longer. It's not rocket science and I don't try to make it complicated. I don't even use meters for exposure and I don't do zones.
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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    It's important to have a standard time, otherwise your visual expectations can 'drift'.
    I check my negatives at about 50% of the standard time. Occasionally I find a sheet that I grossly overexposed because I used the wrong film, forgot to stop down the lens, whatever. I can pull those sheets early. I check again at the standard time. If there are some that were underexposed, I might leave them in a bit longer. It's not rocket science and I don't try to make it complicated. I don't even use meters for exposure and I don't do zones.
    I definitely agree with having a standard time in mind. Having worked with time and temperture for so long, I know what the expected times should be and can use those as the basis of what I'll be doing. I'm interested in using this because so much of my process is so heavily visually based that it feels uncomfortable to work with this segment (development) in such a non-visually based manner. I suppose time and temperature is still very much visually-based and I know someone will make that argument. Yes of course time and temperature is designed to render consistent negatives that will yield the excellent results according to your film tests, and I have indeed experienced this to be true. The caveat for me is not being able to make visual judgements during development itself which is an important concept to me.

    Only recently acquired an infrared scope. But not for DBI. I still tray develop by time and temperature and checked by sensitometric test strips.
    I'm building a set of IR goggles to be used. Simple construction using welders goggles and high output IR LEDs. There's plenty of discussion on that within this forum so I won't go into here.

  10. #10
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    Re: Question About Development By Inspection That I've Never Figured Out

    Quote Originally Posted by Fragomeni View Post
    I'm building a set of IR goggles to be used. Simple construction using welders goggles and high output IR LEDs. There's plenty of discussion on that within this forum so I won't go into here.
    Haven't seen those discussions for a while. The welder goggles with filters will work outside because you are subtracting light from the sun and looking at near-IR (Which creates that faint deep red glow on IR LEDs you see on security cameras, etc..). It's equivalent to putting a $50 IR filter on your camera and taking a peek. You won't see much, but your eyes should adjust. It's not relevant in a darkroom lit with IR LEDs, as you don't need to subtract the various forms of radiation from the sun. Longer wavelength than about 720-800nm if you can't see them in the darkroom with naked eyes, the googles aren't going to help. They don't change the wavelength; just filter out extraneous stuff.

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