Toronto Photography Meetup Group

hello,

These came from 120 film I developed in rodinal(1:100). I closely followed this procedure: Agitate for first 30 seconds, 3 inversions for 10 seconds every minute. 12 minutes total. Mind you, I over agitated, over inversed, etc.

In the first pic, you'll notice the shadows are very pronounced, while the 2nd pic came out looking OK. These came from the same roll. Do you know what I did wrong? This is my first try at developing.

Uh.. are you sure it's not just the flare in second photo that's making it washed out a bit?

Here's a close up of the lower left corner of pic #1. Notice some areas in the shadows are heavily blackened. This was scanned straight out of the negative.

the shadow looks like it's been over sharpened in post... check your settings on your scanner... over agitation can create contrasty negatives but the edges of the shadows look like a digital artifact.

as for the second image - eric may be onto something... looks like the sun/light source was to the left of the frame and causes some flare (did you use a hood?)

I'll check the scanner settings, I use an Epson v500. I was just worried it was something I did during the developing process.

For pic # 2, yes, the sun was on the left side and no hood on the lens. Again, I thought it was some error during developing.

Thanks Ken!

Try rescanning it so the black shadows are a few levels above zero. Rule of thumb is scan to get maximum out of the negative without blocking shadows or blowing highlight. In post you can adjust curves to get the shadows, midtones and whites where you want them to be. If there is still no details in the blacks when you have rescanned then the shadows are blocked and you can blame it on exposure or development.

I've been successfully using my v500, using default settings, for 35mm color and BW C-41 negs which were developed at Walmart, and never got these results. So it must have been something I did during development. Over agitation maybe?

Your auto setting must be much better then mine. On my v500 auto over sharpens 100% of the time and will blow highlights and/or block shadows about 70% of the time. There is no comparing c-41 negatives with conventional B&W negatives.

Thanks! I will play around with my scanner settings

Scan in professional mode make sure all the dust filter etc. check boxs are off. Unsharp filter can be off or on low depending on post processing. Get a rough adjustment with the auto button and do fine adjustment with the histogram with the previews on zoom. The V500 software is rudimentary at best. I usually scan at 3200dpi for 35mm with 16 bit tiff output. If disk space is a problem then you can always change to jpg or 8 bit tiff after you have post processed. Remember in scanning you are aiming to capture as much of the highlight and black details, leave the contrast, curves, brightness, dodging and burning adjustments to post.


Before you do too much post processing you might want to examine the image and clone out any dust spots.Post processing can also introduce artifacts similar to what you are seeing if done with too much of a heavy hand,