Push processing Classic Pan 200

Has anyone any experience of push processing Classic Pan 200?

I took some shots today that I'm pretty sure will be a stop
underexposed but which I really want to print ... the lens was wide
open so I couldn't expose any more.

Any experiences with Rodinal? Which I have...

What about a two bath developer that's geared slightly towards push
processing?

Tetenal Emofin? Resofine 2B?

[Diafine is not available in the UK]

Matt

 

I have used Diafine with underwhelming results. The package claims
it adds 2 stops to the film speed. To my eyes it takes away 1 stop.
It may be a good choice if you have _overexposed_ the film as it
limits highlite density - i.e. gives flat highlights. I have not
tried Emofin or Resofine [Stockler's 2-bath] - I imagine they are
similar to Diafine.

IMO Xtol is probably the best for pushing. Great developer if I
could count on it working. If I _had_ to push I would use D76 1:1.

If 1-stop under, and my negatives, I would develop the film
normally and fix it in the printing.

 

Pushing film does not work.

For the 10,000,000th time!

 

You're saying there is no way to improve the performance of 200 iso
film shot in slightly (I'm not talking extreme underexposure here)
underexposed conditions to produce a better negative?

No way at all?

Matt

 

Some developers yield more speed than others, but lengthening the time
of development simply increases the contrast. In many low-light
situations, this actually makes the photos worse.

There is no remedy for underexposure, though, as I said, some
developers do give a bit more speed than others. We're talking 1/3 to
1/2 stop at most.

Are you processing the film yourself?

 

One thing that can help is to use a phenidone based developer
such as Ilford Microphen. Microphen is supposed to give a small speed
increase compared to development in D-76 to the same contrast.
The speed increase isn't huge, maybe half a stop, but it appears
to be real. Microphen is also noticeably grainier than D-76.

Kodak Xtol appears to give a small speed increase over D-76
(I think generally a little less than Microphen) and has
slightly finer grain than D-76. This is remarkable because
until fairly recently D-76 was supposed to have the best
speed/grain trade-off.

Peter.

 

Please ignore the troll.

--




Keep working millions on welfare depend on you

 

Please ignore the ones who say please ignore the troll...

 

You are going to have to define "performance". There are
lots of ways to get thicker negatives, denser highlights
and more grain and fog.

You may see an effective speed increase in going from
Microdol-X f.s. to Xtol. Personally, I don't see it.
IMO M-X produces thin negatives with good highlight
detail, in opposition to HC-110, say.

I find increasing development time brings up little shadow
detail in trade for larger grain and less highlight
detail.

The technique of underexposing and overdeveloping is used
to increase negative contrast for flat subjects. Now, if
your pics are of typical English weather -- drizzle, fog and
low cloud cover interrupted by periods of rain -- then bumping
development would be appropriate as there are no shadows and
there are no highlights. Grain will still increase. Me, I
just resign myself to the pic looking like the scene and
maybe go to a harder grade of paper.

Most problematic low-light pictures are taken indoors with
artificial light and so contrast is a real problem. When
taking pics at a show the thing to do is _overexpose_ and
_underdevelop_. Don't push.

If there were then Jessops would be selling the film with
400 stamped on the carton and recommend longer developing
times. And then we are right back to where we started.

The manufacturer is already pushing the film for all it's
worth. After all, they get money for ASA.

 

Fair enough. That all makes sense.

I think I'll just process as normal and then scan the negs - I can
play around with the levels/histogram in Photoshop if I need to
'lighten' the final output and I suspect that may be easier and offer
more control (even if the final result is a bit suspect) than trying
to push develop.

Thanks for the information.

Matt

 

You could try Kodak T-Max developer diluted at 1:4, this may give you a
very slight increase of around one third to two third E.V. steps which is
about half a stop in practice. Film speeds are determined at the
manufacturing stage and true speed increases are very slight if at all
possible in reality.
The best quality comes from giving the correct minimum exposure to record
detail in the shadows and giving just enough development to print nicely on
to a standard/normal paper grade.
Push processing is an attempt to rescue an underexposed film.
Take a look at Kodak publication O-3 on the Kodak website.

 

Not my experience at all. It gave useful increases in speed at about
2 stops. It can be manipulated in a variety of ways, and does get
affected by overuse and contamination.

I replenised it by adding an ounce for every roll develoed. For the
Abath I found I might need a little more due to carry out. For the B
bath I put the "replenisher" in before returning the working B bath to
its bottle, and discarded th eexcess remining B bath.

True, but can be modified.

Somewhat similar, but they all have their quirks.

That aspect drove me away.

Look for any Phenidone alternative; Microphen, etc.

Works most of the time.

Robert Vervoordt, MFA

 

As it happened I stuck it into my local mini-lab and had them process
it just as 200 iso film.

The negs came out overly contrasty -- which i suspect is their
developing practice since I've had overly contrasy negatives from them
a few times recently -- but the shadow detail was mostly there so i
suspect the film can't have been underexposed by much and was within
the normal exposure latitude.

Next time, I'll do it myself.

matt

 

A lot of mini-labs (I've worked for three) use one time and temperature for
all their black and white film processing and one developer (if they process
black and white at all!). I was the first lab tech they ever had that
separated film by type and adjusted process times using the front panel
controls on their Photo-Therm. The first question the boss asked me was why
I had to make so many runs with his machine. Until then, everything was
processed for the TMax 400 time in TMax developer, suspect that most
"classic" ISO 100-200 films require significantly less development, ergo
contrasty negatives. BTW, my boss figured out after a few days that his
remake ratio went way down after I started optimizing process times and
customer satisfaction went way up, which was fine until his customers
started requesting that only I process their films and they didn't want him
to do it anymore (can you say unemployment?).

 

Actually, the guy at the lab asked me which film he ought to run it
through as, as they didn't have Classic Pan on their chart.

He explained once before that they have a number of standard settings
e.g. for Pan-F, TMax, etc. and they just use the closest one for any
film that they don't have listed on their system.

He told me he had put this film through at the standard iso 200 b & w
type 3 (whatever that means) setting as he couldn't work out what
else to do. That clearly wasn't quite right - although I had exposed
the film at iso 140 or so, so maybe it'd have been better at the
marked iso.

Matt

 

Could you describe the subject matter or put a few pics on a web site.

 

This is the only one I have up on the web - the others are still just
big .tiff files.


http://www.mcgrattan.f2s.com/images/deer1.jpg


This has had some correction done by me - the original is darker in
the shadows and more contrasty.

If i get a chance tomorrow I'll put up the original without
correction. This one just happened to be scanned already.

This was shot in low light and hand held - I was sneaking up pretty
close to the deer, which is wild, in the woods behind my house and
this was the best I could do.

It's certainly not the crispest image ever... and the scanner (a 1600
dpi flatbed with a transparency hood] isn't the best either.

Some of the other images from the same roll are better -- technically
- and quite 'harsh' in contrast so I'll upload tomorrow if I get a
chance.

Matt