I did something I haven't done for 25 years yesterday........processed my own film.
The problem: film is very grainy and lacking sharp detail
The Film : Ilford FP4 120
The Process: Tmax dev @ 20 degrees for 8 mins.
Poss problems: was not accurately at 20 degrees probably 18 !
When I scanned them today on both an Epson 4990 and an Imacon
they were horrible. Very grainy and muddy flat. In fact they were very difficult to scan at all.
Your considered thoughts will be gratefully received.
Well... I'm not a great guru, but I'll still try to give you my 2 pennies.
Consider that it's almost impossible from an outside point of view, to address the issues very precisely. You probably have to add a few details concerning your process, but still you might miss some important detail, since being aware of that detail would automatically solve the problem.
Anyway, the flatness issue is probably the simplest factor here: the negs are very likely to be underdeveloped, especially considering that you said temperature was probably drifting to lower values. I have some difficulties in holding the temperature steady, as well, but I always check the temp one minute before developing would be over. If the temp has drifted (typically it decreased), I will correct the developing time on the fly.
Try this technique, and consider that, even after you get the time vs temperature right, you might still need to adjust your developing time to have negatives that you would consider "normal". That is up to your testing.
Now the tough part: grain. I don't know Tmax developer, so I can't shed any lights on how it behaves, but I can tell you that FP4 in 120 should look virtually grainless at "normal" magnification. The first thing that comes to my mind would be some mistreatment of the negative, from a temperature standpoint in particular. Were the stop, fix and wash solutions within a reasonable temp range? If -say- you develop at 20° but your stop is at 5° you might have grain, or "microreticulation" issues.
That's just an idea; you are likely to get more competent insights shortly from other folks!
Thanks for your comments. I did try to maintain a 20 degree line with stop and fix.
But as you say, it's hard to keep the temp constant. The film was fresh. And the dev new.
This is a picture from the roll. Shot on a Rolleiflex
Your sample pic certainly shows more grain than would be expected from 120 FP4+....as marco.taje says, it should be virtually grainless at any reasonable print size. Also, your time of 8 mins in Tmax at 20 deg, using 125ASA, is exactly as recommended by Ilford/Harman in the data sheet on their website, while one would expect sharpness from a Rolleiflex used at a reasonably fast shutter speed.
If everything else is excluded, I'd guess it might be a developer temperature issue....did the negatives look "underdeveloped", maybe thin and flat? That might make a scan or a darkroom print more difficult?
Bear in mind that flatbed scanning really emphasizes grain in b&w negs; this has been reported in various places but is typically not discussed in detail on APUG (so look over at hybridphoto).
If you want smoother scans, your options are chromogenics or pyro developers. Or you can opt for an epi/t-grain film e.g. acros or tmax.
There's nothing wrong with ID-11 and fp4+ for traditional printing, but for scanning, I'd not go that route. Flatbed can be sufficient for scan proofs and web-sized images, but usually not for final prints, in my opinion.
Of course, all of my comments should be put in the context of format size. Flatbed scanned 35mm b&w negs can look very grainy. 120/220 less so, 4x5 better still, etc. And to get the best results from your scanner, you need to overscan like nuts and then downsample... and this is getting beyond what we discuss at APUG
P.S. One other issue is that if you err on the side of underexposure and then flatbed scan, you are screwed. It'll look very noisy/grainy. You can mitigate the noise somewhat by multiscanning but it's usually not worth it if a neg is thin. Definitely best to err on the side of a thicker neg for scanning. I concluded very quickly that a neg optimal for traditional prinitng is definitely not also optimal for scanning, and vice versa. Only my pyro negs seem to be equally suitable for both workflows, at the same exposure and dev time.
Thanks folks,
Keithwms, I think you're right. Besides, digitising film is a shame, it's just too
costly to get them hand printed and I don't have the space to set up a dark room.
I do know a very good black and white lab here in London, and I'll get them to dev the next roll. They have total temp control.
Thanks for all your help. It was disappointing to find they looked so crummy after
the initial excitement of developing my own film again. However, I shall persevere
and follow the chemistry route with a little professional help.
Yes, it was a cropped image. just to illustrate the grain.
Well, I don't think you necessarily need professional help... not yet! There are many pyro developers that are very easy to use- as easy as ID11. And a pro lab will likely charge you substantially to use a 'special' developer i.e. anything other than ID11/D76 or xtol.
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