kinda grainy black and white prints

[heshanj]

hey everyone. been shooting with my new fm2n and used my first black n white film, a kodak tri-x 400. the prints came out looking kinda grainy, and i was.. well, not disappointed, but i didnt expect that much of a grainy look. i thought 400 is not such a high film speed to give this much grain. ive attached a few prints here, some where the grain looks good, and some where it doesnt.

i got it developed at a good place. my first roll of fuji superia, i gave it to a place where they did a really bad job, the prints looked like a low res digital camera being printed too large (they gave me the negatives by rolling up the entire thing and shoving it in a bag, not even cut up into strips)

this place did a very good job of my superia x-tra, and i dont think its a problem with the developing but the film. i dont have a film scanner, so the scans are wat i took from directly from the prints.. nothing great, was just testing the film and the camera.. here u go.. please let me know if this level of grain is considered normal for a Tri-X 400.. thanks!

these look pretty good (to me, at least )

and here.. the water especially, and the sky too.. has no smoothness, way too grainy for my liking, for this kinda of photo

 

[kgston]

wow.. the blacks looks very clipped and it is very "grainy" even at such low res... I can't tell if its grain or sharpening artefacts though... Assuming your metering was accurate (since the previous c-41 roll was fine) there is a possible chance that the bw development was poorly done. Do note that c41 is "easier" to develop because all colour negatives take the same amount of time to develop. Whereas BW films require different timings for different films. I highly suspect that the film was under developed and then they tried to "boost" the exposure while scanning making the grain from bad to worse.

The best way to tell is to pull out your negs and see if they have a good range of density. If the negs look really thin and mostly clear, then the film was likely underexposed or underdeveloped.

My 2 cents

 

[heshanj]

thanks! the metering is definitely fine..like u say, my previous c-41 attempt was fine. if by sharpening artifacts u mean if i sharpened the pics after scanning.. nope, i didnt do anything to the scans...thats all grain, that is pretty much exactly how it looks on the print (im surprised that my scanner did such a good job, lol) but as u can see, the first two are the 'best' prints, and the other two look pretty bad, to me.

so Tri-X film isnt this grainy-looking, generally? i was about to never buy tri-x again, but then again, its supposed to be fantastic so i knew it couldnt be the film. wat u say about how the photo lab screwed it up makes sense. im thinking of starting to develop my own film anyway..

 

[raytoei]

hi,

this is my 2 cents worth, and i am usually wrong about such stuff.

there could be a few possibilities,

1. underexposed
2. underdeveloped
3. scanning issues
4. Film issue or Developer issue

my bet is on 1, picture #1 look dark while #3 and #4 could be described as "muddy"
is it a coincidence that 1,3 and 4 all have backlight, ie the foreground objects are darker than
the sky ?

it could also be #2, the reason is that your picture looks low contrast, a telling sign of
underdevelopment. i get this effect sometimes if i "push" my film and did not develop enough.

a couple of things to try:

a. change the battery on the fm2, or use an external light meter.
b. try developing from a high volume shop, ie. fotohub or konata
c. use c-41 to rule out the variables.

perhaps you'd like to post a 100% crop of the image, ie. 1:1 of a part of the photo ?

raytoei

 

[Achim Reh]

Can you please post an enlargement ...easier to see the problems

 

[heshanj]

thanks for the replies. i dont think its underexposed, as like i said before, i tried already with c-41 and the exposure was fine. batteries are almost brand new (second roll of film after changing) so i dont think its an exposure problem. i would definitely have thought this is the problem too, this being my first manual camera! but after the last roll (color) came out so good, i cant believe my metering to have gone so wrong the next roll.

scanning issue, well.. its just with an ordinary flatbed scanner scanning prints, not negatives.. this is actually the full res scan. lol.

i guess, after reading the replies here, that underdeveloping is the likely problem. i can post a 100% crop but like i said, this is my full res scan, i dont have a film scanner or a flatbed scanner that does negatives, so i cant really provide much better.

but it clearly seems that its not an issue with this brand of film, so im gonna say its the development. thanks for the tips on where to develop but im not in singapore any more, and might not be for a while so i need to sort this out another way. maybe by developing my own b/w film!

 

[heshanj]

ok this is a bit embarassing, im not sure how to make 100% crops of images using PS lightroom. lol. anyway, i cropped it pretty small n exported.. here u go.. like i mentioned, the full res scan wasnt great to begin with, so the crops look like crap.. but here u go

first two

and the other two

 

[catchlights]

just take a good look on your negative, if it is thin, needless to say is either underexposed or underdeveloped. find out which is the cause.

how can you compare processing C-41 to a b&w processing? all color film regardless of brand, type, speed will have the same processing time, whereas not the same for b&w negatives, each film will have ideal developer and different processing time, just like you can't ask everyone wear the same size of shoes, it doesn't fit that way.

anyway, tri-x has very large exposure latitude, you will be safe to overexpose it rather then underexpose, so better find out how the lab process the b&w film, than you alter the ISO speed to compromise, not the best way but the only way now, unless you want to process your own film.

 

[oceanpriest]

devchart from ephotozine:

Assessing negatives

 

[kgston]

ok this is a bit embarassing, im not sure how to make 100% crops of images using PS lightroom. lol. anyway, i cropped it pretty small n exported.. here u go.. like i mentioned, the full res scan wasnt great to begin with, so the crops look like crap.. but here u go

Won't be able to tell from the print scans as no one knows what happened from film to print. Only way to confirm is to check the negs if they are "thin" or not. Once you confirm that you will have your answer

how can you compare processing C-41 to a b&w processing? all color film regardless of brand, type, speed will have the same processing time, whereas not the same for b&w negatives, each film will have ideal developer and different processing time, just like you can't ask everyone wear the same size of shoes, it doesn't fit that way..

I think in this case maybe the reason why the C41 roll turned out well was because it was simple; no need to adjust timing and what not. Perhaps when it came to BW which is more complex with the different processing time, there is a possibility that they messed up the development timings.

 

[heshanj]

thanks for the replies again oh, i wasnt comparing c-41 to b/w processing, i was saying that since my c-41 was correctly exposed, i could safely say that my light meter is working well, so all my photos on the tri-x couldnt have been underexposed.. is it safe to assume that?

i will check out my negatives, and compare it with the link, thanks for that.. i didnt realize that i could tell by looking at the negatives

anyway, wat i really wanted to know was if something was wrong with the result, or if this film was usually this grainy (being my first roll of b/w film!) and it looks like i can safely say that tri-x does not look this grainy, and something is wrong with development (as i dont think my metering couldve been that off) thanks for all ur help! very much appreciate it

EDIT: can u clarify wat is exactly meant by 'thin' looking negatives? i cant seem to find the samples of the negatives that the link says it provides

 

[kgston]

Depending on the developer, the graininess can vary, but it looks quite extreme at least from the photos you uploaded. But I can't say for sure unless there are some proper scans.

Regarding tri-x graininess, it is actually pretty ok.. not very grainy in my opinion, at least not at this resolution. If you view it at 4000dpi, the grain will be obvious, but not intrusive. It should be texture-like, a little like canvas photo.

When you view your negatives against the light, there should be a good range of dense areas to clear areas. Thin negatives refer to "pale" looking negatives which look quite clear or the black parts doesn't look solid. Maybe you can do a quick google search to pull up some links or images as reference

 

[catchlights]

you can make print or scanning from the negative, does not mean your exposure is accurate,
the best way is the judge the negative, to be anal about it, you can desimometer to read the negative.

or just shoot a roll of transparency, you will know how accurate is your exposure.

have you notice I didn't mention anything about the camera meter? the camera is only accurate when you know how camera metering work.

hope this help.

 

[catchlights]

Won't be able to tell from the print scans as no one knows what happened from film to print. Only way to confirm is to check the negs if they are "thin" or not. Once you confirm that you will have your answer


I think in this case maybe the reason why the C41 roll turned out well was because it was simple; no need to adjust timing and what not. Perhaps when it came to BW which is more complex with the different processing time, there is a possibility that they messed up the development timings.

I find that using one type of universal developer and same processing time to develop all type of b&w film it is so funny, the processing of b&w film is very customized, I don't work that way, so I gave up shooting b&w when I no longer own a darkroom, that was more than 10 years ago.

 

[catchlights]

thin negative, as in the image is very faint, most part of the images is very transparent.

 

[kgston]

I find that using one type of universal developer and same processing time to develop all type of b&w film it is so funny, the processing of b&w film is very customized, I don't work that way, so I gave up shooting b&w when I no longer own a darkroom, that was more than 10 years ago.

From what I hear, they use D76 at the labs. But even with D76, different films needs different timings (unless they use acufine). If I'm not getting you wrong, you are saying the labs actually develop all the BW films at the same fixed timing?? If that's true, that would be shocking!!

 

[heshanj]

alright, i'll check out the negatives.. that link posted above has a good comparison image (it didnt load the first time. haha) so i think that should help. and of course, i'll try again, with the same film brad or another, and see the results. and maybe try another photo lab

 

[catchlights]

From what I hear, they use D76 at the labs. But even with D76, different films needs different timings (unless they use acufine). If I'm not getting you wrong, you are saying the labs actually develop all the BW films at the same fixed timing?? If that's true, that would be shocking!!

no, what I mean is, like the way I exposed my film, it need to be at certain processing time to get optimize results, for an example, tho the chart say 11mins, but I like the results of 13mins of processing, how the lab knows what timing to use for your film?
are all the b&w shooters willing to go all the way to test out the ideal ISO for their film, make many contact prints, study them, and tell the labs to process their film only for certain length of time? I doubt so.

 

[kgston]

no, what I mean is, like the way I exposed my film, it need to be at certain processing time to get optimize results, for an example, tho the chart say 11mins, but I like the results of 13mins of processing, how the lab knows what timing to use for your film?
are all the b&w shooters willing to go all the way to test out the ideal ISO for their film, make many contact prints, study them, and tell the labs to process their film only for certain length of time? I doubt so.

Ahh.. I see.. yea.. I know what you mean.. ohh well

 

[heshanj]

well i just tried looking at my negatives and comparing it to underexposed/underdeveloped negative samples on my screen, and to be honest, i cant really tell. i have no correctly developed or underdeveloped negative in my hand to compare it with, so im not really sure.. guess i have to keep shooting n find out exactly wat went wrong n how to fix it thanks again to all for enlightening me