Underdeveloped negatives

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lauren_t

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So on Tuesday I went into college to develop my film with my new film slr (canon eos 300v), developed a roll of Delta 400 using FD10 at 1+9.
They have a sheet at college about how to develop b&w film in the darkroom and I followed the instructions and I have no idea why they came out under developed.
I developed for 11 minutes agitate continuously for the first 30 sec and then invert every 30 seconds, stop bath for 30sec continuous agitation and then fixer for 4 min which i think was 2 invertions every 30sec. This is what I think it says on the sheet but I don't have it on me right now. Stop and fixer are Ilford I think.
I dont think the exposure was off as I got the needle in the middle of the meter for every shot.

The negs aren't too flat or grey but I'm printing at Grade 5 and its not that brilliant. Its just annoying that I've followed their instructions before with Legacy Pro 400 and its been much better (or perhaps its a sign I need to go to Borough Market again (y) ) bit maybe it was under agitation?
I've only really started shooting film and this is the first hurdle I've run into so I would really appreciate some help! I did ask one of the techies to help me do this but he went off somewhere and left me.
 
massive dev chart says 8 minutes @ 20c for that combination. :shrug:

(never used that combo personally, so can't really say much more tbh!)
 
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What are the frame numbers like?

i doubt very much it's under agitation, I would suspect if it's a developement problem it is either a temperature issue or mixing issue (too dilute).

I actually suspect that the frame numbers will be fine and it is a case of under exposure due to having too much bright area in your frame. Needle meters tended to be slightly centre weighted and do not allow for large areas of bright or dark in the frame.
 
ahh well thats completely thrown me! :LOL:

I've looked up legacy pro at 400 with fd10 and it says 9 mins! Got no idea where they got 11 mins from...but thank you anyway!

edit - its not a needle meter, sorry. Its a light meter in the camera but I was late to bed last night and got up early so I'm tired haha.

and as far as I know the temp was fine as I had one of the techs with me when I did that but I'll try and bring it up once I go back in next week as we only get 5 hrs a week in the darkroom on my course (grr!)
 
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lauren_t said:
ahh well thats completely thrown me! :LOL:

I've looked up legacy pro at 400 with fd10 and it says 9 mins! Got no idea where they got 11 mins from...but thank you anyway!

edit - its not a needle meter, sorry. Its a light meter in the camera but I was late to bed last night and got up early so I'm tired haha.

and as far as I know the temp was fine as I had one of the techs with me when I did that but I'll try and bring it up once I go back in next week as we only get 5 hrs a week in the darkroom on my course (grr!)
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Are they re-using the developer - if they just have a big stock bottle that you use and return to the stock bottle, then it gradually gets depleted, and the times needed for correct developing become longer and longer. If they're using one-shot and throwing it away after each use, then the MDC timings are usually a reasonable first start point.
 
I dont think they re-use the developer but they do re-use the stop and fixer.

There was an issue of that after the christmas break the stop and fixer had gone off because they left it out for over three weeks.
 
I've been to 3 different art colleges for photography and none have ever used one shot processing, they all used bulk with replenishment when required.

You have not answered my question about the frame numbers, are they too light or do they look normal?

If they look normal it is not a processing error, if they are too light then it is, end of story!

Did you redilute the developer from the bulk tank?
 
Sorry I'm not at home right now which is where the negs are but I'll answer when I get home.

What we have at college is like these little bottles of FD10, not a big bottle but once the dev time is up we put the developer in a big waste tank but I suppose they might replenish the little bottles with that?
And yeah I used 30ml developer and 270ml water which is what everybody uses all the time and it develops properly.
 
I have a feeling it maybe the the Delta 400 + FD10 combo simply that the film does not work so well with that developer. :shrug:

I have deved Ilford 3200 and Fuji 100 in FD10 and both came out flat and life less, since then I have avoided using FD10.

However it probably works very well with the Legacy Pro 400 which if you got good results I would stick with that combo. I think Martian uses FD10 and likes it but i have no idea what film he uses.

Oh and another think, when at college ALWAYS make your developed up fresh, odds on some one has for a joke mixed some lucasade into it. After all they are nearly the same colour :)
 
Yeah that may be it. HP5 seems to be ok too cause we were shooting 120 with that and everyone's film seemed ok.

Thanks so much for the heads up on Ilford 3200, I was going to shoot and dev that at college but if it doesn't really work with FD10 then I'll get it done by a lab.
 
Why not DIY at home, half the fun of shooting B+W and after cheaper than sending your film to the lab, even after you have bought all the kit.
 
We use FD10 as a one-shot dev in college, ive had decent results with HP5 and pushing Legacy pro to 1600.
 
I think I may finally have an explanation from this. I buy my film from the college shop and I bought some HP5 400, Delta 3200 and some Fujicolour 400 yesterday. Long story, short I looked on the box for some reason and the Delta 3200 is dated May 2010 and the Fujicolour is March 2010!! I think thats why it came out crappy, I threw the box away so I can't confirm that but thats what I think happened. Taking those films back on Monday anyway.
 
As has been mentioned, why don't you just do them yourself at home. The chemicals and equipment are very cheap.
 
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