Hello Shannon,
For longer exposures I always use a water / developer technique. I expose
my film normally and figure any reciprocity law failure as need and factor
that into my development time like usual. I ususally use this process when
I shoot at night but it also works for long exposures during the day. You
setup your regular developer, stop and fix and also a tank of water. Now
the development of your negatives will take alot longer.
Example if your development time is 7min you must break down the development
time like this:
30 sec in developer AGITATING ALL THE TIME
30 sec in water NO AGITATION
THIS ONE MINUTE OF DEVELPER / WATER ONLY EQUALS 15sec OF ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT
TIME. SO TO GET 1 MINUTE OF DEVELOPMENT TIME YOU MUST DO THIS 4 TIMES: 15sec
X 4 = 60 sec
So your original 7 min development time now turns into 28 min with this
technique of every 30 secs moving the negatives from the developer to the
water and back untill the 28mins is up. O yes this of course must be done
in complete darkness because you have to use open tanks to transfer the negs
from the developer to the water. For regular 35mm film load it on a reel or
if you are using sheet film onto those metal guides for dip and dunk
development. The process seems very long but believe me you will not
believe the results that you get I have been using this technique for a year
and a half and I am still impressed with the detail you get in the highlight
and the shadows and the negatives print up beautifully. What the water does
is wash out the developer in the highlights because they develop really
quickly but it has no effect on the shadows and lets them still develop
normally. I have tried other techniques like the Bird Bath and mixing fast
and slow developers but I find this works best. I hope this helps you if
you have any question feel free to contact me about this and tell me how it
works out for you.
JAY.
Shannon Stoney wrote:
> Sorry to have a one track mind, but I am still thinking about whether you
> need to change your development times when you make long exposures. The
> theory seems to be that highlights expose more than shadows during long
> exposures, so that you should under-develop. But, when I do this the
> highlights look too dull. I am wondering if this "rule" is really true.
> What do other people on this list do? Do you develop less as you make
> longer exposures?
>
> --shannon
>
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