Film developing – Nicks Pics

In the first 50 years of the 19^th century London’s population more than doubled from 1 million to 2.3 million. With the increased population came the added problem of what to do with the dead. The parish churches graveyards had become dangerously overcrowded and there were incidents of decaying matter from overcrowded graveyards getting into the drinking water supply and causing epidemics.

The answer was to create more private cemeteries outside central London. In 1832 Parliament passed an act encouraging such cemeteries. Over the following decade seven new cemeteries were established. These were Kensal Green (1833), West Norwood (1837), Highgate 1839-1860), Abney Park (1840), Brompton (1840), Nunhead (1840) and Tower Hamlets (1841).

The group at the entrance to Brompton cemetery at the start of the walk. This is a digital image.

My setup for the days shooting. Olympus OM2n. Zuiko 35-105 f3.5 zoom lens. Zuiko 135mm f2.8 lens. Ilford Delta 3200 Pro film. (digital image)

Looking for a location for a walk with the London Film Photography group on Meetup I thought a cemetery might be good for some atmospheric images. It might seem a bit morbid to some but our old cemeteries are a great location for statues and textures on the graves. They can even be quite good for some nature shots.

So, this month we set off firstly to Brompton Cemetery. Designed by Benjamin Baud, it was designed to be an open air cathedral with an impressive central colonnade leading to a domed Chapel. Not the oldest but the 39 acres is full of monumental statuary and is the resting place for the suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst and public health pioneer John Snow to name a few. They also have a nice little cafe at the North Lodge entrance.

The weather held out for us with just a few spots of rain but it did mean we had some interesting cloud in the sky.

The equipment that I used was my Olympus OM2n and the Zuiko 135mm f2.8 lens and the Zuiko 35-105 f3.5 lens. I started off with the film that was already in the camera, a Fomapan 200, which proved to be a bit slow for the overcast weather. I also had with me a roll of Ilford HP5+ and a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 Pro. I was keen to try out the Delta 3200 and shoot it at 1600 iso as I thought the graininess of this fast film would suit the subject matter. It would also mean that I could use a filter on the lens to improve the sky rendition and the contrast. As I was using a telephoto lens I also wanted a fairly fast shutter speed. Al the imags in this article are shot on the Ilford Delta 3200, shot at 1600 and developed in Rodinal for 28 minutes at 20 deg c.

We spent an hour and a half at Brompton which proved to be not long enough to explore the 39 acres so it looks like we will have to go back again.

A lot of patience was required to capture the crows!

After lunch at the North Lodge cafe we set off further north for Kensal Green cemetery.

Built in 1833, Kensal Green is the oldest of the public cemeteries now known as the Magnificient Seven and includes in its now the resting place of HRH Duke of Sussex and his sister Princess Sophia. At it’s heart is the Greek Revival Anglican Chapel and the landscape includes 161 designated monuments and other structures.

We spent another hour and a half at Kensal Green but again this proved to be not long enough to explore a lot of it’s 77 acres of grounds. We ended our tour by going to a local pub before wending our various ways home after a very nice day.

Equipment used

Camera: Pentax Spotmatic 35mm SLR. Takumar 55mm f1.8 lens.

Film: Fomapan 200 shot at ISO 100.

Developer: Fomadon R09 (same as Rodinal) diluted 1+200.

Patterson developing tank.

One of my more recent projects in the darkroom has been to explore further options on how to process my black and white film.

I would in the past just follow the normal method of a 30 second agitation and then 4 inversions of the developing tank every minute. This over the normal timing of somewhere between 8 to 16 seconds depending on film and ISO rating.

The dilution of the developer would be 1+1 of 1+3 for something like Ilford ID11. For Fomadon R09 or Rodinal it would be the normal 1+25 or 1+50 dilution. Temperature would be 20° Centigrade.

I have though seen mention of what is called Stand Development which is using a very dilute developer and just leaving the film tank standing for a very long time, usually about an hour without agitation.

I have in the past been put off by problems others encounter using this method such as bromide drag which leaves streaks on the negatives. It’s always seemed to me to make sense to create the situation where the exposed film emulsion gets influenced by active developer equally across the surface.

However, I thought it might be time to attempt this method on a roll of film exposed for this purpose and wouldn’t be missed if it all went wrong.

I have been reading the books ‘The Art of Black and White Developing’ by John Finch and ‘Ilford Monochrome Darkroom Practice’ by Jack H Coote.

I was keen to see if I could increase the acutance of the negatives by inducing something called the adjacency effect. This is where bromide, a by product of the action, collects at boundaries of high to low density.

This bromide inhibits local development along the line of these boundaries and creates what is known as a Mackie line which increases perceived sharpness along these lines. The one problem of this release of bromide is that it can also cause streaking on the negatives caused by the bromide falling to the bottom of the tank when it is left standing without agitation.

So, having thought I would give stand development a try I read in the ‘Art of Black and White Developing’ that Rodinal type of film developers are good for this style of stand developing.

It was recommended that the dilution was 1+200 and the development time be 2 hours so that is what I decided to use. I chose Fomadon R09 developer which is a similar type to Rodinal and the film I chose was Fomapan 200.

I stood the developing tank in a water bath at 20° centigrade so that the temperature wouldn’t drop too far during the 2 hour time.

I shot the film at 100 ISO rating to ensure good detail capture in the shadow areas.

The images were taken on some very dim and misty days in December and I was very pleased with the results and didn’t get any bromide drag streaks on the negatives. I will definitely try this method again.