Anyone who follows my blog and does not do darkroom work, may find this somewhat technical... and perhaps boring...
Developing processes for color film are very rigid. You need to use the developing agent, fixer and bleach in a proper sequence, for a set period of time, at a precise temperature. This will yield a properly developed negative or transparency, with correct color balance. If you deviate from that, the image is generally ruined. With black and white film there is significant control in development. If you develop the film more, the negative becomes denser. This also increases contrast and improves shadow detail, but it also blocks up the highlights. If you develop film less, then highlight values are retained and contrast is reduced, while shadow detail can be lost. Normal development falls somewhere in between.
When I am out photographing something I keep detailed notes on the subject brightness range. I meter the different parts of the scene and record the differences in brightness of the various areas. If the range is very low, then I will designate that sheet of film for plus [extra] development to increase contrast. Most scenes have a reasonable brightness range and get normal development. I very rarely use minus [reduced] development as I find the image becomes too flat. I will usually use some other method to try and retain highlight values, such as filtration or a staining developer.
This particular image is an example of plus development. This is a shot of an abandoned wood boat near Pigeon Lake in Central Alberta. I shot this image in September of 2002 with my Sinar monorail 4x5 view camera and a 75mm wide angle lens. I used a #58 green filter to lighten the values of the foliage around the old boat. I shot this on Ilford FP4 film, an emulsion that I find responds very well to plus development. I metered the scene with my spot meter and found that the lower white hull of the boat registered at an EV [exposure value] of 11-1/3 to 12-2/3. The upper bow of the boat was slightly darker, at an EV of 11 to 12-1/3. The windshield was slightly lower still at EV 11 to 12. There were some specular highlights on the chrome light fixture that registered as high as EV 14-1/3. The side of the boat cabin in shadow fell as low as EV 9-2/3. The plants and trees around the boat registered in the range of EV 9-2/3 to 11-1/3. Ignoring the highlight on the light fixture the entire scene had a subject brightness range of 9-2/3 to 12-2/3. This is only a range of 4 stops. One stop is equivalent to the doubling of the amount of reflected light, and is equivalent to opening or closing a lens by one click of the aperture ring, or adjusting the shutter speed dial by one click [a doubling or halving of the time the shutter is open]. A more "normal" scene would have a brightness range of up to six or seven stops.
So, after metering this setup I decided that it was quite flat. This was a direct result of the overcast skies on this day, in combination with being in fairly deep forest cover. I felt that increased development would pump up the contrast and give the image more life. I gave the scene slight underexposure [by changing the film speed from iso 125 to iso 160] as this in combination with extra development achieves the result I desire. I knew this from extensive testing and experience. Development was in Kodak HC-110 Developer, Dilution B [ 1:31] for 14:20 minutes at 20 degrees C.
The scan included below was not significantly manipulated. It simply had some minor adjustments to brightness and contrast so that it would display properly on the screen. This extended development would have kept the low values essentially where they fell, and pushed up the high values by approx. one stop.
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