Help: Severe overexposure!!!

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Greetings!

I've screwed up exposure a few times but not like this. I was shooting Tri-X Pro (120) at ASA 125 so I could send the roll to LA and have dr5 chromes made. Exposure was 1/125 @f6.7. As I was running out of time, I hastily made a lens change (RB 67) and didn't set the correct shutter speed. It was not until I took the lens off that I noticed I shot at 1 @f6.7. Yikes! I lost count of how many stops I went over. Okay, I've got two rolls like this (fortunately, the other 7 rolls are fine). I really want to develop them if for no other reason than it would be an interesting learning experience. I'd like to see how close I get to decent negatives. Any recommendations would be VERY appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark

-- Mark D (mfdalal@inreach.com), July 01, 2000

Answers

Water bath by inspection.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), July 01, 2000.

You might try stand development, wherein the highlights exhaust their developer fairly quickly (so hopefully don't get overdeveloped). I have an article on development by inspection, but overexposed negatives are difficult to judge if you aren't already experienced at it.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), July 02, 2000.

This will not completely solve your problem, but you might want to use a fine-grain developer that reduces the film speed by at least one f-stop (such as Ilford's Perceptol). In addition, you might abuse an identical film on purpose by repeating your mistake. Then try reduced development. See if the side effect, a compressed tonal scale, is acceptable. Also try normal development (and reduced development, if normal is just too much) on a negative with comparable overexposure, and see if Farmer's reducer could be a help.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), July 03, 2000.

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