Help! Ilford HP5+ overexposed by one stop!?

Question

Hi there,

Yesterday I went on a York. I like going there, and love photography, so naturally I brought my camera along for the trip. I've recently been getting in to black and white film photography, so I loaded my camera with a roll of Ilford HP5+. Normally, when shooting colour negative film I overexpose by up to one stop anyway, because I find this improves both contrast and colour. Therefore I did the same thing for the HP5+, thinking that as it is also a negative film, that I would boost contrast that way. I like blacks to be deep and rich, and white to be white, and not grey, so as it was a very dull day, I rated my HP5+ at 200, thinking this would boost contrast in my final images.

In hindsight, I'm concerned about rating the HP5+ one stop over. I don't yet have the facilities to develop my own black and white film, so I take it to a local lab, and ask for the option of overdeveloping for a higher contrast. I know HP5+ isn't typically a very high contrast stock, so until I can find a reliable source of Kodak Tri-X, I typically ask for this option.

To cut to the chase, what I want to know is whether I have ruined my pictures by overexposing the HP5?

Is the exposure latitude of Ilford HP5+ sufficient to take a one-stop overexposure, plus a small overdevelopment?

Should I ask my local lab to overdevelop the film as I normally do, given the fact I have liberally exposed it?

If I did ask the lab to do this, would the overdevelopment cause the highlights to blow, even on a dull flat day?

After all this, would push-processing be the best option for getting a decent usable image from my film, which is contrasty as reasonably possible, given the type of film, and the lighting conditions it was shot in?


I'm afraid I don't know which sorts of chemicals, dilutions or developing time my local lab uses. The man who does the actual development is away until next week.


Sorry to be asking so many questions about my film, I just having kittens here right now, feeling that I've completely wrecked a roll of pictures I'm really happy with.

Thank you!! :-)

Answer 1

One stop over or under on HP5 won't make a lot of difference and can easily be adjusted for in printing.

Just have the lab develop as normal.

Answer 2

Pull the film - this means reduce your developing time by 10% - so if you're using D76 at 10 minutes, you reduce the time by 1 minute (ten percent.)



Shadow detail comes up very rapidly in development. The pull processing does not effect it. The pull works on the highlights - they will be less chemically exposed and therefore less dense. This technique is used all of the time when shooting under contrasty conditions. It was a standard in photojournalism before digital. It is a common technique for reducing contrast in the film.



Start with a 2 1/2 filter and see how much pop the print has. If the print is very flat and you don't want to pick up the grain issues a higher filter will give you, change the dilution of your developer. Use it straight instead of at 1:1 for example. The specific dilution will be determined by your developer, but Dektol straight gives a lot of pop to flat images and you can keep your filter lower.

Answer 3

Overexposure would require pull-processing to correct, not push-processing. First, one stop over is within the range of tolerance for printable negs. Pull-processing would reduce the density of the negs, i.e. correct for the overexposure at the cost of loss of contrast. If you push-process overexposed film you will get very dense, grainy negs, perhaps to the point of unprintability.



You have two options: one, you can put the film in for normal development, i.e.' neither push nor pull, get some dense, grainy but reasonably contrasty negs back and have a go at printing them normally. Warning: skies will be very dense and grainy, but you will have adequate shadow detail (I don't know how relatively important these things are to you, so you'll have to judge). Two: you can ask for one-stop pull-processing and get back negs of reasonable density but a bit flat in the contrast department, which you can compensate for by printing a grade or two harder than you normally do. Printing on, say, grade 4 instead of grade 2 will accentuate any grain though, and there will be some loss of shadow detail, compared to what you would have had with option one. Either way, your negs are far from wrecked. They are saveable and printable; just not, perhaps, exactly as you might wish in an ideal world.

Answer 4

1 stop over exposure is nothing for HP5, or any negative film that isn't Kodak Ektar, so you'll be fine with normal development, a lot of negative films can handle 3 or 4 stops over exposure without too much trouble. You could ask your lab to pull it one stop (shorten the time in the developer), but you'll lose contrast. To be honest, I'd leave it as is.

Answer 5

1 stop isn't going to be a big deal, color or BW... In slide film it can mean a lot but negative film has a greater latitude.. To be truthful, being as new as you are, I doubt you will even know the difference and what changes there might be you can (or could) control in the darkroom...

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Hit the Easy button and don't panic..

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Sing Bob McFerrin's, Don't worry, be happy...!