Books on developing negs

All the techniques and equipment needed to develop film, create glass plates or print following traditional & alternative methods
Charles Twist
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Books on developing negs

Post by Charles Twist » Sun Jan 15, 2012 11:53 am Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Is there a good book out there covering the various methods to control the appearance of a negative (density, contrast)? Or even an online resource?

I've heard of Ansal Adams' book 'The Negative' but haven't read it - not sure how much of a cook book it is. I am sure there are plenty of others. I am looking for a collection of recipes - something reasonably up to date & to the point - beyond the standard "expose more or less, develop less or more" approach which is maybe a little too crude. How to control the contrast and density of highlights and shadows in tandem or separately without increasing grain? How to correct for over- and under-exposure while maintaining quality? That kind of question.

Thanks,
Charles

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by Collas » Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:05 am Etc/GMT-1+01:00

I have The Negative (and The Camera and The Print, together with the book on Polaroid photography) by Ansel Adams and I highly recommend it. Another that I've found of use, if a little harder to read, is The New Zone System Manual by Minor White, Richard Zakia and Peter Lorenz.

Neither of these books will tell you exactly how much chemistry to use, or how long to stew the negatives. Instead, they provide the framework to allow you to achieve the best results through your own, fully annotated, experiments to match your equipment, water quality and working methods. Both sets of authors stress that the books shouldn't be followed parrot-fashion, but should be treated with an open, enquiring mind.

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Searc ... e+negative

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Searc ... one+system

Nick

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by lostlandsuk » Mon Jan 16, 2012 4:20 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

There's plenty of resources, some that come to mind are:
Massive Development Chart (OK it isn't a book, but there's a ton of data on there . . . all to be taken as a starting point)
http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php

Bookwise, Adam's The Negative is a masterwork, but it requires a lot of studious reading - not because of his writing which is excellent, but because of the vast amount of knowledge it contains.

I also found Barry Thornton's books very good too and nice and easy to understand
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edge-Darkness-D ... 742&sr=1-3

And also the Film Developing Cookbook which is excellent too
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Film-Developing ... 0240802772

As the prices of books seem to be increasing weekly, I can also thoroughly recommend FADU
http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/
There are a LOT of experienced film people on there - they always answer too!
And of course on here too - again, a lot of very helpful people.
Phil

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by lostlandsuk » Mon Jan 16, 2012 4:32 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Still thinking:
Zone System Manual is old, but great and still relevant.
Fred Pickers Zone VI Workshop book - quite simplified but I find it a very good book
Phil Davies - Beyond The Zone System - again very interesting
John Blakemore's Black And White Photography Workshop - a superb book.
Steve Mulligan's Black And White Photography A Practical Guide has a very good section on expansion and contraction (he mostly usees FP4 and HC110 but the principles can be appied to anything)
All of them though put the emphasis on doing your own tests.
Anyway, happy reading - as you can tell I do . . . a lot . . . God bless Oxfam :D
Phil

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by lostlandsuk » Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:22 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Phil Davis - Beyond The Zone System - just checked it - full of curves and metering and tests to determine N numbers, step wedges etc etc.It can be had very cheaply from alibris in the States for not much postage - sort of sounds like it might be what you are after.
In fact - here y'go
http://btzs.org/Articles.htm
You might not need to buy a book.
Phil

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by gary mulder » Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:49 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

what's wrong with The Film Developing Cookbook from Stephen G. Anchell & Bill Troop ?

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by Steven » Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:39 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Bruce Barnbaums latest book, The Art of Photography, has a lot off very useful info, ranging from the basics to quite advanced sheet film development.


A lot of it is too much for me, but I'd still recommend it, as it's as good an account of the basics (my level) as I've seen, and the images are outstanding.

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by Neil Barnes » Wed Jan 18, 2012 7:46 am Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Or there's always the old "sun shining, F16 at 1/125th; cloudy, F8 at 1/125th and just go by the label on the developer" approach... :mrgreen:

I'm a fan of Mr Adams, too.

Neil

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by michaelfinch » Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:16 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

There's a lot to be said for Neil Barnes' suggestion - but a lot to be said for fine tuning too, as he implies. I have (somewhere) a book titled Ilford Monochrome Darkroom Practice by Jack H Coote. Well worth a look if you can Google a second hand copy. If I remember correctly it was published by Focal Press in 1982 and was fairly regularly updated until about 1996. It is quite technical but not overly so and contains a lot of background info on photo processes, which while not immediately important to a working photographer, go a long way (I find) towards informing about the background of so much that can otherwise be taken for granted.
Hope that helps.

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by zoikes » Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:35 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

As a relative newbie I have been doing a lot of reading on this...

To keep it simple - I think Blakemore is best. Not a densitometer in sight, all judgements are made from (wet) printed images.

I am steadily ploughing through 'way beyond monchrome' - this is excellent - very much into measuring things - but ultimately does not say much more than the standard zone system stuff: find your film speed from the toe of the curve and work out your times for normal and contrasty light (N, N-1 etc). Lots on split grade printing, archival treatments and the like, physical unsharp masks - you name it...
(Interesting example photos as well :shock: )

Bruce Barnbaum's The Art of Photography is good but he tends to state as fact things that work for him - notably zone 4 shadow placements. Fine for TriX and HC110 (what he uses) but I cannot believe it applies across the board. i.e. not for films with a short toe. He makes a very good point (repeatedly) about there being usable contrast at higher zones - and dodging in printing to get this while maintaining contrast elsewhere.
He does have an interesting approach for extreme ranges of brightness -split development in concentrated and dilute (compensating) developer. I'm not sure how much use this will be in the UK, though :)

There is some good stuff here, but it looks way too complicated for me!
http://www.davidkachel.com/history.html

And of course 'the negative' is good, but you have to say that, don't you?
He looks at various developers including D23 and split bath - which is quite interesting - I fancy trying that. I think my next purchase will be the darkroom cookbook...

Emmanuel Bigler
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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by Emmanuel Bigler » Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:50 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Hello from across the Channel !

Since some well-informed people have maliciously reseased a very confidential information ("Charles is fluent in French") , I dare to mention here some classical books from Éditions Paul Montel, easy to find as second-hand items. (who could read such books in the XXIst century, where nobody ever uses film, and nobody is supposed to speak anything but Pidgin-English ,) )

for B&W negs & slides:
J. Prioleaud - Le développement des négatifs - Noir et blanc
Éditions Paul Montel 1974 - ISBN 2-7075-0027-5

for colour negs & slides:
M. Frache / J. Prioleaud / G. Grippay - Développement couleur négatif inversible
Éditions Paul Montel 1983 - ISBN 9782707501370

I learned all I know about processing film in those books, self-teaching.
With the keyword "Prioleaud négatif" Abebooks will supply several availble copies of those books.
Will certainly not cost you an arm & leg.

French-speaking practitioners of classicl photographic techniques swear by "Le L.P. Clerc" a pre- world-war II series of books with several editions.
for example
La technique photographique, tomes I et II Paul Montel, 1947.
Those L.P. Clerc books, in their French editions, are now, unfortunately, collectible items, and the prices are, accordingly, high and probably not reasonable for the reasonable darkroom hobbyist who claims "I'm a user, not a collector".
But good news : there have been several English editions of L.P. Clerc's books, available from the UK's second hand bookstores, and prices seem much more reasonable !
Photography - Theory and Practice L.P. Clerc
Several volumes (at least 6) I do not know which volume deals with film ... of course if you are interested in film technology of the 1940's ...
I have found references to 1970-1971 editions (reprints of old stuff ??) published by Focal Press. One volume for £0.80 :mrgreen:

Emmanuel Bigler
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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by Emmanuel Bigler » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:24 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

I have found other refereces in English about film processing in our forum archives
http://www.galerie-photo.org/n2-f1-11983.html

Jacobson, C.I., and Jacobson, R.E. (1972), Developing: 18th Revised Edition, Focal Press, London

Found on Claudio Bonavolta's web site, Kodak's recipes
http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/files/Kodak%20j-1.pdf
Many good info here,
http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby
Mostly photographic technique here (includin home made b&W slides)
http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/fo_tec.htm
http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/slidesbw.htm

Charles Twist
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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by Charles Twist » Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:14 am Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Thank you everyone for your suggestions - really appreciated. And a big thanks to Dave P for lending me some books.
Best regards,
Charles

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by lostlandsuk » Tue Jan 24, 2012 12:42 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Charles - just out of curiosity, what did he lend you?
Going through this made me pick up the Negative and have a good go through again. It's a total masterwork. Inspired me to mix up some D23 too!
Phil

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Re: Books on developing negs

Post by Charles Twist » Sun Jan 29, 2012 9:50 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Hello Phil,
The books are

B&W Photogrpahy - a practical guide by Steve Mulligan
Way beyond monochrome by Lambrecht and Woodhouse
The negative by Adams
Creative B&W photography by Les McLean

All good reads. Quite a lot of stuff on printing - which is interesting reading for those keen on Photoshop imitations of darkroom printing.

Best regards,
Charles

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