Can you change a films latitude.

[Grandpa Ron]

Given the number of negatives I have shot in the last year, and they all look similar. I believe my light meter is off.

Since I am working with sheet film, it will be back to the beginning and some exposure testing.
* Light meter reading plus two stops and my normal development time.
* Light meter reading and 1 1/2 times my normal development time.
Both of these should increase the contrast.

Fortunately, I am going to the National Muzzleloading Spring Shoot, so it should be rich photo opportunity.

 

[mrca]

Given the number of negatives I have shot in the last year, and they all look similar. I believe my light meter is off.

Since I am working with sheet film, it will be back to the beginning and some exposure testing.
* Light meter reading plus two stops and my normal development time.
* Light meter reading and 1 1/2 times my normal development time.
Both of these should increase the contrast.

Fortunately, I am going to the National Muzzleloading Spring Shoot, so it should be rich photo opportunity.

I would start with a proper exposure or possibly 1 stop over exposed and normal development. That would give you a baseline to adjust from and there shouldn't be much deviation necessary. I would work on various exposures to see if that takes care of it and leave the development a constant. Change too many variables and you will have to guess what made the change.

 

[dxqcanada]

Given the number of negatives I have shot in the last year, and they all look similar. I believe my light meter is off.

Since I am working with sheet film, it will be back to the beginning and some exposure testing.
* Light meter reading plus two stops and my normal development time.
* Light meter reading and 1 1/2 times my normal development time.
Both of these should increase the contrast.

Fortunately, I am going to the National Muzzleloading Spring Shoot, so it should be rich photo opportunity.

Hmm, it should not be that difficult to find another light metering device to compare it to.

 

[mrca]

Hmm, it should not be that difficult to find another light metering device to compare it to.

Hmm, it should not be that difficult to find another light metering device to compare it to.

I picked up a gossen pilot meter for $ 14 delivered and it is dead on with my dome out $700 sekonic. Where are you placing the meter, area where light overlaps with using 2 lights? Area you want zone 5? Where are you pointing the meter? Looks like you are doing landscapes. At the cost per sheet of large format, I would be spot metering the darkest shadow where I want detail and dropping exposure 1 to 2 stops. You could check the reading from the brightest area you want detail and see if that is within say 5 stops. If not, you may have to sacrifice one end. With film it probably be the highlight end.

 

[maris]

I've shot hundreds of sheets of Arista Edu Ultra 400 film over the years . It's my go to 4x5 black and white film.
The correct exposure for an open sky front lit average daylight scene between 10am and 2pm is 1/125sec @ the half stop between f16 and f22 or equivalent.
If the scene is metered properly (not too much sky) that's what you should get. If you don't then adjust the ISO setting until it does. Midday lighting at mid latitudes is remarkably consistent except in the depths of winter. The ISO setting you get will almost certainly not be 400. I use an exposure index of 200 on my Sekonic L-758D meter and make sure that important shadows areas are exposed no more than a stop down from a direct reading.
If the negatives are still too thin or too dark then adjust development. HC-110 is a particularly complex developer to experiment with because it offers a multitude of dilution options combined with multiple developing time options.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

Well I certainly have a lot of good advice to try. I restored the view camera because I needed a pinhole camera with a larger format than 35 mm. At that time I not was not too concerned with the exposure variations, as they were all guesstimates.

I got a light meter and tried to compare it to the metering of my old film cameras against a grey card but the result were not consistent. I picked up a couple of Wollensak lenses; a 127 mm and a 167 mm. I was then I noticed that when I shot according to the light meter the negatives were light.

I started with Rodinal developer, then HC-110 dilution B. they gave me similar results.