Creeks a little, but gets the job done

I live in Melbourne, Australia. It is currently early september 2025 as I write this and we are just coming out of winter into false spring (Melbourne has about 11 seasons, so we are about to enter the bit where we all think “Hooray winter is over” before the temperature plunges and it rain again after about 2 or 3 days of glorious weather.

Just before the nice weather I took the Nettar out again and shot it around the University of Melbourne and near where I live, Merri Creek/Edgars Creek in North Coburg.

With the days being fairly flat (mostly) I decided this would be the perfect time to see if I could add some contrast in during development, where I would do n+1 development. But what is n+1 you ask? Well, n is your time for normal development that you figured out by painstakingly shooting some frames, developing and then printing to find your zone 9 and zone 1 times. Or to make it simple, for D23 shot at ISO 80 you figured it was about 8 minutes like I did.

The + 1 is basically giving the roll extra time in development to increase contrast and develop you highlights for an extra stop or so. But how do you know what time you need to increase it by?

Conventional wisdom suggests anywhere between 10% and 30% extra time. But which is right?

Well this is where doing more tests is required! You need to patiently shoot the same scene in Flat, normal and contrasty…..yeah bollocks to that. I just guessed at 20% becuase that was halfway between 10 and 30. Roll seems to have come out alright.

The following are a few from the scans. As always, V600 with Silverfast 9 and Negative Lab Pro conversion. Final images edited with Lightroom.