Extremes of developing Tell your story

<p>Extremes of developing this about says it all. I found that I had in my freezer and then was given about 300 feet more of some Medical imaging film They are Vericath 1 and III. Says it is an orthocromatic ISO 6 film. Well me being who I am first developed a roll at ISO 12 in Diafine and I got great results.. next I went for Dektol at ISO 25 I diluted it 1-8 Still great. Well what is next? How about using a Litho type A&B developer and push it to EI 125?20X that is.<br /> Why the hell not I have a few hundred feet of this grainless stuff and I wanted to see if I could get it to go Kodalith.. Guess what? I still had gray tones. I will play more with it and to more extremes. What I wanted to know is what is the weirdest and most extremes you have done in the darkroom??</p>

<p>Here is a set from the Super push.<br /> http://www.flickr.com/photos/jokerphotography/sets/72157622128260593/<br /> <img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2602/3889974056_66bb97fc7b_b.jpg" alt="" width="674" height="1024" /></p>

<p>I don't have any examples, but when I started in the sixties I was using photography as a graphic arts medium. I overdeveloped by 50% routinely to get a more contrasty picture, then printed on extreme contrast papers like Agfa #6. It was only later that I developed an appreciation of the most subtle tones, and now do the reverse. Overexpose by over a stop and develop less.</p>

<p>While I've never tried pushing any slow ortho films or souping anything in "panther juice", I used to push Tri-X (at least attempted to) to E.I. 3200 using D-76 and an addivtive called Min Max. The most I could consistently get and still have some shadow detail was ISO 1600. I could get less contrast by shooting 2475 (High Speed Recording film) souped in DK-50, but the grain with that was huge.</p>

<p>I have used Diluted Acufine with longer times and still had shadows.</p>

<p> This one was Acufine diluted 1-3 22 minutes Tri-X 3200 70F.<br>

<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3127/3125147444_a53c0990c9_o.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="933" /></p>

<p>from a while ago... 2001 actually!<br>

HP5+ developer with 0.75ml of Rodinal in 300ml water (1:400) with agitation 1st 30secs, 1min, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 for a total time of 90mins at 20C (well it started at that)<br>

This scan doesn't show it too well (and I don't have a higher resolution one to zoom in on) but the edge effects look like a scan/image that's been super-over-sharpened.</p><div></div>

<p>Mistaking a normally exposed roll of TMX, shot seven years earlier, for a roll of pushed Tri-X shot 20 years earlier (the film was in an unlabeled cassette). Souped for 20 minutes in Microphen, which should have resulted in hopelessly overdeveloped TMX - but didn't. The negatives were good and easy to print or scan. That's what prompted me to switch to Microphen 1+1 for normally exposed and developed TMX.</p>

<p>The first roll of Tech Pan that I shot turned out pretty interestingly. I shot it at 25 and used a Y2 filter, but forget to give an extra stop of exposure for the filter, as for whatever reason I thought the camera's meter would recognize the filter and adjust the exposure accordingly.</p>

<p>Anyways, I took the roll to Kelton Labs in Union Square, where they said they would use Technidol to develop it. The negatives that came back were very dense, but not bulletproof. They scanned pretty well tho and print well, if you set the contrast filter to 0.</p><div></div>

<p>Oh, I should add that someone once asked me to try and reproduce this look. I guess the best approximation would be some kind of IR film? Other suggestions had been TMX and a red filter. I never ended up doing it tho.</p>

<p>IR fims are pretty grainy and a bit different. TMX and red filter sounds good for eerily smooth and contrasty. Give it a try.</p>