Superfine grain film developer

<p>Quercetone is reported to be Quercetin Chalcone, each capsule containing 250mg and a small amount fillers, magnesium citrate,silicon dioxide.It would be better than Quercenase I mentioned above.</p>

<p>I must say the IL-HQ is impressive from the tonality point of view, Jay. But then you are used to getting it pretty darn good! AN EI of 40 is a distinct advantage, too.</p>

<p>No sign of the capsules yet. May take some days. My first action will be to see if anything I have here dissolves it better.</p>

<p>Murray,</p>

<p>The image I posted was the best of the bunch, from a gradation standpoint, though not necessarily the sharpest. Overall, gradation was very coarse. I'll attach another example. I'm very curious about the quercetone. I hope your caps turn up. </p><div></div>

<p>More work on Quercetin.By mistake I ordered Quercenase capsules instead of Quercetone.<br />Each capsule of Quercenase contains 250mg Quercetin Chalcone and 100mg Bromelain.I am assuming the Bromelain has no detectable effect in my experiments.<br />First this developer was made:<br />Quercenase..........................6 capsules(the contents can be tipped out)<br />Sodium Sulfite.......................2 teaspoons<br />Washing Soda Crystals.........3 teaspoons<br />Water to................................600ml<br />Mixture was heated to 50C with stirring and filtered through cotton wool.There was a lot of residue and the developer was dark brown like ancient Rodinal.<br />T-Max 3200(TMZ) was developed in this for 27m 68F .The resultant negatives were very thin,no use.</p>

<p>To the above mix I added:<br />Phenidone..............................0.2mg (approx)<br />Again TMZ was developed 27m 68F. The result was quite a good set of negatives, see pic below.</p>

<p>Finally I repeated the test leaving out the Quercenase to check that the phenidone alone was not giving the good negatives. Without the Quercenase the negatives were very thin.</p>

<p>The tests suggest that Phenidone is the primary developing agent and the Quercetin Chalcone ingredient of Quercenase regenerates it, they are superadditive at this pH~11.5.</p><div></div>

<p>Would not the Bromelain act as a restrainer?</p>

<p>In this case, Bromelain does not seem to mean that it has Bromide in it, so it would not be a restrainer of that type:<br>

<a href="http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/life-science/biochemicals/biochemical-products.html?TablePage=15821329">http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/life-science/biochemicals/biochemical-products.html?TablePage=15821329</a></p>

<p>I see an enzyme blocker.</p>

<p>Alan,</p>

<p>How do you isolate the contribution of the quercetin in the QP developer? Did you try the same developer without the quercetin? Just curious. <br>

Before I wasted too much time with quercetin, I wanted to satisfy myself that it was indeed a developer, so my first tests were just quercetin and sodium carbonate. When I got acceptable results, I had a baseline from which to assess the effects of any additional agents; in my case, ascorbic acid. I think it's possible the phenidone in your developer is capable of producing your results without the help of quercetin. I'd want to rule that out by running another test with phenidone alone. Isn't this stuff fun?!</p>

<p>Jay Um Yes as I am now playing with Aspirin as a developer. It works but is slow but now mixing some Ascorbic acid it gets faster. It though also is acting as a restrainer in Caffenol and making finer grain without base fog in the vein of Kbr. Just finer grain.</p>

<p> Some day in the future when there is no developers sold on the internet, MacGyver may be all we have left. :-(</p>

<p> Fun though it is.</p>

<p>I wish I had ordered the right stuff Quercetone but at about $30 a time will carry on with Quercenase for now.<br>

Jay,<br>

Please see the second last paragraph of my post, I did run a test with phenidone and no Quercenase and it produced only very thin negs.<br>

However the test is worth repeating at this early stage ,it is wanted to know if Quercetin Chalcone is a regenerator like hydroquinone, ascorbic acid, pyrocatechol or a primary developing agent like phenidone, metol.<br>

I might try make a staining developer with it since it seems to need high pH.</p>

<p>Alan,</p>

<p>Sorry I missed the second paragraph. Quercetin is actually a heavy stainer. I thought of pairing it with catechol, but that will have to wait until I get some more soluble quercetin, preferably without a lot of additives. I would try replacing the ascorbic acid with quercetin in Hypercat II, weight for weight, to start. But, since one of the roles of the ascorbic acid in Hypercat II is to control stain, it's not clear how the substitution might affect the resulting developer, but that's what experiment's are for. </p>

<p>Alchemist are some of my favorite people... :-)</p>

<p>Larry: Aspirin in Strong base or Acid will give the salicylate salt or salicylic acid, or salicylic acid itself (strong acid), which of course you can use to protect developers.</p>

<p>I found it though will develop with a Base... ,,, Acts though as a restrainer in the iodine sodium class at times too.... Though remember I am the guy who used urine as a developer.. :-)</p>

<p>Please post a 4,000 dpi (or higher) scan of TMY or TMX.</p>

<p>I would like to see the results and compare it against my developers.</p>

<p>To whom are you talking to Mauro?</p>

 

<p>Formula correction:<br>

In my post giving the formula used it should read :<br>

Phenidone.....................0.2g (approx) and not 0.2 mg.<br>

Mauro,<br>

I only did about 3hrs work on this, it is too early to test as a good formula is not yet established.</p>

<p>Lately I've been thinking about biological developers. Theoretically, it should be possible to genetically engineer a bacteria, like e-coli, to convert sugar to a developing agent, in solution. If film had a future, this is the course I would pursue. </p>

<p>I meant the question for Jay. I would like to see a scan or maybe look at a spare negative if you can mail me one.</p>

<p>Mauro,</p>

<p>To which of my developers do you refer? If you're referring to the quercetin developers, those are just experiments, not really developers. If you refer to Halcyon, I might be able to get a good scan of one of my negatives. A friend of mine has an Imacon, and has offered to scan a few negs for me, and I could include one developed in Halcyon. My own scanner is an Epson 4490, and not much of anything can be determined by scans from it. <br>

What are your developers?</p>

<p>Halcyon.</p>

<p>I mainly use Xtol with a few touch ups. I get no grain at 4,000 dpi from TMAX and very smal with TMY-2.</p>

<p>I was wondering if you thought Halcyon produces finer results than Xtol and how did you determine that.</p>

<p>Yes, Halcyon produces finer grain than Xtol. I determined so with lots of comparisons. TMX and TMY-2 are not the best films for grain comparisons, because they're both very fine grained. Tri-X is better, HP5+ is better still, and Foma 400 is even better. The difference in grain is quite apparent, even in moderate sized prints. </p>

<p>TMY2 would still be easy to evaluate with my Coolscan and microscope.</p>

<p>Could I email you my address in the hope of getting a piece of film for evaluation?</p>

<p>If not, can I send you a roll to develop? I would take two rolls and shoot them in parallel and develop one myself and send you the other. You can then mail it back to me and I will scan them together with the same settings.</p>

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