APHS Follow up.

Hello every one I?d like to thank you all for your answers to my

post located at

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0095wA

 

Hear are the results of some of my testing. Thinned out Dektol

worked and produced a printable, but contrasty negative. It was

printable and with the right situation I believe it would work

great. Another thing I tried was 12ml of Rodinal per 4 liters of

water, as recommended in an email from Gerald Merrick. This produced

a negative that printed great on grade 1, or 0 papers. I don?t see

this as a draw back because the reason I bought the 8x10 camera was

to experiment with alternative processes.

 

The only draw back to the Rodinal was a yellowish stain in the

denser areas. It doesn?t seem to affect the printing of the

negative, and it seems somewhat proportional, so I am not really

bothered by it. Actually it has a plus side that when I have a

bright light behind me, and I am holding the negative to a dark

surface I get a positive image. When I look into the light with the

negative I have a negative image. I have never seen any thing like

that, so if any one has experience that I?d love to know.

I haven?t had a chance to try any of Joe VanCleave?s HC110 dilutions

because I don?t have any on hand, but I will give it a try. I would

imagine the yellow stain he mentions being similar to the stain I

have with ordinal. When I get paid I?ll be sure to pick up a bottle

of HC 11o, and see what happens.

 

I did some experimenting with paper negatives. I don?t have any

graded paper around so I tried multigrade. They came out pictorial

looking and I think would make a great negative for Gum printing so

I am going to keep it in my bag of tricks, but APHS in Rodinal seems

my best bet at the moment, but I am going to keep experimenting. I

am also going to get that Packard shutter mounted and buy

some ?real? film soon.

 

Once again thank you all for your input, and feel free to ask me any

questions.

Rodinal produces larger grain clumps than other developers. While not so much an image issue for 8x10 film, it is the likely source of the "yellowish stain". Silver has a dichroic effect that produces varying degrees of yellow reflection depending on crystal size. Search rec.photo.darkroom in Google Groups for a more thorough explanation by photo sage Richard Knoppow.

 

I have experimented with APHS for making unsharp masks. As you have noticed, controlling contrast is a challenge. I generally use HC110 simply because it is handy for mixing such small batches, the stuff in the bottle keeps well, and because the image is so faint I can get resonably low contrast with a development time that is not too short. But if I where going to use APHS for making photos in the camera, I might experiment with using other developers. You want a long enough time for even development but not so long that the contrast is out of control. I normally use Xtol for regular film so I would probably start there.

 

You may want to contact moderator Lex and ask for advice on slow, low contrast developers. He has a lot of experience with this and very knowledgeable.

Try PMK Pyro 1:1:100 (Instead of the normal 1:2:100) and adjust your time to obtain the density range of the negative you are looking for. Works great with APHS and makes lovely prints.