WOW! Steam-pushing with hydrogen peroxide

I recently made the mistaking a roll of 100 speed Fuji Neopan SS for a

roll of Neopan 1600 which I was shooting at 1250. Horrors!! Since

these shots were -very- important, and I did catch the error right

away and was able to plan my processing, I remembered reading in

Anchell and Troop's book about steaming the flim after development

with Hydrogen Peroxide. I used Xtol 1:3 75 degrees 30 min, agit for

the first minute, agit at 2, 3 and 5 then 10 15 20min, then followed

the directions, steaming the film in a water bath at 107 degrees, then

rinse and fix.

WOW! I was hoping for the best and really expecting the worst, since

it was dark enough for me to use Neo1600 at @ 1/8 sec at F 2 and lets

face it, a 100 to 1250 push is a bit far, But Lemmme Tell Ya, it

WORKED, and Very Well too. Totally printable. So much better than I in

my most postive state of mind could ever imagine.

The process is a real long PITA but, if I really needed it, (and

believe me I really -really- needed it) I'd do it again.

Could you post some scans? I'd be interested to see what it looks like.

So is the idea that the trace peroxide in the steam reoxidizes some of the developed silver? Preferentially in the dense areas? The oxidized silver would then be subject to removal by the fixer.

"steaming the film in a water bath at 107 degrees, then rinse and fix."

 

I'm a little confused: How did you get the hydrogen peroxide steam onto the film surface if the film is in a 107 degree F water bath?

<i>I'm a little confused: How did you get the hydrogen peroxide steam onto the film surface if the film is in a 107 degree F water bath?</i>

<p>

A&T is searchable at amazon.com. The film is in a sealed tank with the peroxide, but not touching the peroxide. The water bath raises the tank and solution temperature.

I've read about this technique before but had a different interpretation of how it worked. I'd assumed it required more specialized equipment and that the solution needed was not common household type peroxide.

Lex, I just read that section of A&T last night. Literally all you need (beyond a pushable developer and basic equipment) is a spare double reel tank, a water bath at around 105 F, and some household 3% peroxide solution. Well, and a darkroom to facilitate the transfer between tanks, which is the real trick for some of us; I'm pretty sure you can't do this trick in a changing bag (I certainly wouldn't want to try it).

 

Apparently enough peroxide vapor comes off the heated liquid at 105 F in an airtight tank to treat the film appropriately, in just a few minutes, with treatment continuing for another few minutes of standing in a dry tank (you could use the same one you originally push developed in, there's time to dry it while the film is steaming). Given that this is done with water-stopped, unfixed film fresh from a hard push, I suspect the mechanism is a combination of heat promoting rapid additional development in shadow zones, and peroxide promoting rapid exhaustion and oxidation of developer in highlights, to produce an extreme compensation effect and effectively push the shadows another stop or more beyond the basic 2- or 3-stop push (which gains 2/3 stop in the shadows, max) given before the peroxide treatment. There may also be a component of preferential oxidation of developed silver in the highlights, but silver oxide wouldn't fix out (I don't think), so that's not the whole story. Also worthy of note is that silver is one of the best catalysts for decomposition of peroxide into water and oxygen, I'm sure this enters the equation somewhere.

 

A&T report that this treatment gives an increase in shadow speed, and call it a post-development form of hypersensitization.

thanks for telling us- now can you show us?

<p><i>I'm a little confused: How did you get the hydrogen peroxide steam onto the film surface if the film is in a 107 degree F water bath?</i><p>Pure hydrogen peroxide boils at 150C. However, in a closed system there will be an equilibrium amount of H2O2 in the vapour phase, the amount limited by its vapour pressure which is a strong function of temperature.

 

<p>So lets see the pics!

Here's another vote for seeing the pictures!

 

While it's a different animal entirely, lately I've been experimenting with silver intensification -- much less proportional than selenium so it brings up the low values much better. Very interesting stuff.

Michael, what is the formula for silver intensification? I have some important negs that were underexposed and was considering VMI (but that involves mercuric chloride with its use and disposal problems)

Thanks for all the interest!

I would post photos but currently it is very difficult for me to scan to upload, I would have to make a print first then pull out the scanner (do I still even have one?) etc. I'll see what I can do, might take me a while.

Still, I also processed the rolls of Neo 1600 at 1250 and the Neo 100 truned out nearly as good, perhaps Less grainy.

An old issue of Photo Techniques ( excuse me, the name has changed in the interim, but it's still the best photo magazine around)had a very good article about this technique. As I recall the heat and separation from the liquid Hydrogen peroxide was accomplished by placing the reel on top of plastic film cans filled with hot water and placing the assembly (held together with rubber bands) into a container that had HP in the bottom, then covered. No rocket science or tools required.

IIRC it worked for color as well

John,

 

Part A: 15 g Silver Nitrate in 250 ml water

 

Part B: 15 g Sodium Sulfite in 250 ml water

 

Part C: 26 g Sodium Thiosulfate Penta in 250 ml water

 

Part D: 6 g Metol, 3.7 g Sodium Sulfite in 750 ml water

 

Mix 1 part A, B and C with 3 parts D for working solution.

 

Mixing A & B creates a white percipitate that disappears when you add part C. The working solution is good for only half hour or so and the negative must be fixed afterwords.

 

And be prepared, because it's very weird stuff. On first blush it seems to actually bleach the negative, because it makes the emulsion kind of milky looking, but if you hold it up to the light, you can see that the tones are actually intensifying. The stuff also is pretty dirty working -- wear gloves and don't spill. And one last thing, grain is pushed a bit, which may or may not matter for your format. All of that said, it works!

About peroxide and darkrooms:

 

A film, after having gone through a dev, is quite less sensitive than it's EI.

 

So, the darkroom doesn't have to be a fully dark one - within reson.

Ed Workman has the answer.Normal! developemnt for a one or two stop push(whatever you are going for)Extra stop-s devepoment by heating in the VAPOUR of hydrogen peroxide.IF I can explain this right..After normal! development the film(on a reel) is transfered to tank with e.g 5 film cans filled with hydrogen peroxide in the bottom of the tank immersed in hot (105 degreee water)The film on the reel is then place in the tank ABOVE the gases produced by the H.P for the reccomended time for the "extra" push. I tried it (without sucess but that is another story)years ago & my Ilford friend & I gave it the name ILFOPUSH!! I think I will give it another try as near grainless EI 6400 images can be made with this process.

Melvin

 

Could you pls enlighten me on "Normal! developemnt for a one or two stop push"

 

Should one give normal (eg, standard time) or development for the given push (extended time) before the peroxide?

I just *know* I'm gonna regret having read this thread. ;>

 

I really don't have the time these days for experimenting but now I'm gonna hafta try this.

It seems to me there would be problems with the vapor being blocked by droplets of developer on parts of the film...

I have two old magazines relating to this process;both have pages missing...sorry.To quote Only two things need to be remembered:Always push one stop less chemically than what you wish to arrive at eventually; letting the Hydrogen peroxide give you the last stop;& in the second step of the H.P portion keep the temp of the water bath between 135 & 140 deg F(to give H.P vapour).The extra stops I believe are achieved by a 10 minute soaking in H.P Vapour.

Wouldn't you need a quick rinse (maybe with Superflo or another surfactant) after the normal processing, else droplets of the developer cause spotting when steaming?

Anchell & Troop recommend a rinse.

I tried this process some years ago without success;so after reading this article I decided to try it one more time.The results were less than encouraging & I now believe that this process is pure magic,alchemy or pulp fiction!! Maybe I did something wrong?I don't know.Maybe there is a slight of hand that I missed or that a Gregorian Chant must be voiced between the hydrogen peroxide steps?Whatever it is this process,as described,is a no go.If as was said earlier hydrogen peroxide boils at 150F so how can it evaporate? Maybe the heated water containers have to be open & it is the water vapour that attaches to the HP & it soaks the film? again I don't know.I tried a filmless run to see what effect heating the HP would have & again it was zero!no vapour.Someone somewhere has made this process work maybe they are holding back some thing.Unless someone opens up "ILFOPUSH" is no longer on my list of experiments.

I just tried this method on a roll of TMY (EI unknown, somewhere between 400-1600). Normally I'd use Microphen for this, especially with an unknown exposure. This time I used ID-11 stock solution, 10:30 minutes - that's the standard time listed for TMY at EI 1600.

 

After that, into another tank with peroxide heated to approximately 107°F for 5 minutes.

 

I can't say I see a significant difference in effective (not to say true) film speed. Generally I'd prefer not to rely on ID-11 for a push like this. The overall contrast/tonality is different from what Microphen would have produced.

 

I'll have to try it again.<div></div>

peroxide, same as water will evaporate without boiling. It is a phenomena called vapor presure, when vapor pressure = 1 atm boiling occurs.

At 105F there will be an increased migration of H2O2 to the atmosphere (don;t have the exact data on vapor pressure).

I believe the tank should be closed to "saturate" the environment?

 

Never used this technique but have seen it mentioned a couple of times.