gonzalo_echeverria

<p>thanks again Jay for your lengthy response.<br>

i'll report results after some testing.<br>

all the best,</p>

<p> gonzalo</p>

<p>Jay,<br>

thanks for your detailed response.<br>

<br>

i can agree with Jay's logic. funnily enough, here in the middle of Turkey, Catechol is available (and affordable). sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide are found in the local shops. that alone, plus the great qualities of catechol make this imo an elegant developer ( best utilizing the main developing agent in the simplest way possible ).</p>

<p> all the best,</p>

 

<p>hi Jay,<br>

Great work!<br>

do you have any thoughts about a two bath configuration?<br>

from my experience, carbonates aren't alkaline enough to develop as a B bath so i've used sodium hydroxide.<br>

could you talk a little more about the geometric agitation sequence, about the principle behind it? it sounds like most of the agitation at the beginning helps avoid uneven development. your time of 12:00 (12 min i assume) for tmy2 - do that mean you agitate 1:2:4:8 and then finish at the twelfth minute?<br>

thanks for all your efforts.</p>

6 stop push... what's that hydrogen peroxide technique some guys use for pushing? ...

Barry Thornton prescribed higher iso films eg 400 for perceived acutance. he compared panf 50 to a 400 speed film ( i assume it was hp5 ) in a side by side comparison. if you look at the info attached to some of his images you'll see mostly 400 speed films. hope this helps.

rodinal 1:100 constant inversions for the first minute, 3 inversion per minute for 3 minutes, then stand with no

inversions for 16 minutes.

 

or

 

rodinal 1:100 constant agitation for the first minute, 3 inv every 3min for 18minutes

 

 

you should get a neg with great shadows ( due to your ei32 ) with printable highlights.

 

 

hope this helps.

it may have metol but i'll put money that it's the phenidone-hydroquinone combo that gives the speed increase in diafine.

 

for speed increase diafine is a good way to go ( fx4 is great as a two bath ).

diafine and metol - metaborate are miles apart.

 

yes, if your interested in doing the comparison, shoot two identical rolls use the same bath A and mix up i) bath B sodium metaborate 12g/L and ii) bath B sodium carbonate 50g/L and see the difference.

 

 

i assumed that by choosing dd23 the person who posed the question was interested in tonality/fine grain and sharpness at the expense of a little speed.

hi,

since your refering to dd23 i'll assume your mixing this from scratch. even with today's thinner films 6.5g to the litre of metol gives you great result ( combined with 80g / litre of sodium sulfite ). i've got an A bath with only 35g/l of sodium sulfite ( designed to be used with a B bath of 12g/L sodium carbonate ) and i've succesfully used it with 12g/L sodium metaborate ( time in B bath is about 10 min as opposed to the usual 3-4min.) thornton's book 'edge of darkness' is a great reference on 2 bath development - he addresses the issue of thinner emulsions simply by slightly increasing the metol. here's a link: http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Using-two-bath-developers

 

 

hope this helps

hi Russ,

 

it's a variation Barry Thornton points out in his last book 'edge of darkness' (?) - its a classic combination ( metol - sod. carbonate ie. beutler's , crawley's fx1 ). yes, i have used borax and sod. metaborate . 12g/L borax goes well with MQ and PQ combinations. i'm using at the moment crawley's fx4 which is a Metol-phenidone-Q developer as a two bath and anything more than borax generates impenetrable highlights ( regarding d-76 1:1 i suspect that carbonate at 12g/L will be too hot ...perhaps borax 12g/L )

 

if your prepared to mix your own, fx4 is an excellent MQ style developer with the added benefit of a real 1 stop increase in speed.

 

i knocked the sod. sulfite down to 80g/L from the recommended 100g/L as per Thorton's suggestion ( decreases solvency effect of sod. sulfite - improves perceived acutance) recipe available at www.jackspcs.com

 

i've also used sod. metaborate as a B bath with metol 6.5g/L and sod. sulfite anywhere between 50 - 80g/L and it gives fine grain with excellent sharpness.

 

you can also mix up d76 1:1 agitate for the first minute ( for setting the speed ), let it sit for 4 min. then use a B bath of 12g/L of sod. metaborate for 4min no agitation.

 

hope this helps.

hi Russ,

 

since it's a fine grain film i use this version of buetler's divided developer ( biased for sharpness )

 

 

bath a.

 

metol 6.5g

 

sodium sulfite 35g

 

water to make 1 ltr

 

 

bath b.

 

sodium carbonate 12g

 

water to make 1 ltr.

 

 

 

4 minutes in A, agitate first minute then an inversion at every minute

( more for even absorption - i don't think there's enough ph in A to start development )

 

4 minutes in B agitate first minute then for 10 sec at 3rd minute

 

ei is around 80, yours may vary.

hi,

 

 

rodnal 1:250 ( 2ml:500ml ) agitate for the first 30 seconds then leave for 60 minutes... great negs that print on grade 2 condenser head. you can shoot day and night on the same roll with this method.

hi,

the ratio i was given by an old timer was 1:50. it takes about 20 - 30 secs to cut the alkalinity of the developer down.

 

hope this helps.

the answer is in your question.

 

meter for the highlights ( since the shadows can fall where they may ) tmax 100 was a good suggestion because of it's uswept curve but i'd be suprised if you couldn't get good highkey results ( like harry callahan ) from an 's' shaped curve ( non tabular grain film ) . from my understanding this is the kind of metering rolfe horn uses to favor highlight tonality. hope this helps.

hi,

 

i'm using this classic formula and the acutance is amazing but i want

more compensation ( zone IX and onwards currently printed as paper white with

grade 2 ).

 

do i just dilute bath B ( sodium carbonate ) - at the moment, after

mixing A and B together there will be 5g/L of sodium carbonate ...

 

or

 

do i mix A and B together and then dilute even further ( reducing the

metol ( 1g/L ) and Sodium sulfite ( 5g/L ) even further ) ?

 

at the moment i'm dev'ing j&cpro 100 for 11 min in 50 ml A + 50 ml B

+ 400ml water @ 20 deg C inversions for the first minute then 5 sec every 2 min.

 

any suggestions appreciated.

hi,

 

have been looking to add phenidone to thornton's version of beulter's two bath ...

 

bath A

 

- 6.5g metol

- 35g sodium sulfite

- water to make 1 ltr

 

bath B

 

- 12g sodium carbonate

- water to make 1 ltr

 

 

i want the speed increase that phenidone gives with the benefit of a two bath.

 

is it better just to add bit by bit and see what happens?

better to drop the sodium sulfite in dd76 and go with that recipe?

don't bother and stick with fx4 as is?

what is the longetivity of phenidone in stock and is that cntingent on ph/sulfite

levels?

 

thanks

hi Kevin,

 

fix as per normal. the purple can be washed out by extending the final wash. i use plain water, keep agitating and replacing the water till it comes out clean.

 

gonzalo.

thanks Al,

 

so why is it in bath 'B' ?

 

 

gonz.

hi,

 

here's the recipe...

 

This formula is from Patrick Dignan's book Classic B&W Formulas.

 

Solution A

Sodium Sulfite, 35 grams - Hydroquinone, 6 grams

Phenidone, 0.2 grams - Sodium Bisulfite, 6 grams

Water to make, 1 liter

 

Solution B

Sodium Sulfite, 65 grams - Sodium Metaborate, 20 grams

Or, Borax 20 grams, for results "like that of D76"

Water to make, 1 liter

 

Mr. R. W. Anderson who wrote the article, claims a true

one stop speed boost plus "the advantages ... of

a two bath".

 

.... normally you'd have all the sodium sulfite in bath A ... right?

 

 

what is the function of the sodium sulfite in the bath B?

 

 

thanks.

hi,

 

I'm looking for a recipe for a two bath developer that yields a

genuine speed increase ( from box speed onwards )...

 

any suggestions? its for tri-x ( and other 400iso films. )

 

 

thanks.

you'd have to tweek it ( probably to resemble beutler's high acutance formula, which is split into two baths to extend the life of the developer and replaces metaborate with sodium carbonate) ....

 

 

 

one benefit of using it as a single bath is if you don't want the compression you get in the upper zones that you get with 2 bath developers. hope it helps.

 

 

ps i've been using this as my main developer ) barry's thornton's dd23 ) for nearly a year in it's 2 bath form and compared to xtol, rodinal and ilfosol S has sharpness comparable to rodinal without the "grittiness" ( smoothness of xtol and ilfosol s to boot! )

hi,

this is my standard developer, except i lower the sodium sulfite in bath A down to 80g/per litre ( this reduces the sulfite's grain mushing properties - hence why you would have a restrainer in there... so that the film has extended contact with the sodium sulfite therefore yielding fine grain at the expense of acutance )

 

the real development happens in bath B - my fav is sodium metaborate 13g per litre. remember the purpose of bath A is so that a small amount of developer gets absorbed into the emulsion, remaining latent for the B bath to do its work giving excellent sharpness without excessive grain. you'll get full highlight development by controlling how much sodium metaborate goes into bath B... approx 20g per litre yields n+1 densities .

rodinal 1:100 is great... beutler's high acutance formula or neofin blau... xtol's a bit

mushy.

hi,

 

was wondering if anyone out there could comment on the sl66's

120mm macro planar. is it worth hanging out for or should i just hack

a reversed el nikkor ( fujinon maybe? ) 135mm onto my sl66.

 

my primary criteria of interest is sharpness...

 

 

thanks.

hi Daniel,

 

i've used this stuff at high dilutions with panf50 ei 25 so maybe you can extrapolate from that.

 

rodinal special 1:100 panf50 ei 25 20degC 18min. constant agitation for the first minute ten 10 seconds every minute.

 

 

hope it helps.