bill_troop1

Hans: re fx-37 v. 39, nobody seems to have done any extensive tests facing them off. Undoubtedly, 39 has some advantages -- obviously, Crawley will hold his best cards for his commercial developers. However, that best card may merely constitute additional stability, or more flexibility with certain films. He goes to lengths to say that 37 is not a substitute for any commercial developer, but an independent formula. Crawley is as committed as he always has been to providing excellent public domain formulas. This he has done with 37. That said, probably only Crawley knows what the differences are. I'll try to speak with him about this in a few days because it's an interesting question, as is the question what is FX-38?

 

Jorge, what I wrote _was_ in answer to what you posted but, as you point out, if so, I misread your post. Clearly, for anything that works really well with the reformulated PX and TX, that really would be serendipitous. I doubt, for example, that the new PX/TX were optimized for XTOL. The impression I got was that the XTOL people were not part of that loop, though they have published an evaluation of the new films. The last time I spoke with Crawley must have been already two or three years ago, when he was just in the middle of working on FX-50. I remember him being exceptionally enthusiastic, saying of ascorbate, "it makes beautiful negatives, but stability is a problem." He seemed delighted and quite surprised about the negative quality. It really is amazing how long it has taken to discover that ascorbate is an effective HQ substitute. I recollect that Zawadzki would have liked to design a print developer based on ascorbate, had Kodak given her the opportunity.

 

Anyway, it's obviously time I had a long chat with all these people, but this is probably not the best week for anyone.

 

The remaining questions most of us have about image evaluation can, I think, only be answered by books from Crawley on the one hand and Zawadzki and Dickerson on the other. But none of them have the wish to do it. They are all very cautious and modest scientists, quite unwilling to make a fuss about what they do.

I know that Crawley was having a lot of fun when he was designing FX-50 and trying to solve the conundrum of the ascorbate's instability which at one time he thought might be related to light exposure. I don't know what he ultimately discovered, and he probably wouldn't disclose it, but obviously he solved the problem to his satisfaction because the product was released. If it is really true that, in general, a moderate pH, low sulfite, phenidone-ascorbate developer is ideal for modern films, then that is a serendipitous discovery. I don't think that either Crawley or Zawadzki thought they would get such good results when they started their research.

 

I would like to consider another point: Crawley writes, regarding tabular films in solvent developers, that "If grain is too fine, light scatter in the negative increases when a negative is enlarged, reducing edge contrast." -- as I quoted in FDC. Looking at this now, I see that as potentially desirable. For me, that is one of the problems with tabular films -- that the edge contrast is too high.

 

I don't like the "flavor" of the edge contrast in tabular films. How to quantify that? Only extensive MTF analysis could tell, but I would guess that it would be excessive contrast at middle and high frequencies. By contrast, I would guess that with a film like Verichrome-Pan, which was specifically optimized to look sharp with low resolution lenses of the 1960s, what was done was to increase contrast in the low frequencies at the expense of the high frequencies. But I am very, very far from being an expert at this kind of image analysis.

 

As a footnote to the ascorbate theory, I suppose it is possible that density growth, shape of the grain, etc. -- the entire process of development with ascorbates and the tabular films is somehow visibly different than with other developers. And, keeping in mind that Zawadzki believes that ascorbate and not phenidone is the primary developing agent in XTOL (a point I have found difficult to accept), I suppose it is just possible that there is something that just "works" really desirably when the two are put together.

>Acutol is nothing like Acutol-S. Completely different ingredients other than phenidone and metol.

 

The _ingredients_ could be the same; it is the proportions that would differ.

 

>It says it contains- 7 1/2% methyl alcohol, hydroquinone, and Metol.

 

Crawley advocated alcohol in the 60s as a preservative; by now he would have discovered more sophisticated methods. Alcohol may also help speed slightly, and does help dissolve some chemicals. I did not realize that so much was used, though. In 60/61, Crawley advocated the use of alcohol for most concentrated developers, but it was usually I think 50ml/L if I recall correctly, or 5%.

 

>So why would Crawley say it contains Phenidone?

 

Because it does. (Unless he is fibbing, which seems terribly unlikely.) The question then becomes, "why doesn't the label say that it contains phenidone?" and the answer is the same as for why the label for HC-110 and a hundred other developers don't say then contain phenidone: because it is (a) generally considered harmless (by comparison with other developing agents, though there is now some disagreement on this point as mentioned in FDC) and (b) because it is generally used in amounts under 1% and does not have to be listed on the MSDS or its precursor. Finally, manufacturers like to keep as much of their trade secrets as possible, and the fact is that most use Dimezone or some other phenidone derivative, other than the parent phenidone, because it lasts longer in alkaline solution. If I recall that conversation with Crawley correctly, he stated that phenidone, and not a derivative, was used. However, I don't remember that particular point.

 

>All we have to find out is the alkali/buffer. Anyone with a good pH meter?

 

The buffer system has always been described by Crawley as "sophisticated". However, it is probably borax and carbonate. If there is borax, there will certainly be potassium bromide. I had always guessed that some system not using borax would be used in Acutol, given all the bad press Crawley gave borates as alkali in high definition developers. I still would guess a carbonate/bicarbonate buffer to be more likely. Obviously, the pH will be higher than FX-15's. I have never measured the pH of either FX-14 or 15, or of FX 1 or 2, for that matter, and it would be interesting to see the results, keeping in mind the difficulty of reliable pH measurements.

 

>Not so different from FX-15, is it?

 

Well, they both had the same trade names, Acutol, and Acutol-S. It's interesting that no manufacturer has tried to clone Acutol, but nobody has tried to clone HC-110 either. In any case, their utility with the most modern films is not optimal.

 

This might be a good time to remind interested people that the formula for FX-37 was misprinted in the first printing of FDC, despite having been proofread by Crawley. (see www.graphos.org for a correction) FX-37, designed 35 years after Acutol, can be expected to work better with contemporary films.

FX-14 is the internal designation for Acutol (see Crawley 60/61) but the formula has never been published. FX-15, now published, was marketed as Acutol-S. I was convinced for years that FX-14 was an MQ formula, but in fact it contains phenidone or some derivative, as Crawley informed me. Bob Schwalberg called it historically the first sharp PQ developer which I think is probably true. It is amazing on the films it was intended for: slow and medium speed conventional films. It should be used as fresh as possible.

Hans, Hans, where's your German sentimentality? Your German pride? If Bayer (still Agfa's corporate parent?) could spend $1 billion (or was it 2B?) to get the Bayer name back (and then unsuccessfully sue for overpaying), do you really think the manufacturer of the "world's oldest continuously manufactured developer" is going ever to discontinue it? Besides, lots of us like the Rodinal look. I certainly think there's a place for it. I'm sure even Geoffrey Crawley would be distressed if Acutol (which is, by the way, FX-14) and FX-39 were the only two b/w developers available in the entire world. And have you tried Ultrafin on T-grain films?

> I did not know that the whole issue with Rodinal formula is such an enigma.

 

Therein lies its allure. Official confirmation would cause us to lose interest straightaway. As regards Rodinal, I think we know enough for all practical purposes. We do not need to economize by adding a secondary agent, and most photographers seem to prefer the older versions. However, as regards Kodak High Definition Developer, I would like to know more. Crawley published his strongly educated guess at a substitute formula in his 60/61 papers, and I included this in FDC. However, Crawley's guesses at Microdol and Microdol-X were, though ingenious, so widely off the mark that I cannot take his formula for HDD as definitive. (With Microdol, he deduced that the additional weight of the formula must be due to sodium sulfite; instead, it is due to sodium chloride. However, Henn's patents for antistain agents were not published until 1964, and van Veelen and Peelaers did not publish their study of sodium chloride-containing developers until 1967. Personally, I would never have made the connexion between Microdol, the Henn patents, and the Agfa research, had I not been given a strong push in the right direction by Haist. None of this is obvious. On the other hand, anyone who could afford a competent analysis would know what was in the products, as Ilford illustrated with Perceptol, which is a truly based on the Microdol technology.)

 

The two unexplored technologies I find of most interest today are both due to Haist. (1) his monobath-incorporated papers, which are developed and archivally fixed, without thiosulfate, after a minute in sodium carbonate and a few minutes of washing; and (2) his ideas for using colour coupling technology to develop films to low contrast both from the macro contrast point of view and, much more significantly, from the micro contrast point of view. This would be of particular value with tabular grain films, and Haist did this work in response to these films. Whenever I try to get more information from him, Haist just says, "Well, Bill, you ought to be able to figure it out." But I haven't. One of these days . . . .

This is what we know about Agfa Rodinal today:

 

1. it contains exactly 3% potassium hydroxide

2. it contains otherwise

 

water 55-60%

potassium sulfite 30-40%

potassium bromide 1-5%

p-aminophenol 1-5%

the pH is approx. 14 (http://intranet.risd.edu/envirohealth_msds/RISDStore/AgfaRodinal.pdf, for what it is worth)

 

It is therefore manifestly clear that other ingredients below 1%, which do not have to be listed on the MSDS, are present, because otherwise the formula would not be sufficiently active to support dilutions of 1:100 or higher. Most likely, given the huge amount of research resulting in dozens of papers by Agfa-Gevaert scientists (particularly Willems and Van Veelen) during the 1950s and 60s into p-aminophenol derivatives and superadditivity, Agfa now uses a proprietary developing chemical which is strongly superadditive with p-aminophenol, permitting substantial economy in manufacture over the traditional formula. Supporting this suspicion is the fact that the level of restrainer and developing agent in the MSDS are both given as 1-5%! This is a strong clue that a powerful unlisted developing agent is included in the formula. Needless to say, p-aminophenol produces low fog; a developer containing just that agent would not need an antifoggant, which would serve to decrease speed. The greatest probability is that Agfa Rodinal now contanins a strongly superadditive secondary agent.

 

Haist writes (v. 1 p. 521) "The classic concentrated developer is Rodinal, a sodium hydroxide solution of p-aminophenol which is usually diluted with 20 to 100 times its volume of water. ... The preparation of the Rodinal-type developer was known for many years before 1920 when W.F.A. Ermen gave this preparation for the concentrated developer ...." and that formula is substantially the same as what I published in FDC except that it is weaker. Nearly all of the formulas for what we designated in the book as traditional Rodinal have 1 part p-aminophenol to 3 parts potassium sulfite; what differs is the amount of water. I have always favored the formula that gives 100 g p-a-p and 300 g potassium sulfite to 1/L water because it is the strongest. Schneour recommends a maturation period of 6 months; Crawley has pointed out (BJ 60/61) that fresh Rodinal, by which he means "traditional Rodinal" used within a few weeks of making up) has somewhat higher activity.

 

It would be nice to resolve the lingering mystery, but the fact is that anyone who wants to achieve an authentic Rodinal experience has only to make up the formula we give. I have yet to encounter a photographic chemist who does not believe that the various "traditional Rodinal" formulas approximate closely enough the commercial product as it was known until relatively recent decades. To that end, I will try once more, a little harder, over the next few months, to find someone at Agfa who will part with reliable information, or someone at a reliable competitor who will part with a reliable analysis. It may be too late. If I learn anything I am allowed to publish, I will naturally share the information.

Well Hans, I've heard you're quite a mediaevalist. Couldn't you get us started off in Nibelungen strophes?

All this Kindersprache is frightfully dull, Lex, I agree. So may I make a suggestion? Ed, write your next post in mediaeval German, in strictly rhymed couplets, and I will try to respond in kind. I only insist on one rule: no rewriting of Gottfried!

The choleric Zimmerman gains points for managing to research a passable answer to my little test of German culture, but for little else. He asks metaphorically if he may sweep my chimney when he says he wants to review and edit my book. God in Heaven forbid it! I don't allow such people in my house! I don't need his help and would not dream of soliciting it. I want him to have my book because I know he will enjoy it and learn from it. I suspect he wants to write such a book himself and can't. The reason is pretty obvious. The information required to write a meaningful book about practical photochemistry is not now and never has been contained in other books. It requires experience in the field and the active help of collaborators active in the field. Zimmerman's personality problems as evidenced here clearly preclude his being able to work with anyone.

 

Russell Brooks enjoys the spectator sport aspects of this slugfest. I don't, and I don't think it is in the least productive. Someone who wants a slugfest should go to a football game, and stop trying to encourage a poisonous discussion thread. That said, I must admit that in all the years I have been on discussion forums, I have encountered very few where good information was exchanged. The threads always seem to degenerate into armchair violence. This particular thread, since Zimmerman's presence, seems to me to resemble more a particularly unpleasant group therapy session, rather than a civilized place for the exchange of reasonable ideas.

 

I suggest that Zimmerman (1) either buy my book or accept my offer to give it to him, (2) do some useful research about Rodinal himself instead of yapping like a dog getting a flea bath and (3) see some kind of experienced professional who can help him with his uncontrollable frustrations and give him the attention he seems to need. Zimmerman's odd but ultimately uninteresting pathology is clearly revealed by his wish to discuss my book without having read it.

 

Nobody can expect me to continue to participate in this discussion unless the parameters are changed. The very obvious thing for Zimmerman to do is to go out and find the people who can tell him more about Rodinal. The challenge for him will be to get himself into a state such that people will be willing to talk to him. I think that's a challenge worth undertaking, and it would be a shameful waste of his intellect if he didn't do it.

 

I would really like to say that if Zimmerman really does wish to find out more about Rodinal and doesn't know how to reach the surviving circle of old scientists associated with Agfa, I would gladly supply him with some contact information. But on the personality evidence before us, I wouldn't dare.

 

In the meantime, if he has a shred of ethics left, he knows that he must stop discussing my book without having read it. He must also realize that his credibility as a commentator will be zero until he has done so.

 

I am still waiting for his apology.

I would like to add a few tidbits here.

 

1. The suggestion to compensate for rotary processing by diluting the developer 30% is pretty obvious, once you think of it, but I must give credit to Silvia Zawadzki for making the suggestion to me.

 

2. Zawadzki and Dickerson are the leading contemporary experts on b/w image evaluation and have devised extremely sophisticated testing procedures for Kodak which do not rely on continuous agitation, which they do not believe is optimal. Unfortunately their investigations have not been published and are unlikely ever to be, except in the sense that the original time/temperature tables for XTOL reflected their unique methodology.

 

3. This is in the purest realm of speculation but I believe that Henn and Altman, both of whom I spoke to about this and neither of whom would confirm my suspicion, deliberately used continuous agitation in their experiments to skew the results against acutance and for fine grain. I suspect this had to do with rivalry between Rochester and Harrow. HDD was so popular in Europe and Britain. What answer had Rochester? "It doesn't work with our films anymore; it has poor shelf life; the claims are exaggerated." -- that is what I heard from the scientists at Rochester. And HDD disappeared from the market. It disappeared from the Blue Book. Nobody knew the formula. It wasn't worth knowing. Everything was done to make it as if HDD had never even existed.

 

I always felt there was something fishy going on.

 

And Kodak never manufactured another high definition developer. Instead, it eventually started making high definition film, which is essentially what tabular grain films are.

 

I was never able to find anyone at Harrow to talk to about this. I wonder if anyone is still alive who would have the inside scoop? The only other time I felt I was getting stonewalled was when I asked how Kodak seemed to know so much about Koslowski's high speed sensitization techniques -- in the middle of the war. Is GIP Levinson still alive? 7

Zimmerman who, if may lightly rephrase the poet, weißt wohl nicht, wie grob er ist, repeats some pointless questions about the depth of my research. These are adequately answered in my book, and I repeat my offer to send the fellow a copy if he is really too destitute to buy a copy for himself, and I repeat my demand for an apology. I really don't know what I have done to deserve such hate-mail!

I have asked Dr. Schneour to read this thread and he has asked me to publish the following:

 

I have read the exchanges about "Rodinal". These consist mainly of flailings about its formula (actually a whole bunch of them) which in the last analysis mean nothing in today's world. There are at least two outstanding issues regarding "Rodinal". One of them is the variations in the actual early formula which were made almost continuously and thus it is today difficult to discern which of these variants was the actual "original" formula. The other issue is that one of the remarkable properties of "Rodinal" was its long life before dilution for use. The caveat to this long life was (and is) that its developing properties change importantly but subtly as a function of time and storage conditions, to say nothing about the quality of the water used in the dilution for use. The formula I have settled on and which is listed in the now classic Anchell & Troop "The Film Deevloping Cookbook" is stored at about 15 degrees Celsius after compounding and is "marinated" for six months before first use. When compared to an old version (about 1936) it is undistinguishable for my uses. The conclusion must be that the arguments about "Rodinal" and its successor(s) will remain controversial because there are so many versions and so many usage and storage variations as to make any emotional discussion about that developer unproductive and a total waste of time. Instead, if you work with monochrome photography, make or buy the stuff, work out your best combination of variables and be productive rather than engage in idle chatter signifying nothing.

 

(Prof.) Elie A. Shneour

Biosystems Research Institute

Alerted by a kind reader, I write in profoundly pained response to some of the things that Edward Zimmerman (whoever he may be -- could someone please reliably enlighten me?) has written, in this thread, about me and my book, the Film Developing Cookbook.

 

>Such a book as the "Cookbook" does have its place but the "research" I strongly suspect was Usenet, Web and hand-me-downs with the accademic rigeur of the National Enquirer.<

 

Mr. Zimmerman. First of all, the word academic is spelt with two c's, not three. Second. Have you read my book? Had you even glanced at the four pages of acknowledgements, you would see that the manuscript had been read and critiqued by, amonng others, Grant Haist and T.H. James. I defy you to find me two greater figures in the entire literature of photographic science. My friendships with such seminal figures in modern photographic science as Haist, James, H.D. Russell and Dick Henn form the basis of my knowledge, which was distilled for general readers by me and Steve Anchell in this book. (Let me also not fail to mention those comparative youngsters, Silvia Zawadzki and Dick Dickerson, who have been so helpful to me, and who continue to be helpful, and of course Geoffrey Crawley.) Nobody has ever before impugned my writing as you have. Yet it seems you have done so without even having read my book. Yet you do not seem to be the kind of person who would criticize a book without reading it. What, then, could possibly account for this strange lapse? I can only think of one thing. If, by some unfortunate chance, you are unable to afford even a discounted copy from Amazon, please write to me and I will send you a copy.

 

>Neither Anchell nor Troop, given some inquiries, appear to be familiar at all with the German literature and it[']s doubted if they, at all, can read German. <

 

Ah. You've made some inquires, and IT is doubted if "they" can read German. Forgive me if I begin to suspect that you love hyperbole more than you love truth. From whom, Mr. Zimmerman, did you make these inquiries -- could you tell me that? I haven't received any. Nobody I know has received any. And I am one of the most accessible people in the US. My German is now rusty compared to what it was, but I did live in that country for some time, and my accent was, I blush to admit, praised fulsomely by Winifred Wagner when I was twelve and made my first visit to Bayreuth. (My voice was breaking at the time, and I was then able to sing every note from soprano to bass. I will admit that when I sang, unaccompanied and from memory, a substantial part of the third act of Götterdämmerung for a group that included the great soprano Frida Leider, Mme Leider, almost beside herself with mirth at my childish audacity, gave me several pointers.)

 

Mr. Zimmerman -- how good is your German? I like to practice mine whenever I have the opportunity. So when, or if, you apply to me for your copy of the FDC, perhaps you would be so sporting as to do it auf Deutsch?

 

I think it must be recognized by everyone who has read my book that I really did, over a period of many, many years, try to gather and to bring forth the best information that anyone possibly could, that would be helpful to people who wanted to know more about film developing. That I can have done this for any motive other than profound love of the science and the art is inconceivable. FDC is, I am told, Focal's most successful book in this field, but the royalties since it was published a few years ago would not even cover my phone bills from the years when I was researching it.

 

I do not even mention my experience in formulating some interesting and innovative photographic chemical products for Photographers Formulary and others. What are your credentials Mr. Zimmerman?

 

I really think I have the right to demand an apology for these caddish remarks. Were it possible to challenge you to a duel I would gladly do so. Failing that, I am willing to wager a quarter that I can recite more (let us say) 18th century German verse than you can.

 

Finally, since Dr. Elie Shneour's reputation has come into this discussion (as it was he who provided us with the particular representative formula of what we call "traditional Rodinal" in the book) permit me to state that Dr. Schneour is a distinguished biochemist and is (or was) the Director of the Biosystems Research Institute in San Diego. Dr. Schneour did not just pass along a formula to me. He has been obsessed with Rodinal for decades, even going to so far as to commission spectographic analyses. (And by the way, Dr. Shneour also read and critiqued my book.)

 

I have written somewhere -- maybe in my book -- that we all came very close to learning a lot more about Rodinal when Bob Schwalberg got Agfa to agree to publish all formulas for Rodinal except the current one. Unfortunately, his premature death frustrated that long-cherished project. I have made some efforts to revive it, but they have not met with success. Apparently, only Bob, who had known everyone of significance at Agfa, down to Koslowski and Weyde, could have pulled it off. It would be nice to tell Bob's anecdote about Frau Weyde's dress, but this has gone on long enough.

 

-- Bill Troop