martian bachelor

<p>Two years later... For anyone turning up this thread in a search like I did, the doctoring-the-registry trick still works (for Windows XP at least), as does the adidap.com link, which should be followed and read, as well as many of the comments. Fortunately.</p>

<p>I bought a 30D on eBay recently, and it came without any CD. No problem, I thought - just go to the website and download all the software. That was until I tried to run one of the updaters at Canon's website and realized I was screwed because it wouldn't run. None of them would. The full programs seemed nowhere in sight (-the only exception is Picture Style Editor). They don't even list the original software CD anywhere so you could buy one. Hours later I turned up these threads.</p>

<p>I was able to install the EOS Utility (aka "EOS Viewer Utility"), Digital Photo Professional (DPP), ZoomBrowser EX, and PhotoStitch. The latter I think needed a registry key under one named "Canon_Inc_IC" (rather than just one under "Canon" -- it seems like there are now many registry entries now under both "Canon" and "Canon_Inc_IC"), and ZoomBrowser needed a key under it named "Install", in order to be happy.</p>

<p>I'm not very fond of these updater programs, though they do install the full program (i.e., they don't just contain the parts which have been changed and need updating). Some allow one to choose a directory for the program to install into, while most just auto-install into a "Canon" directory (in "Program Files") - which might be OK if I didn't have both a Canon printer and flatbed scanner already installed. It would have been nice to have been able to keep all the various programs separate, but oh well.</p>

<p>Canon really needs to put a note at their website about all this, because a zillion other sites which come up in searches as having the programs merely point to where Canon has the updater programs. There are older digital SLR cameras of theirs showing up on the used market every day. I'm guessing I didn't get the only one without the CD.</p>

<p>One does have to have a basic grasp of what "editing the registry" means, how to do it, etc. -- IOW this maybe isn't something to try for those who don't mess around with computer innards much. You should freshly backup your system state before fooling around with the registry if you don't know what you're doing because it's a crucial component, and, if you screw up, your computer may not work right afterwards (it may not work at all).</p>

 

<p>In practice I use the approach <a href="../photodb/user?user_id=136417">Michael Briggs</a> described, though I don't necessarily always go right for the middle of the focus range; if more of my important subject matter is nearer one end of the range I may go 60/40 or 70/30 or more towards it. Of course all this is <em>after</em> minimizing the focus range as much as possible using the camera's controls.</p>

<p>The swings and tilts are on the camera for a reason, and LF photography would be virtually impossible without them (except in very specialized circumstances) because the focal lengths of the lenses used are usually relatively long. In other words, you should learn to use the controls through much practice to minimize the focus range with each scene you're photographing so you're not always having to stop down to very high f-numbers. What are you gonna do in low light with leaves fluttering in the breeze, when you need 1/125th sec to keep things from blurring too much due to motion, but have to expose at f/5.6 because of dim light? If you simply say you want everything "as sharp as possible" from a few feet to infinity you're going to be boxing yourself in and forcing yourself to make compromises elsewhere that may be unacceptable -- and unnecessary.</p>

<p>"Acceptable sharpness", from which depth-of-field tables and hyperfocal distances are calculated, is somewhat subjective (since it depends on a choice for the value of the acceptable circle of confusion), and depends heavily on how much you intend to enlarge your originals. In reality there's no hard-and-fast distance at which things suddenly go in or out of focus. Rather, it's a gradual thing, more gradual the more you stop down.</p>

<p>^^^ Sorry, I'm in Colorado Springs and my local homebrew store only has <em>sodium</em> metabisulfite, so it's not a universal US thing. I notice some of the homebrew stores on eBay have the potassium variety -- if you don't mind paying about double due to the shipping charges.</p>

<p>For future reference, there's a real simple formula for calculating the pH of a weak acid solution:</p>

<p> pH = 1/2 * (pK - log[AH]),</p>

<p>where<br>

1) pK is the acid's dissociation constant (it's actually usually got a little sub "a" after it in the chemistry literature), and<br>

2) [AH] is the molar concentration of the weak acid in the solution -- the number of moles of the weak acid per liter of solution.</p>

<p>This formula is a simplification and is only valid for weak acids (and bases), not strong ones, in dilute solution. But it's probably more accurate than pH test paper, unless you get the kind which covers a very narrow range of pH's.</p>

<p>For citric acid monohydrate (the common variety), the formula weight is 210.14 gm/mole, so 20.0 gm/liter is an [AH] = 0.095 molar solution (close enough to 0.1M for government work -- or about 1/3rd as strong as lemon juice). Since pK for citric acid is 3.15, your pH will be ~2.1 according to the formula, which is pretty much what you found out.</p>

<p>One can look up formula weights and dissociation constants for most common weak acids on wikipedia, and of course any chemistry reference/handbook would have them. Citric acid is some 40 times stronger than acetic acid, since the latter has a pK of 4.75 (10^(4.75-3.15) = 40 ). Tartaric acid (pK = 3.0), the main acid in wine, is even stronger by a little than citric acid, while ascorbic acid (pK = 4.3) is closer to ascetic acid.</p>

<p>The reason the pH seems to rise so slowly with seemingly increasingly drastic reductions in the amount of citric acid used in the solution is because of the <em>logarithmic</em> nature of pH. (The pK's too...) So going down by a factor of 10, to 2.0 gms/liter, raises the pH only 1/2 a point according to the formula. For reference, when you mix up Kodak Indicator Stop Bath as recommended, it's about a 0.25M ascetic acid solution and has a pH = 2.7. This is about the same as citric acid at 2.0 gm/liter.</p>

<p>Many citric acid stop bath formulas are at the 15-20 gms/liter level, so if the pH of ~2 was too low I think the problem would have been discovered long ago and the formulas would be different, so evidently it's not too low for most users in most circumstances. Obviously one wants such a bath to last for some time, to have a decent capacity, so better too much than too little. People would complain bitterly if the mixes were too wimpy to last very long and they were spending all their time mixing chemicals.</p>

<p>For one-shot use, you'd want to calculate the amount of citric acid in the volume of solution actually used and check to see if it was sufficient to more than neutralize the amount of base in the developer being carried over into it (thinking in terms of moles will be needed here too). In other words, it's the pH at the <em>end</em> of the stop bath's usage which is important, not its pH at the beginning. One just wants its pH to not be much above ~5 after use; this is about the pH at which the bromocresol purple in Kodak Indicator Stop Bath starts to change. One of the much lower dilutions might actually be perfectly okay to use in this case, and of course your supply of citric acid would go a <em>lot</em> further using only as much as you really need to use to get the job done.</p>

 

And remember, there's no magical way to reduce noise (or increase the signal) in an existing image. All the software does is spread the noise around. The inevitable digital round-off error incurred by any operation means it adds some noise and thus reduces the signal-to-noise ratio.

> it is in Canon FD mount

 

I think I have the exact same lens as you. I don't do a lot of wildlife, and birds only when they've stopped moving. I always use the lens on a tripod... If you want to handhold, do you really need the super-tele? I'd use my f/4.5 300mm for something like that. I think the Tokina is a good to very good lens, but not superb.

 

Why not just buy a cheap Canon body for it? (FX, FTb, plus quite a few others)

Gerard - I don't think your last statement is correct in all cases; different springs are used for the slow speeds (1/25th or less) and for the fast speeds (1/50th or higher) in at least one shutter I know something about. It makes sense that this would/could be true for others too.

Pete - gotchya. Again thanks for the great quantitative info. Most useful.

 

I wish santa had brought me a 2 micron test slide... :>

 

I've made up a big hardcopy test card which I shoot with my actual lenses and film, but this tests the entire system and is clearly different from testing just the scanner. In another forum I made the point once that if one can get just 25-30 lines/mm, which is mediocre to poor resolution by modern standards, that the very hugeness of large format can still produce awesome large prints - the math works out to this being 7-10 million independent pixels.

 

And I agree, the film holding arrangement is less than ideal, but it actually works better (less sag) than I had first feared. Has the idea occured to you to turn the machine 90 degrees so the film hangs vertically? It's not easy to do because of the sleak, rounded-edge styling of the machine; and keeping the lid shut tight could be a problem. I have some Tech Pan 2415, which is of course on a very thin substrate, that I may eventually try to scan in a vertical configuration.

The spec sheet suggests you just want to obey voltage and current limits which are pretty liberal. The former is assured by the power source you use, whereas the latter is typically done with a resistor. I'm guessing you've got a meter of some sort (I think Radio Shack still sells those) and know Ohm's Law; both are likely to come in handy.

 

The test circuit they show there in the spec sheet is very similar to one I've used before with opto-isolators, which are common components that have a little LED shining onto a phototransistor, all inside a sealed case. (They're used for a bunch of things, but mainly to isolate two parts of a circuit electrically, using light as a one-way bridge across what would otherwise be a non-conductive air space). In fact you may want to build your circuit with one, then when everything is working replace it with separate light source and detector (w/shutter in between).

 

If you run into large minimum quantities or small order surcharges for the BPW-40, I can get you FPT-5902's locally for something like $1.50-$2.00 as a favor. I picked up 2 or 3 several years ago for playing around with but can't tell you much about them except they're easy to wire up to demonstrate they're sensitive to light. As you can see in the quicky picture below, they have a flatter top than the BPW-40. You can see the light sensitive area easily.<div></div>

Mick - I thought briefly about your concern and only can say I'd be flattered if someone thought enough of it to take it and do more than just look at it, like make money from it. What are they going to do when they're rich and famous and I can produce the original neg and point to my post where they obviously got it from? Not that I'd be likely to run across such a thief, but the risk seemed minimal and I wasn't going to paste my name across the middle of it and ruin it (anything inconspicuous down in a corner could easily be cropped out). Besides, I got plenty more where that one came from that are a whole lot better; it really was just an exposure test shot. But thanks for your concern. Feel free to keep a copy for personal use if you like.

 

Pete - thanks for the tips based on your experience. I tried some 4800 dpi scans first on an Ektachrome slide to see what the thing could do and noticed the same slight mushiness there as I did at 1200 dpi on this neg. Reviews have suggested 2400 dpi is about all one can really get out of the scanner, but it's something I'd like to do rigorous tests on to convince myself that it's true. But I thought it was pretty cool that the power lines about two miles out were easily visible. I had all the extra controls (like sharpening and grain reduction) OFF for the scan, in case anyone's interested.

 

I'm not particularly a fan of Vuescan based on trying it with some 35mm slides on another scanner, but it did strike me as strange that Canon would make a product capable of doing 20+ kilopixel scans in one dimension and then limit you to 10k... even a signed 16-bit integer should get one up to almost 33k, so it's something which required intention and extra lines of code in the program to put in place for whatever reason they did so.

I've been using for a very long time a 1960's vintage Calumet CC-400 monorail camera that I got used for next to nothing; many art schools used these to teach photography because they were indestructible. I haven't looked, but would be surprised if these were more than $75-100 on eBay. It's built like a tank and has survived banging around on rough roads with no damage longer than I care to recall. It's heavy enough that I can't say I've ever carried it more than about 1/4 mi.

 

It's not a precision instrument by any means, but I didn't really notice until I got into shorter focal lengths, say 110mm and below. Recessed lens boards are a must in the wide-angle regime, and I had to design/machine my own since the Calumet ones are hard to find and wouldn't work anyway -- modern super-wides use shutters w/diameters which are just a wee bit too big, or a very tight fit at best. I use it with a 75mm lens, and while it might not be ideal it works OK.

 

It came with a Graflex Optar 135mm f/4.5 lens which I used up til just a couple of years ago; these can be had in excellent shape for prob less than $50 on eBay. (I'm keeping mine as an emergency backup since what I might get for it doesn't make it worth selling). I've had enlargements up to 24" x 30" made from shots taken with this lens that are awesome. It's only drawback, besides not being multi-coated, is its very limited coverage, meaning front tilt/swing/rise/fall adjustments are miniscule. At longer focal lengths you'll typically have these adjustments available with older lenses like this.

 

Inexpensive Kodak Commercial Ektars are one variety that may also be readily available, inexpensive, and get you a long way down the road. With test charts I can say my Fuji 210mm is sharper than my old 8 1/2" Commercial Ektar, but only by about 50% in lines/mm -- it's not an order of magnitude as one might suspect given the huge difference in eras (basically pre- and post-computer design era). At 16x20 an average person wouldn't notice any difference unless their attention was called to it.

 

Ditto the other recommends for a good tripod; whatever you think will do the job, get the next step up in beefiness. I'd say you need a dozen film holders; if you buy used, a couple are bound to be leaky and unrepairable with black paint or new hinge tape. You can make a darkcloth with fabric store materials (2 layers: white outside, black inside) for next to nothing if you know anyone with a sewing machine; it's an extremely simple project, just be sure to weight the bottom corners to keep them down in the wind. And you can never have too many cable releases.

 

As others have said, once you get very basic equipment and use it some you'll learn what you really need and what's worth spending real $$'s on for the type of shooting you do. In my case the camera body itself is likely to be one of the last things I get around to upgrading. Good luck.

Taken from the overlook at the top of the bluff and park, looking out to the WSW

and Pikes Peak (right of center), this is nothing special... Actually it's a

test shot to get the filter factor for my center filter tweaked, and it's also

the first B&W neg I've tried scanning with my new Canon 9950F.<P>

 

Agfapan APX 100 film shot at ASA 64 w/K2 filter, 1/8th sec exposure. Original

scan at 1200 dpi (47.25/mm) was resampled down to 9% (0.81% by area!) for

posting here; simple crop/brightness/contrast/gamma corrections to scan, but no

sharpening.<P>

 

<A href="http://www.endlessrapture.info/506c_caf.jpg">Click here</a> to see the

unshrunk 5408 x 4224 (2.7Mb) version, which is about a 10 sec download @

broadband rates.<P><div></div>

I find warming filters absolutely essential since I live in Colorado and take pictures to ~12,000+ ft altitude, where the light can be of an appreciably higher color temperature than the 5500K which color films are designed for. Even normal daylight is typically up near 7000K, so unless I'm really pressed for time I almost always use an 81B or 81C. And I have a good/strong UV filter (like a B+W 420 or Wratten 2A) which actually absorbs UV on all my lenses since we've got a lot of UV up this high. Most so-called UV filters won't filter the UV from a blacklight much better than lens glass will.

 

I use both Wratten gel filters (I have a complete set of 81's) and generic threaded circular glass filters, though these require a bunch of step-up adapter rings (or are they step-downs? --can never remember...) for all the lenses I have whereas I've built a single gel filter holder which attaches to all my lens boards. The gels can be a hassle to use in windy conditions and generally require greater care in handling. But the glass filters are harder to find in unusual strengths in the size(s) needed, not to mention that they take up more space in the lens case if you use several different sizes and strengths. (One thing to watch out for is that the off-brands are frequently not what they say they are - eg, I have one marked 81C which measures out as closer to an 81B with a color temp meter.)

 

For twilight, deep shade, overcast conditions, or on sun-free snow I might use an 85 or 85C since the illumination is then essentially from the sky, which itself can have a color temp up in the 14-20K range and thus needs more warming than an 81 series filter can give.

 

I don't know anything about the Cokin system, so I can't comment there.

 

I got rid of all my Tiffen 812 filters after getting a grasp of what they really are. While many think they're the greatest thing in the world, I found their warming strength too low (they're weaker than an 81A) and their +R too high (they're about a +12R in Wratten CC units). In fact they're much closer to a +R filter than an 81-series warming filter. But I did like their UV absorption and wish someone made something like them which had solid UV absorption and warming in the 81B-81C range sans any +R; I even made the suggestion to someone at B+W as a special high altitude filter, but he started talking about quantities in the hundreds... But I think the Tiffen 812 would be great at livening up flesh tones at sea level, which is not my subject matter. So I can see why some like them a lot.

I don't want to get too technical on everyone because I appreciate quick-and-dirty approaches which get the job done, but what we're really after is the integrated exposure amount, I * t.

 

The photo-detector methods are really good for this since one can put a capacitor in the circuit and essentially integrate the total amount of light coming through while the shutter is open. (Or you could calculate the area under the light curve if you've time resolved it.) Be sure to use a low-leakage type of capacitor, or if you wanted to get really involved you could add a sample-and-hold circuit to the getup.

 

One can then make a table for all speeds and f-stops, from which one can derive a table of f-stop corrections for any given combo, since whatever its speed is the shutter speed is essentially unvariable, at least at a given temperature. But you generally only need to go to such trouble if super high precision ( <0.1 stops) is required, or you've got some indication that such corrections are needed due to a shutter being grossly out of whack or mismarked, or maybe you're just that way, you know. :>

 

Also, in case no one else mentioned it, the reason the audio sampling technique might not be working with higher shutter speeds is because many LF shutters use different springs for the slower and higher speeds, with the switch-over speed being right around 1/50th sec for older shutters and presumably 1/60th for newer ones (though I don't know for sure). The audio sampling rate, being well up in the kilo-hz's, certainly should be sufficient to do the fastest shutters commonly available.

I'm not sure what the current model number would be (LZ5?), but I got a Panasonic DMC-LZ2 about 14 months ago -- got it without much shopping around mainly because of the 6:1 zoom lens and the good reviews -- and have been pleasantly impressed with its many capabilities and general performance under a wide variety of conditions. It was about $250US.

 

I didn't think I'd really use the image stabilization feature, but have found it quite useful for lower light levels with ISO 80-100 where shutter speeds get down in the 1/8th-1/15th sec range.

 

For low light levels it has a night mode where it takes a dark frame and subtracts it during read-out, reducing noise. The exposure time is 8 sec (double that when you take into account the time to take the dark frame). It's really rather nifty and can produce some remarkable results. Otherwise I can't say I've used it much at ISO 200 or 400 in generic low-light conditions.

 

The widest the lens can go is about equivalent to a 38mm lens @35mm format, which is only barely into the wide angle regime; it would have been nice if they'd gotten that down a few more mm's since I don't tend to use the extreme telephoto focal length at the other end of the zoom range, but that's life and I understand why achieving something in the 28-30mm equivalent range is difficult.

 

So any gripes I have would be quite small. Again I'm not sure but would suppose that other comparable brands and models might be, well, comparable. Your choice might be determined by specific feature sets.

And then I guess with the advent of the Cold War and the constant threat of large scale nuclear annihilation by the 1950's they had to downplay Pan<I>atomic</I>-X...<P>

 

Sorry, I too couldn't resist.<P>

Roger, wrt "Marketing ISO and true ISO"...

 

Doesn't the fact that so many of us are shooting at speeds appreciably slower than is on the boxes suggest that the ISO standard is not particularly relevant, however standardized, internally consistent, and logically beautiful it may be?

 

Or do you think all our equipment, including our visual evaluation equipment, is mis-calibrated?

 

--- end of comment wrt Roger's post ---

 

Before getting into ZS EI's with a particular film/developer combo, I think it's important to know if you're dealing with a long-toe film or a short-toe one. You do this by looking at characteristic curves put out by the manufacturers (unless you've got a densitometer and can make your own). To insure one is getting the same kind of curve, the same developer as was used should be a first choice. When AA made up the ZS in the 50's and 60's short-toe films (like Super-XX) were more the norm because photography then was dominated by pros. With the explosive popularity in amateur 35mm starting in the late 60's long-toe films, which had much more "latitude" (tolerance to mis-exposure), took over.

 

Why is this important? Because exposing to the canonical ZS D=0.1 above FB+F (film base + fog) with a long-toe film may not give enough density in zones II and III, which are still pretty much down on the toe. The result is muddled low values. Printing on higher contrast paper or developing the film longer to compensate then causes problems with the contrast of the high values being too high (i.e., blown highlights).

 

The fix is to expose longer and move the entire tonal scale up the curve. Then you just print through the extra density in the lowest zones. At least one person (wish I could recall who) suggested basing EI's on zone III densities rather than zone I; ZIII is still low enough to not be heavily dependent on development. This seems like not a bad idea.

 

But in answer to the question: "push" processing means "more development than normal", but as other have said this is merely N+X development where X is unknown. As all ZS fans know, there's really no such thing as pushing a film's speed (toe speed, that is) by increasing development (with a given developer).

 

Trying to explain what you're hoping to accomplish to the counter people at even a so-called custom lab is almost certain to be in a language they don't understand, as you've experienced. They're good, to greater or lesser degrees, at "customer satisfaction", not hitting technical aim points. And this is true IME even if you spell it out step-by-step in a language you'd think would work.

-Not everyone. I've been doing photography of some sort for 30+ years but managed to only get to my first bottle of Rodinal - just a 125ml one - about two years ago. It's still probably at least half full. I don't think it's the greatest stuff since sliced bread like so many others do, but it has its uses. So I'd just like a 500ml bottle to last me the next decade or so.

 

But I'm not gonna pay $0.30 per sheet of 4x5 to process in Rodinal (what eBay prices work out to) when I can mix my own developer which I think is better (much finer grain) for less than a penny a sheet.

 

Otherwise, the whole current deal w/Rodinal strikes me as being slightly silly. I can certainly get along just fine without it.

Considering the fact that not everyone may have ½gm glycin around... that formula probably works a lot like D-19 would except that the concentration of developing agents (and sulfite) is much lower (by about 4x), meaning you'd have to develop longer with the grain enhancing developer.<P>

 

The key thing is the similarly high carbonate concentration, which puts the pH way up near 12. That's such hot stuff it's sure to make the grains dance around and clump. I think diluting D-19 about 1+3 with a 5% NaCarb sol'n would give similar results. And because of the slightly higher sulfite concentration it should be good for more than a few hours, though not so high as to eat away at those precious grains.<P>

> It is called long term planing...

 

Or slightly obscene, depending on how you look at it.

 

A 500ml bottle went on eBay less than two weeks ago for about four times what retail was a month ago... It had me thinking how bizarre free markets are in that the first people to hoard something in short supply basically end up getting a lot of it free just at the time when free market theory says the price should be going up (and certainly higher than free) -- i.e., someone who had rushed out and bought four bottles could sell one on eBay and cover their costs for all four, essentially getting three free bottles in the process. It's like just when supplies are getting tight some are getting what amounts to lots of free stuff.

 

I'm sure there would be plenty left to go around if people hadn't acted like they were trying to get out of a burning building. Remember, single file, everyone. JMO.

"a general rule of thumb"?

 

No. Not only is how it's been stored important but the type of film can make a huge difference. Some films fog, others just lose speed (sometimes a lot).

 

At two years Plus-X could still be in decent shape and you may even have trouble telling it's a bit long in the tooth.

> ...a high contrast developer primarily used for scientific films...<P>

 

I used to use D-19 a lot with astronomical emulsions, where it was the standard soup. 4 mins at 68°F was typical. I believe D-19 was thought to develop to completion (though I don't know if that was true), meaning you don't get more contrast beyond a certain length of time. It's a high sulfite developer, so longer times using it undiluted should result in silver solvency according to theory -- meaning silver grains dissolving and getting smaller, though I don't know what the actual truth is.<P>

 

If you want even more activity than D-19 can deliver, I'd suggest trying to "nitro" it by adding some NaOH (lye) to it to increase its pH. Stock D-19 should have a pH right around 12.0, which is high by the standards of "regular" developers, but not as high as you can go! You could also boost contrast by adding more hydroquinone if you have some available.<P>

RE: Low Contrast Development<P>

 

I would suggest people also look into the Selective Latent Image Manipulation Technique at <A HREF="http://www.codemastersworkshop.com/frontdoor/cont_pt3.htm" target=new>SLIMT</A>. This is a pre-processing step taken just before development which reduces contrast by proportionally removing latent image silver.<P>

 

I was trying to make B&W negatives from 4x5 Ektachrome slides on Ilford 100 Delta via contact printing. With a density range in the slide of over 3 (1:1000+ in regular language), I needed a gamma of roughly 1/3rd in the B&W material to end up with a negative with a density range around 1 that would print more or less normally. (The other way to look at this is that I had a range of ten zones or more in the original "scene" and needed to bring it down nearer to 7-8 zones, or something like N-3 developement.) I had pushed normal things like dilution, development time, and using weaker accelerators in the developer mix to their plausible limits but was still getting very contrasty negatives -- too contrasty to print even on low-grade papers w/soft developers. Post-processing reduction of the neg in a supposedly proportional two-step version of Farmer's Reducer was bringing the highlights down but causing me to loose shadow detail too with this particular film (ie, the reducer was acting more like a subtractive one than a proportional one).<P>

 

Well, my very first shot at SLIMT basically worked. It can certainly be tweaked some, but the results are pretty amazing considering the net simplicity of it.<P>

 

My recipe is as follows:<P>

 

Start with 1) a ½% sol'n of potassium ferricyanide; for my granular chem this is ¼ tsp into 9 fl. oz. (266.31 ml) of water; 2) a 10% sol'n of potassium bromide; for my granular chem this is 2 tspn in 125 ml of water. There's nothing sacred in these proportions -- I happened to have the first solution on hand from the Farmer's Reducer experiments and the second is just something one might have on hand if working with developers which sometime need added restrainers (which KBr is).<P>

 

Take 59 ml of the first and add 1 ml of the second to it. This gives the proper ratio of the ferricyanide and bromide. 5 ml of this combo diluted down to 125 ml of working sol'n gives the weakest dilution Mr. Kachel mentions. It turns out to be a bit on the potent side IMO with this film, so you may want to use 3-4 ml instead. Scale volumes up or down depending on how much sol'n your processing operation requires, using the same amount of this pre-bath as you would developer.<P>

 

I gave my exposed but un-developed film 6 minutes in this bath (72°F), which turns a blue-black by the end of the treatment. But don't panic, things will work out. Even though it looks awful and you're sure the film is ruined, or that carryover will wreck the developer, there is no rinse step and it goes immediately into the developer. One stops, fixes, and washes as usual.<P>

 

I still had some soft-working developer (maybe an N-1 or N-1½ developer) on hand which I used, increasing the development time 12-13% to partially compensate for its inherently low contrast nature. Mr. Kachel recommends using a normal developer and developing normally. My results back up this recommendation. My negative contrast came out a little on the low side, but maybe only one paper grade's worth -- ie, not a disaster.<P>

 

I did note a loss in film speed, which Kachel says shouldn't happen, but it's maybe on the order of ½ stop or less. There was no fog, though when wet the negative had a pinkish cast to it in the clearer areas which vanished almost entirely upon drying.<P>

 

I was just about to start trying two-bath and water-bath development methods when I turned up SLIMT and as you can see I'm an instant believer. For what I was trying to do it seemed like the answer to what was starting to look like a possible dead-end.<P>

 

P.S. - some of the other pages at that site will perhaps make one think differently about a phrase like "...will allow the mid-range tones to develop fully"; at least one of the techniques there is designed to do exactly the opposite. Worth reading about...<P>

I was able to partly answer my own question: the HCl version is much more soluble. Haven't found anything on dry state keeping properties.

> I don't know that word or abbreviation, but I'm sure it stands for<BR>

> "anhydrous" or "dessicated"...<P>

 

As in des<B>sicc</B>ated.<P>

 

Of course!<P>

 

Or should I have said "I see"?<P>