2-bath D76 ... or other 2-bath ... your experience?

juan said:

I once used Faber’s divided D76 formula in a very high contrast situation. It flattened the contrast well. But I didn’t find the results better than I could get using other means.

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Thank you for sharing your experience. I've yet to use Faber's formula but may want to if Emofin really does become unavailable. Most of my desert world is very high contrast, which I probably should have mentioned.

I'm less interested in "flatness" than in depicting detail in deep shadow while retaining highlight detail, and Emofin excels there. Not incidentally, I Nikonscan all my 35mm negatives, new and old, which, along with inkjet printing makes me appreciate higher acutance than is possible with standard optical enlarging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acutance

RalphLambrecht said:

I answered your question, which was about experience, in post #3. that was as specific as I can get on this issue!

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Thanks. I apparently mis-read your response.

David Allen said:

Barry Thornton's Two-Bath developer is very simple and cheap to make.

For my kind of photography, I exclusively use Delta 400 (rated at 200) developed in Barry Thornton's Two-Bath developer.

All of the images on my website were made using this combination.

I can highly recommend this two-bath if you photograph in similar conditions to me.

Bests,

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Thank you! Beautiful work http://www.dsallen.de/publication.php Wish I could see more in somewhat greater size/detail. My primary experience with German photography has been that of Bernd and Hilla Becher...mostly very low contrast situations...don't know how they developed their 8X10 film...

https://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/bernd-and-hilla-becher

BradS said:

If you are careful and know what you are doing, you can achieve the same result with the ordinary D76 and D23.

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RalphLambrecht said:

sorry but, my experience is that two-bath developers are a waste of time.gone back to one-shot developers exclusively.

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Neither of you say that two-bath developers give poor results. If using a two-bath developer gives me results as good as a skilled and careful person can get with one shot developers, then why not?

John51 said:

Neither of you say that two-bath developers give poor results. If using a two-bath developer gives me results as good as a skilled and careful person can get with one shot developers, then why not?

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One problem with two-baths is the shelf life, the dev will be dead with no warning. I keep track of the number of rolls run thru it. Even the legendary Diafine goes bad. With one-shot devs, it's always fresh.

jim appleyard said:

One problem with two-baths is the shelf life, the dev will be dead with no warning. I keep track of the number of rolls run thru it. Even the legendary Diafine goes bad. With one-shot devs, it's always fresh.

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Interesting. By contrast, Emofin seems never to go bad, works fine even when it looks like espresso coffee... perhaps my success had to do with returning used A and used B to their respective bottles of A and B. On the other hand, perhaps my success was like Jim's due to counting rolls per Emofin data sheet.

John51 said:

Neither of you say that two-bath developers give poor results. If using a two-bath developer gives me results as good as a skilled and careful person can get with one shot developers, then why not?

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Yes. And the only one-shot I've seen that rivals Emofin for acutance is Rodinal.

I like two baths developer! However Emofin and Diafine are very high energy developers, with very different energy than split D-76 or Thornton.
Back in the day, for availabile light situations with out control of contrast by photographer (dark interiors with mix lighting, concerts, etc) with 400iso+ films the best developers were Emofin, Diafine or home brew I had recipe for. I never had used them for daylight situation. Grain was just to pronounced for my taste.

no experience with d76 or rodinal or accufine or any of the other developers mentioned used split.
have the ingredients for dd23 but haven't mixed it yet. divided sumatranol130 works well
with any film any iso ( e6c41b/w) as well as paper. and the caffenol130 part lasts for 5-6 months
heavy use without replenshment so it costs about 1¢/roll if one is a penny pincher. ansco130 lasts
for over a year in stock solution dilute in a tray even after it is black like cocacola.
good to see you back in the thread ralph !

jtk said:

Visited your website.. your "experience" with B&W is evidently lacking. Or..perhaps you can find someone to help you describe that experience.

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Ralph, Apologies for questioning your experience with B&W processing and printing. You have admirable enthusiasts.

Being focused on a different aspect of photography I have by choice never explored books about darkroom technique etc, just Zone System via Minor White/Ansel Adams and with their direct students. The best B&W inkjet prints I've seen, in terms of absolute print quality, specifically for "scenic" images, have involved home-brew carbon pigments and exquisite use of PS, but that's another discussion.

jtk said:

perhaps my success had to do with returning used A and used B to their respective bottles of A and B. On the other hand, perhaps my success was like Jim's due to counting rolls per Emofin data sheet.

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I believe the SOP is to return each bath to the appropriate bottle. That's what I've always done and I still found that the dev would die. I started limiting the number of rolls to six per batch.

John51 said:

Neither of you say that two-bath developers give poor results. If using a two-bath developer gives me results as good as a skilled and careful person can get with one shot developers, then why not?

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This does not imply that divided developers (and two bath developers) do not need to skilled and careful use.
If it works for you and gives results you want...go for it. Do and use whatever floats your boat.
For me, two bath (like Diafine) and divided (like divided D76 , divided D23 and Thorton's) require extra time and effort and do not produce significantly better results.

I used to do a lot of experimentation with developers. Having done the testing, I have been using D-76 almost exclusively for many years. In my opinion, it is far better to invest the time and effort into learning how to use one or two of the well established, main stream developers than to search for "the magic bullet". caveat emptor.

jtk said:

Visited your website.. your "experience" with B&W is evidently lacking. Or..perhaps you can find someone to help you describe that experience.

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Sir you are a Pratt, two bath development is a waste of time and you should not dismiss the experience of someone like Ralph Lambrecht.

juan said:

I once used Faber’s divided D76 formula in a very high contrast situation. It flattened the contrast well. But I didn’t find the results better than I could get using other means.

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Yes, that was my experience as well.

I have to disagree and agree, there are times that the scene brightness range exceeds the latitude of a given film. In the old days some used water bath development or preflashing film, in these rare cases a divided developer can be useful rather than try and fix in the darkroom. I have not much luck with staining developers, lost too many negatives to stain. True, flashing paper, using split grade printing and using other special techs can work, but using a split developer is a lot less work. The other times I used Diafine is in the hot low desert summers when my tap water is 90 degrees. I could develop at 80 degrees, keep the other chemistry at 80 then after hypo clearing give the film a short wash at 90 degrees. Other times when as PJ working in Africa Diafine was a god sent when I had to develop in the field. No worries about temp control, just a wrist watch for a timer, got the job done. Last when I needed to shoot TriX at 1600 to 3200. In those olden days film had thicker emulsions and could be pushed to higher E.I. in Diafine. Again these are not normal circumstances, I would not give up my standard single bath developers for a 2 bath developer.

jim appleyard said:

One problem with two-baths is the shelf life, the dev will be dead with no warning. I keep track of the number of rolls run thru it. Even the legendary Diafine goes bad. With one-shot devs, it's always fresh.

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I've not read of sudden death syndrome with D23 or D76 so I assume that it's bath B that croaks early? Easy enough to replace bath B if it means getting more rolls out of bath A.

jim appleyard said:

One problem with two-baths is the shelf life, the dev will be dead with no warning. I keep track of the number of rolls run thru it. Even the legendary Diafine goes bad. With one-shot devs, it's always fresh.

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This statement does not match my experience. With Barry Thornton's Two-Bath developer it is good for 15 rolls and will keep for at least 6 months. If it does go off you will see this in a noticeable change in colour (only experienced this once). You can mix double the amount of Bath B and then process up to 30 rolls by using half for the first 15 rolls and then the second half for the second 15 rolls. The Bath A has the capacity to do this. Naturally, a one shot developer is always fresh and HC110 dilution B is what I always use when teaching people (especially as they are not processing lots of films in a short space of time so the HC110 is both very economical and very long lasting). However, for my own personal work (where I am often photographing an image that includes a courtyard in shadow that has been darkened through bombing and the use of coal to heat apartments and includes newly painted white walls in full sunlight) the two-bath developer gives me more appropriate results.

If you make such statements then you should really do so with a more detailed explanation of why you are making such a comment as 'fact'. For example, a close friend of mine uses Diafine with Tri-X for her street photography and has never had it go bad on her. She mixes it up a new batch every January and discards it at the end of the year. Never ever has she had a problem. What were the circumstances in your case? Was there perhaps contamination? Had you not used it for a number of years, etc?

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

John51 said:

I've not read of sudden death syndrome with D23 or D76 so I assume that it's bath B that croaks early? Easy enough to replace bath B if it means getting more rolls out of bath A.

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I don't know which bath goes first. I tossed both at the same time w/o doing further tests to see which one died, or both.

David Allen said:

This statement does not match my experience. With Barry Thornton's Two-Bath developer it is good for 15 rolls and will keep for at least 6 months. If it does go off you will see this in a noticeable change in colour (only experienced this once). You can mix double the amount of Bath B and then process up to 30 rolls by using half for the first 15 rolls and then the second half for the second 15 rolls. The Bath A has the capacity to do this. Naturally, a one shot developer is always fresh and HC110 dilution B is what I always use when teaching people (especially as they are not processing lots of films in a short space of time so the HC110 is both very economical and very long lasting). However, for my own personal work (where I am often photographing an image that includes a courtyard in shadow that has been darkened through bombing and the use of coal to heat apartments and includes newly painted white walls in full sunlight) the two-bath developer gives me more appropriate results.

If you make such statements then you should really do so with a more detailed explanation of why you are making such a comment as 'fact'. For example, a close friend of mine uses Diafine with Tri-X for her street photography and has never had it go bad on her. She mixes it up a new batch every January and discards it at the end of the year. Never ever has she had a problem. What were the circumstances in your case? Was there perhaps contamination? Had you not used it for a number of years, etc?

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

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It's a fact for me. I cannot get 15 rolls thru Thornton's even tho I'm using distilled water, using glass bottles and definitely avoiding contamination. I hit 6 rolls and dump. The devs are rather fresh, sitting around for only a few weeks, at worst. Same with Diafine, although I will a few more rolls thru it. If it sits for a few weeks, it loses strength.

jim appleyard said:

I don't know which bath goes first. I tossed both at the same time w/o doing further tests to see which one died, or both.

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hi jim, couldnt you have just done a clip test ?
the 2nd bath is just borax ( DD23 )
#1 is the one with metol sodium sulfite + sodium bisulfite ... clip in, lights on, turns black still good ...
( yeah, i know might not have been your formula seeing there are as many DD23 formulas as there are people who use it.
the one i will eventually use when i run out of coffee is this one >>> https://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/DD-23/dd-23.html )
the Dsumatranol130 gives me the same exact negatives as if it was mixed together in 1 bath.

I've done clip tests, yes. The first time a two bath died on me, it ruined a roll of film. That's when I started doing the tests. I might be able to squeeze a couple of more rolls out of Thornton's, but 6 is a safe bet. I certainly don't get the 15 rolls that others do. Why are my two-baths dying??? I don't know. Distilled water, chemistry from Artcraft, etc.

jim appleyard said:

I've done clip tests, yes. The first time a two bath died on me, it ruined a roll of film. That's when I started doing the tests. I might be able to squeeze a couple of more rolls out of Thornton's, but 6 is a safe bet. I certainly don't get the 15 rolls that others do. Why?

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no real reason why, i was just wondering if it was possible or if there is something different about the first bath. ( since i have never used DD23 before and i figured you were experience in the magic )

Oh, I meant "why do my two-baths die?" , not why were you asking. I made a correction to my post. Thornton's "A" and DD23 "A" are quite similar.

Here's a short bit about Diafine dying. Read the posts from Paul Howell and Roger Cole, two well-respected members here. They don't give specifics, only that Diafine does die.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/simple-diafine-question.96241/print

jim appleyard said:

It's a fact for me. I cannot get 15 rolls thru Thornton's even tho I'm using distilled water, using glass bottles and definitely avoiding contamination. I hit 6 rolls and dump. The devs are rather fresh, sitting around for only a few weeks, at worst. Same with Diafine, although I will a few more rolls thru it. If it sits for a few weeks, it loses strength.

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Hi Jim,

do you use a pre-soak? I always do because when I was a wee lad I had problems with drag on the rebates of 35mm film and a two minutes pre-soak sorted this out. I have always used a pre-soak regardless of which developer I am using and teach all of my students to do this. I have about 40 former students who regularly use Barry Thornton's Two-Bath developer (either made up by me or they make it themselves) and nobody but nobody has problems achieving 15 rolls with Barry Thornton's Two-Bath developer or indeed 30 rolls with two batches of Bath B. Perhaps there is something in the anti-halation dye that effects the developer or changes the PH? The pre-soak stops the developer taking on the strong colour of the anti-halation dye but, perhaps, something else from the anti-halation dye is causing your two-bath to die so early?

I would be very interested to know what is happening with your Barry Thornton's Two-Bath developer as six rolls is both miserable and expensive.

Following on from this, my friend who uses Diafine with Tri-X mixes up one solution per year in January and uses this until the end of December. She has never had the problem that you describe with it stopping working. She typically processes two films per week. I have just called her and she also always uses a pre-soak. Perhaps the problem that you have encountered is related to either lack of pre-soak (perhaps something strange from the anti-halation dye is causing your problems) or Diafine is particularily sensitive to not being regularly used? - this is something that Michael or Gerald could far better answer than me.

I find it very strange to hear that you have had such a bad experience with two-bath developers and would live to know of an effective solution to the problem.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

David, Thanks for the help. No, I've never used a pre-0soak with a two-bath/divided. I have used a pre-soak with Rodinal or Pyrocat HD, but not with two bath. Perhaps it's time to try! I have very little to lose, but have never achieved the full number of rolls that others have. I have Barry Thornton's book, a good one, and was really looking forward to getting 15 rolls out of his two-bath. I was quite disappointed in reaching 9 (or whatever the number was). I've also tried most/all of the two-baths in Anchells, Anchell/Troop's books and same result. I'll let you know.