A Metol-Sulfite Developer for Ortho Litho Film

I recently resumed experimenting with homebrew developers after a long period of not doing anything in photography. I've read about Jim Galli's diluted Rodinal with added restrainer developer and viewed some of the linked images, and they're impressive.

But I wanted to see what I could come up with from my stock of dry raw chems, and I don't have any Rodinal on hand. Metol and sodium sulfite were picked because D-23 has a reputation for not blowing out highlights and not producing contrasty negatives. Instead of mixing a batch of D-23 and diluting it, the ingredients were mixed at tray dilution and different concentrations of ingredients and development times were tried.

I figured, if D-23 has fairly low activity with a high concentration of sodium sulfite, it might have somewhat lower activity if just enough sulfite was added to prevent oxidation of the metol during the processing session. A low concentration of metol might help with the very contrasty litho films.

What I'm using now is:

1000 ml water
A pinch of sodium sulfite to prevent oxidation of the metol
2 grams metol
10 grams sodium sulfite

Development time is about two and a half minutes at 70 deg F.

I started shooting the Arista Ortho Litho film at about ISO 2, but wasn't getting any shadow detail. So exposures were gradually increased and development shortened a bit. What's that old saying, "Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights"?

I ended up with an exposure of 6 seconds at f32 in slightly hazy sun, resulting in an ISO of about 0.7 or so. Some of the negs have decent shadow detail.

Uneven development of negatives with edges darker than the center was a problem when the negatives were being developed in 8X10 trays. I tried different agitation methods including sliding the film out and back into the developer, but the dark edges persisted. Then tried larger trays, food storage containers from the big box store. This helped, but not completely.

Finally, I went for total overkill and bought a 16X20 tray for development. I had to mix two liters of developer to cover the tray bottom.

Upside - Uneven development all gone! A gentle agitation is all that's needed to get the 8X10 negative sliding around in the tray, from end to end and side to side. Easy as pie.

Downside - Uses lots of chemistry. But this isn't really so bad, because when litho films are developed for continuous tones, the developers are usually very dilute.

Equipment: Seneca Improved View, 8X10. The first image was shot with a beater 12" Dagor in an Ilex #4 shutter. Exposure was 6 seconds at f32 in slightly hazy sun. Film was an old batch of Arista Ortho Litho film bought in 2001. Contact printed on Ilford MG IV FB paper, scan of print.

The second image was shot with the same camera and a recently acquired Turner-Reich triple in 12"/19.7"/25" f7.0. Exposure was 8 seconds at f32. Film was a more recent batch of Arista APHS only about 2 years old. Little shadow detail, as the shadows were darker than in the first scene. Negative scan on a flatbed scanner. The scanned image is contrastier than I think a print will be.

This will be a lot of fun, but I don't think I'll ever get the same tonality as a film designed for continuous tone in-camera negatives. The litho film is just designed for completely different work.

I've used a 0.3 - 0.9 - 0.9 grams metol - sulfite - carbonate
formula for developing a usual roll of 120; a 1/2 liter solution
volume with inversion agitation.

I suggest less metol, perhaps 0.5 grams/liter, and as little
agitation as is consistent with even development. Local area
developer depletion and bromide inhibition are the name of
the game. Allow more time. Less sulfite and an equal
amount of carbonate with so little metol may
give good results. Dan

You might want to look at Soemarko LC-1.
http://www.farahmahbub.com/VirtualMatter/formulasGalore.htm. The first Google lead is a dead one.
He uses a lower pH by adding bisulfite to get more manageable times. Also as much HQ to rejuvenate the metol. At the low pH HQ doesn't develop at all. 9g of metabisulfite equals 10g of bisulfite.
You can start from there maybe. I am trying this method with ImageLink-HQ micro film with some success.
Murray

Yes, Murray Kelly and Inception Technologies in New Hampshire is the place to by the 35mm (non perf) 100 foot rolls of HQ Imagelink. They sell a rebranded version (Kodak Professional Film) at $13.20 a roll but minumum 50 rolls. The only downside to the HQ (other than speed of about two stops slower than Tech Pan or Pan F is the terrible latitude. When you try to expose just a little more for shadow detail you get blocked highlights even if you do not over develop. But for low contrast scenes the film is studendous and then some. - David Lyga.

Thanks for that information, David. At the moment I am concentrating on the 16mm unperfed IL-HQ ( 4 spools) and a half spool of the Bluefire. It is tricky stuff indeed.
My comment about the LC-1 was prompted because of my surprise about how much agitation it needed. Like Dan I was thinking maybe stand development like all the dilute devs I had tried. But the recommended use of the LC-1 is for lots of sloshing in the tray. Kinda like the Technidol instructions - vigorous up and down every 30 seconds. That has a pH of 8.8 as I measure it. Less than sulfite.
So Desertrat might like to try another tack.
Oh, and Dan, the LC-1 has a metol concentration of 0.6g/L working, so it fits well with your advice.
Just a thought.
Murray

A weak catechol - Sodium hydroxide developer would give you even better tonality.

JPD said:

A weak catechol - Sodium hydroxide developer would give you even better tonality.

Click to expand...

Yes, Patric, I was advised that by several folk and tried it. I used pyrocat-MC in fact and it was not as good as Rodinal 1:200 or any of the diluted developers. I have come to the conclusion it is not a good way to achieve low contrast. Just my own thought, I add. Lots differ.
I think it was the level of the pH of Technidol set me to thinking and I measured the pH of the sulfite/bisulfite combination as used in the Soemarko LC-1 but without the metol and HQ and it was 7.5. I was so surprised I checked the meter. Metol might even push it down a tiny bit more.
My results at pH 8.1 with a close formulation to this LC-1 before I measured it's pH, were better than a phenidone/ascorbate/borax formula I tried a year ago. I was pretty keen on that at the time.
I only mention these things because desertrat posted a couple of frames and the extra info might help him to get even better results than those with the developer formulae he's tried already. I don't think pushing the pH up would be the way to go. His development time is short enough already.
With Imagelink (not lith) I was out to 15-20 mins at pH8.1
Murray

Murray Kelly said:

Yes, Patric, I was advised that by several folk and tried it. I used pyrocat-MC in fact and it was not as good as Rodinal 1:200 or any of the diluted developers.

Click to expand...

Pyrocat-MC contains metol as well as catechol. I had good results with a catechol developer with Efke OP12 lith film, that was much better than Rodinal 1+300.

Modified Mimosa No. 3:

A:
sodium sulfite 30g
pyrocatechin 20g
potassium bromide 0.5g

B:
10% NaOH

The amounts of chemicals for Part 1 are for one liter, but can of course be adjusted. I use to make 300 ml. For use it can be mixed 1 part of A and 20 parts water, plus 5-10 ml of B per liter. I don't have my notes here, though.

The original formula and dilution can be found here: http://hem.fyristorg.com/pbackman/recept/enmina.htm It uses Sodium Carbonate for part B.

Modified Windisch developer could also be used, and one can of course experiment with the dilutions.

Thank you for that, Patric. I haven't seen that link before and have bookmarked it.
There are so many formulae and so little time
I will have a good look in the morning. It is nearly 1am here.
Thanks again.
Murray

I got the notes I made around ten years ago when experimenting with the Efke OP12 lith film and the above modified Mimosa No. 3 developer:

"Expose at 3 ASA.

20ml of Part A
5ml of Part B

Water to 1000ml. Develop for ca 5 minutes at room temperature" (usually 20-22ºC in my darkroom)

I didn't keep a single negative or print from my experiment, but they had a turn-of-the-last-century look.

JPD said:

Pyrocat-MC contains metol as well as catechol. I had good results with a catechol developer with Efke OP12 lith film, that was much better than Rodinal 1+300.

Modified Mimosa No. 3:

A:
sodium sulfite 30g
pyrocatechin 20g
potassium bromide 0.5g

B:
10% NaOH

The amounts of chemicals for Part 1 are for one liter, but can of course be adjusted. I use to make 300 ml. For use it can be mixed 1 part of A and 20 parts water, plus 5-10 ml of B per liter. I don't have my notes here, though.

The original formula and dilution can be found here: http://hem.fyristorg.com/pbackman/recept/enmina.htm It uses Sodium Carbonate for part B.

Modified Windisch developer could also be used, and one can of course experiment with the dilutions.

Click to expand...

I would be very surprised that any pyrocatechol based developer could tame the high contrast of lith film. Pyrocatechol is very similar to hydroquinone, which is the high contrast any most MQ developers. In order to get a low contrast developer with a pyrocatechol based developer you would have to dilute it a lot, and by the time you do that it will exhaust fairly quickly during development, leaving you with a high contrast image on a high contrast lith film.

If anyone can come up with a bullet proof developer that will develop lith film exposed in the field to a fairly low density range I would be very interested in trying it.


Sandy King

Sandy, LC-1B comes really close, but I prefer to use it for enlarging negatives.

Andrew O'Neill said:

Sandy, LC-1B comes really close, but I prefer to use it for enlarging negatives.

Click to expand...

Yes, LC-1B was designed for making enlarged negatives, where the contrast range is much less than when exposing film in the field. I have experimented with LC-1B several times with lith films
in out of door situations and could not come close to acceptable results with most films, except in very low contrast situations. I do have some very old Kodak Ortho Lith film that works much better than any of the modern stuff I have tried, but unfortunately this film was discontinued over two decades ago.

Sandy King

POTA

sanking said:

If anyone can come up with a bullet proof developer that will
develop lith film exposed in the field to a fairly low density
range I would be very interested in trying it. Sandy King

Click to expand...

POTA is the classic example of a developer for contrast control
of field exposed high contrast films.

For a discussion of it and variants enter at Google, film
developing cookbook pota . Pages 96 through 99 offer
a considerable amount of information. Dan

dancqu said:

POTA is the classic example of a developer for contrast control
of field exposed high contrast films.

For a discussion of it and variants enter at Google, film
developing cookbook pota . Pages 96 through 99 offer
a considerable amount of information. Dan

Click to expand...

Are the micro type films like Technical Pan similar to lith emulsions? My understanding is that films like Tech Pan occupied an intermediate place between traditional continuous tone films and lith films intended for the graphic arts.

Sandy

sanking said:

Are the micro type films like Technical Pan similar to lith emulsions? My understanding is that films like Tech Pan occupied an intermediate place between traditional continuous tone films and lith films intended for the graphic arts.

Sandy

Click to expand...

Sorry if I muddied the waters of the thread when I pointed to Soemarko LC-1 and commented that micro films responded to the same sort of developers.
I didn't mean that the emulsions were the same but I think they do have very similar characteristics when trying for pictorial use.
The LC-1 'is' for lith film but I'm starting to find a similar approach fits better with micro than what I've been trying to use.
Sorry to confuse.
Murray

The most contrasty 35mm microfilm is Adox CMS 20 and I found that H&W Control with continual agitation to prevent blotches will tame this.
www.frugalphotographer.com/info-formulary-general.htm
msds of modern microfilm developers like Adotech and Spur Imagespeed shows that phenidone derivate is preferred over metol.
IDK if you can get them to work with lith film.

Some New Exposures

Thanks for the advice and info. I posted this also at the LF forum, and Andrew O'Neill suggested pre-exposure to help improve shadow detail. He does this in the camera, metering and making zone system calculations and then pre-exposing through a piece of translucent white acrylic plastic. The zone system calculations are what left desertrat behind!

Another user on a different thread pre-exposes in the darkroom with his safelight. This concept was easier to understand. I used my 6X6 color enlarger for a light source. Yellow + Magenta = Red, which Ortho film is blind to. I figured if I used less than max filtration with these colors, a little white light would get through, just enough to give manageable exposure times. After some experimentation, I arrived at 100Y + 100M with the 80mm lens aperture set at f16 for 10 seconds. This produced just a little density in test clips of film, just enough to get past the exposure threshold.

Then I tried longer exposures in the camera to see if a little more shadow density could be obtained. After pre-exposing the first sheet of film under the enlarger, I took the film holder outside to the camera waiting just inside the garage door, only to discover the sky had become overcast. Determined to make an exposure anyway, I shot the driveway scene for 45 seconds at f32, equivalent to about 11 seconds under sunny 16 conditions.

The first image has a sudden change in density in the foreground in the lower right hand corner. This was a developing oops on my part. The negative didn't get submerged completely in the developer, and I just kept agitating, figuring the developer would wash over it pretty quickly. That didn't happen, so I pushed the negative down into the developer but the damage had already been done. Development was for 3 minutes, and the negative was almost too contrasty to print. Contact printed on Ilford MGIV FB under max yellow filtration, using the enlarger as a light source. 2-1/2 minutes would have yielded better negative. But I got some detail in the deep shadows, dagnabbit!

The second image was shot in sunny 16 conditions, 10 seconds at f32. This would correspond to a film ISO of about 0.4. The lens for this shot was a brass 8X10 Rapid Rectilinear in a brass Wollensak shutter. The center of the image is fairly sharp, but the edges are quite soft. Developed for 2-1/2 minutes being careful not to repeat the mistake from the previous negative. Split grade print on the same paper. Most of the exposure under full yellow filtration, with just a tad of exposure under full magenta. Using the iris in an 80mm lens to help control the exposure, it was 10 seconds at 150Y at f11, followed by 10 seconds at 150M at f32.

This is as close to normal image tones as I've yet been able to get. The truck is painted white, and the tailgate was reflecting a lot of light, it was very bright. Yet the lettering embossed on the tailgate is faintly visible, and wasn't strongly visible in the original scene. There is some highlight detail, even with such a long exposure. The shaded portions of the workshop building are plainly visible, and a little detail is visible in the woodpile underneath and behind the stairs. The darker shaded areas, including under the vehicles, have little or no detail, but this is probably the best compromise I can get with this APHS film and homebrew developer.

This is a work in progress. I plan to try some of the other developers suggested, after I start getting more consistent results with what I have now.

More Dilute Developer

I followed dancqu's advice on dilute metol developers and diluted my orginial formula about 1:3

2 liters water
pinch sodium sulfite
1 gram metol
5 grams sodium sulfite

This was used to develop an APHS negative that was pre-exposed under the enlarger and then exposed in the camera for 10 seconds at f22, for an E.I. of roughly 0.2. I went with a longer exposure because a lot of the scene was in the shade.

Development was by inspection, and went a lot slower. After 6 minutes, it looked like I had roughly what I had been getting in just over 2 minutes with the first formula.

The negative was a little too contrasty to print with grade 2 filtration, so the filtration was adjusted to an even split between 1 and 1-1/2, or 58Y + 16M. I have no doubt that 4-1/2 minutes development for the negative would have resulted in a negative that might have been a little flat for grade 2 filtration. Still using Ilford MGIV FB glossy paper and the color enlarger for a contact printing light source.

Equipment: 8X10 Seneca Improved View and 12" uncoated Dagor in Betax #4.