Adotech III vs. Adotech IV for Processing CMS 20 II

[Henning Serger]

I can assure you the results are the same as with Adotech. This Caffenol is far weaker than Caffenol CL !

Then please show me the data and characteristic curves you have evaluated
- with Adotech IV
- with this Caffenol recipe.

Thanks and best regards,
Henning

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...In another thread, Henning Serger wrote...

...I've just recently talked to FOTOIMPEX and they told me that meanwhile the shipping situation has improved significantly concerning speed, as the backlog of the hub in New Jersey has been reduced (that was the main problem). The latest orders only needed about 2-3 weeks from Germany to the US. Much less time than during the winter...

To which I replied:

...I'll reply here when DHL and the USPS actually deliver that order. I'm not optimistic, but will keep an open mind. We shall see.

The US Postal "Service" just delivered my FOTOIMPEX order. It took five weeks. Not more than three months like last time, but still fairly slow.

Now I just need typical southern California "May gray" and "June gloom" to be over so that EI 6 film can be put to the test.

 

[m00dawg]

I'm going on 76 days for one of my FI orders. Oddly the one I placed a few days after only took a few weeks (and thankfully that was XT-3 so I could finally start going through my development backlog). The main problems I have aren't the speed but the lack of updates, lack of being able to contact anyone at DHL about it, and having to pay a premium to get pretty much the worst shipping service I've ever experienced. I've had issues with DHL well before Covid as well. At this point, my timely vs unbelievably late ratio is 50%

I love FI and Adox but that's just too long. Their current banner says they're working on other shipping options. They cannot come soon enough.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Quotes from April and May of 2021:
https://www.fotoimpex.com/films/bun...or-up-to-6-35mm-or-120-films-100-ml-conc.html

...I just ordered the bundle of five CMS 20 II rolls plus one bottle of Adotech IV

https://www.fotoimpex.com/films/bun...or-up-to-6-35mm-or-120-films-100-ml-conc.html​

and will reply here whenever my development time tweaking is complete.

In another thread, Henning Serger wrote last Wednesday:I'll reply here when DHL and the USPS actually deliver that order. I'm not optimistic, but will keep an open mind. We shall see.

...The US Postal "Service" just delivered my FOTOIMPEX order. It took five weeks. Not more than three months like last time, but still fairly slow.

Now I just need typical southern California "May gray" and "June gloom" to be over so that EI 6 film can be put to the test.

In the intervening two years, lots of life got in the way, and those rolls of CMS 20 II along with the bottle of Adotech IV have been sitting on a room temperature shelf unused. This past weekend I finally put one in the F6 and, with sunny skies, ran through it using both my Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art lens and a 55mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor purchased brand new recently from B&H. I'd left my email address on B&H's "Notify When Available" list when Nikon discontinued the latter optic in 2020. Apparently, Nikon found one somewhere on a warehouse shelf, shipped it to B&H and I was notified. Within a couple of hours I'd ordered it, and the package showed up two days later. According to serial number tables, it was manufactured in 2005. I can find no evidence it's anything but pristine new old stock.

While I haven't printed them yet, yesterday I developed the negatives. At distances close enough to infinity (the furthest available in my back yard, 55 feet), it requires a 30X loupe to see any sharpness advantage for the Sigma. That's only slightly visible on the text at the bottom of a Macbeth Color Checker. Back on topic to the film, I'm not very happy with the color response, which is to be expected based on its attached curve. Red falloff would be problematic with any subjects containing much energy in that part of the spectrum. I certainly wouldn't load CMS 20 II if visiting Sedona. Another issue for me is the degree of curl this polyester based product exhibits. While a glass carrier could certainly deal with that, the emulsion side is nearly as glossy as its base, so Newton's rings would likely present a major problem.

Given how well this film and developer held up in storage, and considering the challenges of shooting with an EI 6 emulsion, as well as how 35mm photography seems better suited to handheld, higher EI emulsions, I'll probably let the remainder of my 2021 shipment continue to stay in storage and see how long it remains good. With air squeezed out of bottle, I'm curious to find out the true shelf life Adotech IV.

One interesting thing observed is that the F6 data imprinting is totally invisible with this film. I don't know what color the F6 alphanumeric LEDs are, but suspect they're red. Combined with CMS 20 II's lack of red sensitivity, exposure at EI 6 means those data disappear.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

CMS 20 II has red sensitivity, but less than say, HP5.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

CMS 20 II has red sensitivity, but less than say, HP5.

It's certainly not ortho (red blind), but its red sensitivity is far less than almost any panchromatic film. ADOX describes it as orthopanchromatic. That's how Fuji characterizes ACROS, but Fuji's product doesn't start down until 650nm, while CMS 20 II begins to fall off at 590nm and is already 1-1/3 stops down at 650nm.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Maybe we can refer to P30 as an extended orange film

 

[pentaxuser]

Maybe we can refer to P30 as an extended orange film

Interesting point about an extended orange film in that it reminded me of a video on one of the orthochromatic films. I cannot recall which one but in that video the film was able to detect a difference in a panel on an orange car that I was able to see that did not seem to show up on examples of a colour or panchro film but which the presenter said he could see "in real life" when he shot the film

Is this relevant to the discussion? I have no idea but I found it an interesting find so thought I'd share it

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

No, but honestly I don't expect any other results.
I am running an independent photography test lab, and I have tested more than 40 different developers over all the years. And Caffenol fans have contacted me, praised their recipes, we've exchanged films, recipes and test results. But none of these Caffenol fans was ever able to offer a scientific test result, e.g. a proper characteristic curve. None of them used a densitometer. None of them was a darkroom printer. All were using scanning and manipulated their results in PP.
When I have tested their recipes, I have always found that their claims / statements of "how excellent their recipe is" simply were not true. The results have always been (much) worse compared to established developers. The characteristic curves could not compete with those of established developers. I am a darkroom printer. For me a film-developer combination has to deliver very good results as a solid base for optical enlargements / traditional darkroom printing.

Best regards,
Henning

I ran densitometric tests and printing tests in my darkroom for a few developers other than Adotech IV, such as Pyrocat-HD, Xtol, D-23, POTA, and Caffenol CL-CN. Caffenol CL-CN was right up there with Adotech IV so much so that when my two bottles of Adotech run out, I will most likely use Caffenol.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

I ran densitometric tests and printing tests in my darkroom for a few developers other than Adotech IV, such as Pyrocat-HD, Xtol, D-23, POTA, and Caffenol CL-CN. Caffenol CL-CN was right up there with Adotech IV so much so that when my two bottles of Adotech run out, I will most likely use Caffenol...

Andy, how do you develop 4x5, i.e. tray, tank, etc.? I'm curious because my Adotech IV was used on 35mm and, given that it only requires around 17ml of concentrate for a 250ml Jobo tank, the 100ml bottle is good for more than five rolls. Even at Freestyle's $19.49 price (when they have any in stock) or 13.45 EURO if piggybacked on a larger FOTOIMPEX order, it's expensive, but not prohibitively so. How much concentrate must you use to develop a sheet of 4x5 CMS 20 II?

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Andy, how do you develop 4x5, i.e. tray, tank, etc.? I'm curious because my Adotech IV was used on 35mm and, given that it only requires around 17ml of concentrate for a 250ml Jobo tank, the 100ml bottle is good for more than five rolls. Even at Freestyle's $19.49 price (when they have any in stock) or 13.45 EURO if piggybacked on a larger FOTOIMPEX order, it's expensive, but not prohibitively so. How much concentrate must you use to develop a sheet of 4x5 CMS 20 II?

I use BTZS tubes, so very little stock solution is needed. I've been diluting 4ml of stock, 1+14. It's probably the most expensive developer I've used...

 

[mshchem]

I bought 5 rolls and the little bottle of miracle developer. Reading the instructions about temperature gradients and weird agitation schemes just pisses me off.

This kind of Voodoo nonsense makes me wonder about everything Adox?? I'm just not in the mood for it.

If I want ultra quality I will resort to Tmax 100 and XTOL.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...If I want ultra quality I will resort to Tmax 100 and XTOL...

If your definition of ultra quality includes microscopic grain and extremely high acutance/sharpness, you'll be disappointed. I've used both, and there's no comparison.

 

[mshchem]

If your definition of ultra quality includes microscopic grain and extremely high acutance/sharpness, you'll be disappointed. I've used both, and there's no comparison.

Technical Pan and Technidol. A load of hooey. And the shaken not stirred agitation baloney.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Technical Pan and Technidol. A load of hooey. And the shaken not stirred agitation baloney.

??? This is about CMS-20 II and Adotech IV, not long-discontinued Kodak films. What's your point?

 

[mshchem]

??? This is about CMS-20 II and Adotech IV, not long-discontinued Kodak films. What's your point?

Same story. Trying to take a high contrast technical film and re-purpose it with a special developer. Kodak Technical Pan film, H&W control film, etc Adox ballyhoo of 500 megapixel

I'm sure when you take a film down to 12-20 (not) ISO speed you can achieve fine grain, and if it's a thin microfilm type emulsion you can achieve sharpness. Not sure this is what most people are after.

Fine grain conventional grain Ilford Fp4+, fine grain tabular Ilford or Kodak. Weird technical film Adox

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...Fine grain conventional grain Ilford Fp4+, fine grain tabular Ilford or Kodak. Weird technical film Adox

That's how one achieves "ultra quality." Not with FP4 Plus or TMAX 100, irrespective of developer. Of course, not everyone seeks "ultra quality." But if one does...

 

[markjwyatt]

Maybe we can refer to P30 as an extended orange film

How about "infraorange"? That is a technical term I "invented" shooting California Poppies.

Flickr Search — “infraorange”

www.flickr.com

 

[cptrios]

Has anyone managed to pin down the shelf life of the concentrate on this? My takeaway from the info I've seen is that it might last a decent amount of time after opening - or at least longer than a couple of weeks. I've got a trip coming up, and what I'd like to do is buy a bottle, test it out on a roll, then use the rest of it to develop the rolls from the trip around a month later. If anyone knows if this is feasible, I'd love to hear it!

 

[Scott J.]

I've not tested the longevity of opened Adotech IV concentrate (e.g., in a half-filled bottle), but I recently developed a roll of CMS II 20 with an unopened bottle that was roughly three years old and the negatives came out looking crisp and contrasty, just as you'd expect. I didn't notice any loss of density relative to using recently purchased, in-date Adotech IV.

I've had good success storing black and white, C-41, and E-6 chemistry for long periods of time by decanting the concentrates into smaller glass bottles and using them up one at a time. For example, you could decant the balance of a freshly opened 100-mL bottle of Adotech IV into three 30-mL glass bottles and then work out of them on an as-needed basis. As long as they're filled as close to the brim as possible, oxidation will be kept to a minimum. I now do this with all my chemistry, including fixer (which goes bad much faster than one might hope).

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Given how well this film and developer held up in storage...find out the true shelf life Adotech IV...

A half year later, I decided to do a more controlled test of CMS 20II in Adotech IV. It took several trials to zero in; I ended up at 8 minutes 15 seconds @ 68 degrees F, using ADOX's recommended processing regime, for an EI of 6 and straight line-portion CI of 0.62. The characteristic curve is attached. It represents zones from I through IX. Fb-f was 0.04.

The developer seems to have no aging problem; it's down to 17ml in the 100ml bottle now and I detect no sensitometric difference between this trial and earlier rolls. ADOX uses bottles that have small nubs on their openings' restriction plates that prevent caps from being tightened to airtightness, so squeezing them to expel air doesn't work. Adotech IV appears not to care.

 

[GregY]

A half year later, I decided to do a more controlled test of CMS 20II in Adotech IV. It took several trials to zero in; I ended up at 8 minutes 15 seconds @ 68 degrees F, using ADOX's recommended processing regime, for an EI of 6 and straight line-portion CI of 0.62. The characteristic curve is attached. It represents zones from I through IX. Fb-f was 0.04.

The developer seems to have no aging problem; it's down to 17ml in the 100ml bottle now and I detect no sensitometric difference between this trial and earlier rolls. ADOX uses bottles that have small nubs on their openings' restriction plates that prevent caps from being tightened to airtightness, so squeezing them to expel air doesn't work. Adotech IV appears not to care.

Sal what did your prints look like from 8.25 min? I've got a few rolls left & processed some (Adotech iV) a couple of days ago at 11minutes still a bit higher contrast than i'd like....but better results than i previously got with Pyrocat.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Sal what did your prints look like from 8.25 min?...

I haven't printed anything yet, or exposed any frames with anything to print. This was the result of testing to establish an EI and time. Real photography to follow.

 

[GregY]

I haven't printed anything yet, or exposed any frames with anything to print. This was the result of testing to establish an EI and time. Real photography to follow.

Looking forward to your results... Mine @ 11 still looked a bit hot. Sunny afternoon, orange filter. iso 6. but definite

ly better than those w pyrocat