Adox CMS II 20 tips? Experience stories?

Andrew O'Neill

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Mixed up some Perfection XR-1 yesterday and shot a sheet at EI 10. Dilution 1+5. Normal contrast scene. Developed for 16 minutes, agitation once every minute. Tray development. Temperature 30C. Shadows were good. High value was a bit over the top. I'll shoot two more sheets. One will receive 1+5 dilution, agitation once every 3 minutes. The other sheet will get 1+7 dilution, agitation once every minute. I'll report back.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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Developed another sheet but this time did semi stand. Slight agitation every the minutes. Lots of mottling, and overall very dense, flat result.
Next film I'll dilute to 1+7, and agitate normally. So far, POTA is winning.
 

dughir

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ADOX CMS 20 II developed in ADOTECH IV 1:14 for 11min. Shoot at ISO 50 (I forget that EOS 300 camera in manual mode uses spot metering and unintentionally put the sky into zone V), 1/90sec f:8. The light was very harsh being early in the morning with very deep shadows. Printed on Fomaspeeed Variant 312 without any filter (normal contrast). Enlarged with Laiser VCP 6000 and El Nikkor 50:f:2.8@f:8.
 

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Fenlander

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First time back here for a while and apologies for resurrecting an old thread. I've had pretty good results with CMS20ii in POTA (home made) . This was rated at 12 ISO and shot with an Olympus OM1n and 50mm f3.5 macro lens. Developed for 9 minutes at 20 deg C with 10 secs gentle agitation every minute.
 

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250swb

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I'm glad somebody else is still using CMS20II. Last week I just used my last roll of 120 but recently have been really enjoying using 35mm. Two things immediately come to mind, the first is the Adotech developer is superb (follow the instructions and it works to give a full tonal range), and secondly I've also had good results from 510Pyro which I also used with the original CMS20 way back when. I rate the film for both developers at 6 ISO but this depends on how you meter, but from 3 ISO to 12 ISO is good. The 510 Pyro seems like it can be problematic with higher dilutions than 1:100 which I'd always used in the past. I had a nagging doubt that maybe a higher dilution would be better especially for 35mm, so I tried 1:300 (semi stand) and it was horrible, I think it was just too weak and there was an obvious chemical fog from exhausted developer. With quality 35mm lenses (I use either Leica or Nikon cameras but I'd also include Olympus in a list) I think the results are medium format quality if done well, maybe not a direct equivalent with a Mamiya 7, but not enough difference to turn your nose up and pooh pooh it as an option.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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I've developed this film in umpteen developers, including pyrocat-hd, and by far the best developer is the one that Adox recommends. Adotech IV. I've got about a half box of 4x5 left that I should use up...and a couple bottles of Adotech IV!
 

Andrew O'Neill

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If I continue to use this film without Adotech IV, I'll probably use: POTA, Caffenol, D-23 1+3 (in order of preference). And I'll probably use it in 120 (if we can still get it in that format) as 4x5 is pretty much overkill!
 

AgX

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250swb said:
I rate the film for both developers at 6 ISO but this depends on how you meter, but from 3 ISO to 12 ISO is good.
Click to expand...

The firm who designed the Adotech IV rated the CMS II processed in it at 8 ISO, thus at ISO-standard. Going higher means pushing, but up to EI 40, based now on midtones, still with good results.
 

Minolta93

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I was reading an astrophotography book in which they used Kodak Tech Pan for photos of the moon. Would CMS 20 be the most comparable current film to Tech Pan?
 

Raghu Kuvempunagar

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AgX said:
The firm who designed the Adotech IV rated the CMS II processed in it at 8 ISO, thus at ISO-standard. Going higher means pushing, but up to EI 40, based now on midtones, still with good results.
Click to expand...

To get good results at EI:20 without blowing out the highlights, some kind of jugglery with temperature of the developer is needed as per Adox's processing guidelines. Henning Serger recommended using a fill flash to get best shadow details at EI:20.
 

pentaxuser

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Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
To get good results at EI:20 without blowing out the highlights, some kind of jugglery with temperature of the developer is needed as per Adox's processing guidelines. Henning Serger recommended using a fill flash to get best shadow details at EI:20.
Click to expand...

Yes I recall he did describe a specific way to do this. Do you mean that any speed above 20 blows the highlights or below 20? While it is difficult to gauge the highlights in the shot in#56 the problem there seems to be with the lack of shadow detail on the trees in the foreground and this was at 50

pentaxuser
 

250swb

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Andrew O'Neill said:
If I continue to use this film without Adotech IV, I'll probably use: POTA, Caffenol, D-23 1+3 (in order of preference). And I'll probably use it in 120 (if we can still get it in that format) as 4x5 is pretty much overkill!
Click to expand...

120 isn't available at the moment, the 120 machine broke and it's been a big job to rebuild it by all accounts.

Here is the .pdf for CMS20 II and Adotech IV

https://www.fotoimpex.com/shop/images/products/media/30945_5_PDF-Datasheet.pdf
 

Raghu Kuvempunagar

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Last edited:

AgX

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AgX said:
The firm who designed the Adotech IV rated the CMS II processed in it at 8 ISO, thus at ISO-standard. Going higher means pushing, but up to EI 40, based now on midtones, still with good results.
Click to expand...

It must be "processed in their own brand newest version"
 

Huss

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Do not use Df96 monobath with this film. I tried and the results are unusable, even though the DF96 pdf says it can be used.
 

250swb

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Huss said:
Do not use Df96 monobath with this film. I tried and the results are unusable, even though the DF96 pdf says it can be used.
Click to expand...

But DF96 monobath is unusable anyway, it's awful with normal films, why should it be better with difficult films? A dip'n'dunk process like a monobath will always be compromised simply because different films respond better or worse with different developers, and all a monobath does is ensure the lowest common denominator is achieved.
 

Huss

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It's fantastic with many films, regular and T 'grained'. Passing on useful information not to use it on CMS II so others can learn from my experience.
 
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