I have a thread (or few) discussing my attempts to use Arista Ortho Litho for normal photography. I want to pretty much get that all into exactly one thread that directly discusses this insane film. Last thread was here:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/pre-flash-post-flash-and-chemical-fogging-question.165843/
What is Arista Ortho Litho?
It's an insanely cheap red-blind (safelight compatible) lithographic film available in large to very large format. With naive processing, it is extremely high contrast, producing only black and white with no middle greys. There has been a lot of discussion on this forum and elsewhere for how to properly shoot and process this film to get pictorial results, and typically the tradeoff "triangle" is: Speed, Lowered Contrast, Density. ie, you can have speed and low contrast, but you'll get almost unprintably thin negatives. You can have normal contrast and good density, but will be using speeds of 0.3 ISO, etc.
I cut this film from huge 24" rolls into 120 sized strips as some sick exercise of a "fun" hobby, so everything I discuss here is typically related to processing in a tank like normal 120 film, and shooting in a camera rather than under an enlarger. This should be useful to people developing it in trays, and using enlargers too, but experiences might be a bit different. Anyway, so lets get into it. This is basically what I’ve experimented with and learned so far after ~50 120 rolls of Ortho Litho:
DEVELOPERS
Pyro PMK
Dilution 1+1+100 (A + B + water). Develop around 6m30s minutes, agitation every 30s. Non-acidic stop bath and fixer (general recommendation for pyro)
Speed: 0.8 ISO
Latitude: +8 stops to -1 stop
This was the first developer I used that held some promise of taming this film. The results are very low speed, but with great tonality and decent enough density. It is almost impossible to ruin a picture by over-exposure with this, making it especially fun for creative stuff like long exposures in daylight without an ND filter. Basically with more exposure contrast decreases. Eventually it turns blobby but it requires something like f/3.6, 30s in direct sun to really ruin it, and even then you can clearly see what’s in the image. Normally the negatives come out with an orange density. However, the actual gradient is related to exposure and goes (in order of more density) Orange, Olive, Blue/cool black. Film will have some visible grain, though it is a very smooth and attractive grain. Some base fogging is normal with this developer.
Over exposure latitude and better overall tonality can be obtained by reducing agitation, but this runs the risk of uneven development. Edge effects can be quite noticeable and sometimes unpleasant. Less agitation increases the edge effect and reduces contrast. Do NOT use stand development, it will result in extreme base fog and extreme edge effects (talking clear edges next to highlights you can measure between your fingers)
Ilford DD-X
Dilution 1+19, Develop 6m total, agitation every 1m.
Speed: 1.5 ISO
Latitude: +3 stops to -2 stops
This gives a true faster speed than PMK, but also overall increased contrast. In addition to this, DD-X has “split” contrast, where shadows will be fairly high contrast, yet highlights will rapidly have lower contrast.The negative produced will be full-range, with dark highlight detail and subtle shadow detail. This can make it difficult to print full shadow detail while retaining highlights. The actual image once scanned can be quite impressive, with practically invisible grain. Produces an orange tinted density with no base fogging. Relatively normal exposure latitude is present with this combo, though under exposed shadows will quickly turn from a visible grey to completely clear black.
D-23LC (custom developer)
Recipe:
1.5g metol
12g sodium sulfite
1L water
(optional: 1-2g of bromide can be added to decrease highlight density, though overall speed will be affected)
Can be mixed at room temperature; should keep for several days at least.
No dilution; develop using stand method. 35m total time, 30s-60s of initial agitation
Speed: 1.5-3 ISO
Latitude: +4 stops to -2 stops
This was a fairly successful adaption of the extremely simple D-23 developer formula. This produces an extremely full-range negative, even more so than DD-X. This also has better shadow detail than DD-X, bringing out subtle details through stand development into a printable image. However, the very dense highlights make it very difficult to print with both highlight detail and shadow detail. The overall density is comparable to that of E-6 slide film, and this developer and film would probably make ideal slides because of that property.
Negative will have slightly olive tinted density, and slightly better at both under and over exposure latitude than DD-X. Also has no base fog, and practically invisible grain. With this developer, 3 ISO is truly safe without risk of looking under exposed, though 1.5 ISO will give better shadow detail.
Dektol, Ilford Multigrade, etc paper devleopers [not recommended]
I tried a few different paper developers at various dilutions and each one resulted in extreme contrast and a very “coarse” appearance. Under magnification it was clear that what appeared to be “grey’ was just black dots with clear in between, and not a true grey appearance. I’m just going to say I don’t recommend this in a camera. I’ve heard some people have good experiences with this under enlargers though, and it also might work for pinhole cameras and other low contrast pictorial situations such as inter-positives.
HC-110 [not recommended]
Test diluted between 1+50 and 1+200 (syrup concentrate + water). Start time was around 6 minutes with agitation per minute. Speed is 0.8 ISO or slower. Results were very slow shadow speed, extremely thin density, and olive tinted negatives.
POTA (hand-mixed) [not recommended]
Recipe: phenidone 1.5g, sulfite 30g, 1L water – source: Darkroom Cookbook v3
Must be used immediately after mixing/cooling
No dilution, Develop 7-9 minutes. Agitation every 1m
Speed: 1.5-3 ISO (depending)
This is known to be a developer capable of “12 stops of exposure differentiation” and was designed for recording nuclear explosions on Kodak Tech Pan film. However, despite the similarities between Ortho Litho and Tech Pan, the developer doesn’t work here. It produces high to very high contrast images with extremely poor exposure latitude. It is near impossible to capture both highlight and shadow detail on the same exposure. Further, highlights do not just become dense, they become 100% black with no recoverable detail. Grain produced was extremely fine/invisible, and the density was of neutral tint.
Experiments
The real appeal of ortho litho is that it is fun to experiment with, even if frustrating at times. I’ve done a ton of stuff seeing what this film could handle and trying to increase it’s speed or lower it’s contrast and such. Most of these are just that, experiments. Don’t develop your wedding photos using this method
Sodium Dithionite / chemical flashing
Sodium dithionite is an unstable and.. tricky, chemical to use in a film development process. It will chemically expose film and in a basic environment will act as a fogging developer. It can be difficult to get ahold of, but is available in the US as the cleaning compound Iron Out. See this thread for my attempts at using it:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/pre-flash-post-flash-and-chemical-fogging-question.165843/
Basically the TL;DR; of my experiments there is that it has the potential for making Ortho Litho am amazing, normal contrast 20 ISO film, but it is almost impossible to properly control for run to run consistency. Even the pure version quickly decays upon exposure to moisture and air, and it is impossible to preserve in solution for more than 24 hours without losing some amount of strength.
TEA + Bromide pre-bath
Also in the thread about sodium dithionite I discover that TEA can be used for “latensification”, ie, to intensify the latent image of already shot film. This eliminates or at least reduces the need for pre-flashing and sodium dithionite, so I started to pursue this. TEA by itself is effective at this though it will increase base fog levels. However I accidentally discovered something more useful than just TEA. I’m unsure of the chemistry behind it, but by using both TEA and (a lot of) bromide in a pre-bath, the latent image will be intensified, AND the emulsion will react differently to developer despite extensive rinsing etc to ensure there is no bromide carry-over. The basic result of this is lower contrast, significantly improved shadow detail and speed, and reduced highlight density.
This bromide addition seems to have no effect on speed but will effectively reduce overall contrast of any developer used. In addition, with some developers (DD-X 1+19, D-23LC) it will produce an extremely warm tone negative. Because of the contrast lowering effect, it is possible to use high activity developers as well. DD-X 1+9 produces long-scale, but attractive images of fairly normal contrast. A danger with this process is that I can’t get it to work properly with tank development. It will result in the middle of the film being fogged and of (I think?) higher effective speed than the edges of the film. I’ve used it to some success in trays, but the film must be placed emulsion side UP or else the shape of the trays will leave fog marks. Still working on this process
As a reference for what seems close thus far:
TEA 20ml
Bromide 40g
Water 1L
Pre-bath for 5 minutes (make sure to rinse well before to remove AH layer, and then rinse well afterwards)
After prebath develop in DD-X 1+9 for 4 minutes with agitation at the 2m mark. Ideal speed with this is 6 ISO, but 12 ISO has all the detail (just a bit too thin to easily print or scan). DD-X 1+19 can be used with more development for good tintype-style positives at faster speeds also.
Tintype-style Positives
Some of these images can make really nice tintype style positives by putting black paint on either the emulsion or non-emulsion side (produces different looks, judge for yourself). With positives, you also effectively will gain around 1 stop in “perceived” speed and so can work great as a way to make use of under exposed negatives.
I’ve also used this film with very hot lith developer (very diluted like you would for lith printing) and used it to enlarge slides to make a negative, and then paint it black to make a positive. With this process, the same guidelines apply as they would to lith printing on paper (more exposure = less contrast, etc).The images produced by this process are especially unique. Lithing paper etc almost always goes green or orange. This film goes orange, similar to many papers. However, if you paint the orange negative black, it will surprisingly also invert the color, leaving you with a very cool bluish “positive”. These can look really cool, though unsure how you could actually display it on a wall or something. It really needs the proper angle of light for the best appearance.
Your own experiments
Ortho film is safe to handle and process under a safelight, so make use of that ability! When trying a new developer don’t just blindly guess, develop by inspection and remember that usually you need a bit more density than it looks like you need under safelights. Always rinse the anti-halation layer off as this can affect the activity of some chemicals. Use distilled water to eliminate variables, especially with dilute solutions.. etc.
I’ll continue posting to this thread and editing this top-level post as I do more experiments and figure out more fun stuff to do with this film. I estimate I still have around 200 rolls worth of 120 film in my closet, so the only real restriction with this is my free time. I’ll also post some pictures as examples of each developer and process later on too and link to those posts here