Advice on my Two Bath Developer

[YoIaMoNwater]

I know this is all fun to fool with, but once I set up a test subject (my bookshelf), exposed 120 film with a strobe consistent to 1/10 stop, developed the film in 4 different developers, and made 16" prints I realized there really isn't a whole lot of difference between developers.

If you want fine grain with classic tonality, use D-23.
If you want sharper grain with classic tonality, use Beutler's.
For something in between Beutler's and D-23, just substitute metaborate for the carbonate in the Beutler's formula.
If you want the sharpest negative possible (too sharp in my opinion), use Pyrocat-HD.

Even Rodinal wasn't significantly different than Beutler's in terms of grain, although the mid tones seemed to be a little too bright.

FP4 in Beutler's might be the most beautiful tonality I've ever seen in a negative; the grain is so tight it's almost not there, even at 16". HP5 in Beutler's has a grainier structure that is quite beautiful, too, and only appears about 1/4 stop less contrasty than FP4.

I'm sure you could easily reproduce these results with D-76, Diafine, Xtol, Barry Thornton's Two Bath, etc., all of which I have used extensively. In short, there's just not enough difference between them to justify trying to invent a new developer. Kodak and others spent millions of dollars and untold man-hours on this project, how can we possibly improve on that?

Lord knows the time I wasted until I ran these tests and proved it to myself. Just pick one developer and get to work. I'm a Beutler's Man now.

Only 4 developers? Why not all of them? Surely you can't make a statement of "all the developers are the same" when you barely tried them all.

I honestly don't see the point of posting if you're not even contributing to the discussion, seems like a trend on Photorio now...

@relistan Nice work! Have you tried your formulas on any night scenes where shadow details are desired? Would be interesting to see how low light contrasty situations look with your 2 baths developer.

 

[relistan]

Only 4 developers? Why not all of them? Surely you can't make a statement of "all the developers are the same" when you barely tried them all.

I honestly don't see the point of posting if you're not even contributing to the discussion, seems like a trend on Photorio now...

@relistan Nice work! Have you tried your formulas on any night scenes where shadow details are desired? Would be interesting to see how low light contrasty situations look with your 2 baths developer.

Thanks, Tai! I am quite happy with this so far. I have not shot any night scenes yet. I will try it out soon and see. The scene above was pretty contrasty with that backlight and it controlled it quite well so I expect it will be pretty reasonable.

As for the other comment you mentioned above: yeah there is a strong conservative tendency amongst certain folks to repeatedly tell everyone around them to stop trying to learn or innovate—that everything important or intersting has already been done. I am not one of those people! People have been trying to make this case for centuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarrel_of_the_Ancients_and_the_Moderns . I am still not sure what the point of making that comment is in a thread about trying stuff.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I am still not sure what the point of making that comment is in a thread about trying stuff.

It's probably about feeling superior. Which we all like to do, from time to time.

 

[cliveh]

If a two bath development may enhance the image, would a three or four bath be also valid?

 

[Alan Johnson]

This poster Ruediger on Flickr seems to have had some success with it:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/1505757@N20/discuss/72157697539499142/

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

It's probably about feeling superior. Which we all like to do, from time to time.

The point is, you can spend your time running down unproductive rabbit holes, endlessly testing films and developers, trying to wring out some barely perceptible "improvement" OR, you can pick a developer with known characteristics and just get some work done. Most people prefer to fiddle and test, which is basically procrastination. Ask me how I know...

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

If a two bath development may enhance the image, would a three or four bath be also valid?

Some people do a pre-wet before the regular two bath process.

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

I agree with much of this but Kodak and others don't like to touch pyro or PPD or 2-bath and when they effectively closed the labs down , according to PE they were still working on new developers.I believe this continues in Germany particularly. It is not too difficult to see the differences between developers using quite simple equipment if you look closely enough:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/scans-retain-developer-properties.156243/

That's interesting but it's not how a high resolution scan of a negative looks, it's how it looks once it passes through your lens onto silver paper at an enlargement big enough to show off the differences, minimum 16", really. There are differences in the developers, just not so significant as to warrant the amount of effort that I and millions of other photographers have invested over the years in "the search."

I spent several years using Pyrocat-HD exclusively, and other than looking slightly too sharp for my tastes, there's absolutely nothing magic or significantly better about it. I know it's great for alt-processes that need higher CIs, but for prints on VC silver, why bother with the excess toxicity when I can get similar results from metol?

One of my good friends has a HUGE collection (over 1000 prints) of 20th century photographs which I'm lucky enough to see quite regularly. Not once did I ever see something so unique that I thought "man, I wonder what developer he used..." In terms of pure print quality, Michael Smith's work is probably the best I've ever seen.

How many guys think that if they get an 8x10 camera, process their film in ABCPyro and develop their prints in Amidol, they will be a Weston? I've seen about 100 Edward Weston prints, and there's nothing remarkable about the print quality compared to Strand, Adams, Rodchenko, Cunningham, Abbott, or any other photographer of note.

The beauty is in the subject, the lighting, the framing, the passion, the moment. People either get that, or they spend their time down the "chemistry makes a great picture" rabbit hole.

I wonder if the OP actually makes silver prints, or just scans his negatives for Flickr? You can wring a lot of quality out of a crummy negative if you are scanning. If you print silver and your negative sucks, your prints will suck, too. Ask me how I know...

 

[Alan Johnson]

That's interesting but it's not how a high resolution scan of a negative looks, it's how it looks once it passes through your lens onto silver paper at an enlargement big enough to show off the differences, minimum 16", really. There are differences in the developers, just not so significant as to warrant the amount of effort that I and millions of other photographers have invested over the years in "the search."

I spent several years using Pyrocat-HD exclusively, and other than looking slightly too sharp for my tastes, there's absolutely nothing magic or significantly better about it. I know it's great for alt-processes that need higher CIs, but for prints on VC silver, why bother with the excess toxicity when I can get similar results from metol?

One of my good friends has a HUGE collection (over 1000 prints) of 20th century photographs which I'm lucky enough to see quite regularly. Not once did I ever see something so unique that I thought "man, I wonder what developer he used..." In terms of pure print quality, Michael Smith's work is probably the best I've ever seen.

How many guys think that if they get an 8x10 camera, process their film in ABCPyro and develop their prints in Amidol, they will be a Weston? I've seen about 100 Edward Weston prints, and there's nothing remarkable about the print quality compared to Strand, Adams, Rodchenko, Cunningham, Abbott, or any other photographer of note.

The beauty is in the subject, the lighting, the framing, the passion, the moment. People either get that, or they spend their time down the "chemistry makes a great picture" rabbit hole.

I wonder if the OP actually makes silver prints, or just scans his negatives for Flickr? You can wring a lot of quality out of a crummy negative if you are scanning. If you print silver and your negative sucks, your prints will suck, too. Ask me how I know...

Just filibuster, nothing to do with the title of this thread.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Karl, you might be interested in this PC two bath developer by Jay Defehr.

@Alan Johnson: does TEA act as a chelating agent when used with Ascorbic Acid? Jay's developer mentioned above doesn't use any chelating/sequestering agent and yet worked well for over two months.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Karl, you might be interested in this PC two bath developer by Jay Defehr.

@Alan Johnson: does TEA act as a chelating agent when used with Ascorbic Acid? Jay's developer mentioned above doesn't use any chelating/sequestering agent and yet worked well for over two months.

PE said it it is a very weak solvent and chelating agent, only for copper I believe.
Not clear why Jay never followed this 2 bath work up.

 

[relistan]

Karl, you might be interested in this PC two bath developer by Jay Defehr.
.

Thanks Raghu. That looks interesting and quite different, too. Nice results (as usual from Jay). That use of TEA as a possible preservative in aqueous solution is interesting. I wonder how that lasted. In theory the best chelating agent for ascorbic developers is DTPA from what I read. HEDP and salicylic acid were the other recommended options. ADOX has substituted something for DTPA in their XT-3 version of XTOL that is supposed to be more environmentally friendly and doesn’t need to be MSDS listed.

 

[relistan]

Adox seems to have used both DTPA and MGDA in XT-3. However MGDA might or might not also have something to do with their non-borate alkali/buffer. MGDA is significantly weaker than DTPA for sequestering iron (and copper). However perhaps the addition of MGDA allows for a reduced quantity of DTPA.

Thanks! That's good to know.

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

Just filibuster, nothing to do with the title of this thread.

Sorry to interrupt your tinkering.

 

[relistan]

I put a roll of ADOX HR-50/Scala 50 through 2B-4 this weekend. I shot it at EI 25 because of my experience with it in 2B-1. I believe I should have shot it at it box speed in 2B-4 and would have had better results throughout the roll. However, I'm quite pleased how this turned out anyway. Here's a good frame that I liked.

Leica M2 with Leica Summarit-M 2.5/35mm. 2B-4 two bath for 3 mins A, 3 mins B @ 20C.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Thanks Raghu. That looks interesting and quite different, too. Nice results (as usual from Jay). That use of TEA as a possible preservative in aqueous solution is interesting. I wonder how that lasted. In theory the best chelating agent for ascorbic developers is DTPA from what I read. HEDP and salicylic acid were the other recommended options. ADOX has substituted something for DTPA in their XT-3 version of XTOL that is supposed to be more environmentally friendly and doesn’t need to be MSDS listed.

According to this, apparently Potassium Oxalate is a preservative for Ascorbic Acid. But it's toxic and might not be what Adox is using.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Over the last month I have made up a couple of new two bath developers and tested them. I now have one that is worth sharing. I'm calling it 2B-4, and it's a phenidone/ascorbic acid two bath. It has reasonable contrast, and appears to me to be speed increasing. I cannot precisely say by how much, but on Ilford Delta 100 it appears to be 2/3 of a stop or so. Here's the formula and an example image.

Some Notes
This developer is a true two bath developer unlike 2B-1. It does not do almost any development in the bath A. After 10 mins in A the film is a little darker but only a very small amount. As a result, it is quite a strong mixture in A. The normal time for the films I've tested appears to be 3 mins A, 3 mins B.

Gainer said the maximum performance ratio for phenidone to ascorbic acid was 1 to 40. I tried that, but I liked the results better with more phenidone, so this is 1 to 24. I slowly added more phenidone until I got to this point and was happy.

You might notice that I am using etidronic acid as a chelating agent to prevent the Fenton reaction destroying the ascorbic acid. I also used a fair bit more than was necessary for this purpose. I had read it may work as a mild silver solvent and so this was an attempt to leverage that. I suspect 1ml would have worked fine.

Lifespan
So far the mix for A has lasted almost a month in a sealed PET bottle and has processed about 5 partial rolls of film.

2B-4 Two Bath Developer

Bath A (pH 6.8)

• Water — 700ml
• Sodium sulfite — 35g
• Phenidone — 0.5g
• Ascorbic acid — 12g
• Potassium Bromide — 0.2g
• HEDP/Etidronic Acid ("Fotoplex 2") — 5ml
  
• Water to 1L

Bath B (pH 11)

• Water — 700ml
• Sodium sulfite — 35g
• Sodium bicarbonate — 5g
• Trisodium phosphate — 30g
• Water to 1L

Sample Image

The following is not art, it's just a hard scene with backlighting to see how the developer would handle it.

Ilford Delta 100 @ box speed
2B-4 for 3 mins A 3 mins B @ 20C

Note that the acutance is quite good. You can read some of the tiny text on the bottle of sodium thiosulphate.

View attachment 273619

I believe Ryuji used Salicylic acid to chelate iron and TEA to chelate copper:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050306230043/http://silvergrain.org/Photo-Tech/film-dev-recommend.html
Can you clarify why or if etidronic acid may be better and if it is easily obtainable?

 

[relistan]

I believe Ryuji used Salicylic acid to chelate iron and TEA to chelate copper:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050306230043/http://silvergrain.org/Photo-Tech/film-dev-recommend.html
Can you clarify why or if etidronic acid may be better and if it is easily obtainable?

Hi Alan, thanks for the link. I had heard about both of those developers but not tried them and hadn't seen the original site. That makes sense. One agent to chelate each of the impurity types that are a threat. HEDP/etidronic acid is a chelating agent that will handle copper, zinc, iron, and some other metallic impurities. It is used in medical, water treatment, and dye industries from what I read. I do not know how strong of an agent it is in comparison to Ryuji's solution. I originally obtained it to stabilize hydrogen peroxide, one of its other purposes. However, I read a few places that it was good for ascorbic acid developers. So I am giving it a shot.

It's available in Europe from Suvatlar in Germany. Lachlan pointed me to the latest price list: you can only find the links on the German language version of Moersch's site: https://www.moersch-photochemie.de/content/rohchemie/lang:de . The price list is the link on the bottom. What you want is "Fotoplex 2 (Hydroxyethyliden-diphosphonsäure)". You have to email Suvatlar to order it but he turned it around same day for me and I had it a week later. (You can order in English)

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

I believe Ryuji used Salicylic acid to chelate iron and TEA to chelate copper

What is the observed shelf-life of Ryuji's DS-12 developer that uses both these as chelating agents?

 

[Alan Johnson]

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/homebrew-xtol.19391/page-2#post-268098
I made a 5x concentrate of DS-12 ,quite a while ago but I don't recall that it had a short shelf life.
IMO concentrate is the way to go with Ryuji's DS-12. The 5x concentrate contains 5g/L ascorbate compared to 12g/L in 2B-4.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/homebrew-xtol.19391/page-2#post-268098
I made a 5x concentrate of DS-12 ,quite a while ago but I don't recall that it had a short shelf life.
IMO concentrate is the way to go with Ryuji's DS-12. The 5x concentrate contains 5g/L ascorbate compared to 12g/L in 2B-4.

Thanks @Alan Johnson! In the same thread I found something very interesting: the effectiveness of Salicylic Acid+TEA combination in ascorbic acid developers depends on the pH of the developer! But Ryuji doesn't tell what combination works best for which range of pH in that thread. Do you know by any chance the combinations used by Ryuji for different pH ranges?

One thing I wasn't too happy with DS-10 was that it didn't keep as well as DS-12 and DS-14. This is most likely due to different pH and effect of salicylate-TEA combination works better in a certain pH range than the other, so I have different combinations in use for developer of different pH range.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Also note the Fenton reaction itself (what you are trying to prevent or slow down) is pH dependent. The rate of reaction is higher as pH is increased.

Or is it the other way around? I'm now confused!

"if the pH is too high the iron precipitate in Fe(OH)3 and will decompose the H2O2 to oxygen. Basically, the optimal pH occurs between 3 and 6."

Go here to see that the Fenton reaction is not very active at alkaline pH due to the formation of metal hydroxides.

http://www.lenntech.com/Fenton-reaction.htm

 

[Alan Johnson]

Just comparing DS-10 and DS-12 in Ryuji's notes, the key factor deciding how much salicylic acid and TEA he used appears to be not the pH but the concentration of sulfite.
I suppose some grades of sulfite may contain copper and iron, and may contribute more metal ions than the water used to mix the developer.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050306230043/http://silvergrain.org/Photo-Tech/film-dev-recommend.html

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

..the basic problem is that carry-over from bath A to bath B (about 20ml) provides a concentration of phenidone-ascorbate in bath B sufficient to make bath B a good developer on its own. Development due to conventional 2 bath development with the developer absorbed in the film is not detected..

A seperate test of Thornton's 2 bath developer showed minimal amount of development in carry-over, highlights exhaust as 2 bath developer should..

This info may be of use to anyone trying to formulate a 2 bath phenidone ascorbate developer if that is possible.

@Alan Johnson: This is a very interesting and valuable insight from the thread you shared!

 

[relistan]

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/homebrew-xtol.19391/page-2#post-268098
I made a 5x concentrate of DS-12 ,quite a while ago but I don't recall that it had a short shelf life.
IMO concentrate is the way to go with Ryuji's DS-12. The 5x concentrate contains 5g/L ascorbate compared to 12g/L in 2B-4.

Hi Alan, I am not sure what point you are making here. Are you suggesting that I am using too much ascorbic acid? I am happy with the results so far. Also, not sure about what to conclude from the comparison. First I'm certainly not as experienced as Ryuji, but furthermore DS-12 is not a two bath developer and I explained that I think effective two baths need to have a higher concentration of agents to work with thinner emulsion films. This developer works nicely on Fomapan films, for example, where as Barry Thornton's really doesn't work well at all with them in my experience. You get pretty thin negatives on a single pass.

@Raghu Kuvempunagar @Alan Johnson Are you saying there is something specific about carryover into the second bath with a phenidone/ascorbate developer? I used Diafine for years without seeing major issues. It's a phenidone/hydroquinone 2 bath. Shouldn't the build up of bromide largely counteract that? This is how that normally works. And once you have too much bromide, you get drag. So there is a spot where you want to get rid of it, but it ought to be 6-10 rolls I should think. Unless you are saying there is something specific about ascorbic acid developers here, or because an extremely minute amount of developer is still effective?