Ansco 130

donbga · Sep 8, 2004

Francesco,

You may wish to review the write up on paper developers for AZO by Dhananjay Nayakanakuppam found on the Unblinking Eye.

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Azo/azo1.html

His curve data seems to indicate that Ansco 130 with Glycin has a very similar curve shape to MS's amidol developer. I've not had a chance to try it yet but by my calculations the 130 formula could reduce developer cost by 50% or more per liter of working solution. AFAIK, Photographers Formulary are the only sellars of small quantities of Glycin.

It's not clear to me what the tray life of Anco 130 would be as compared to Amidol developer and the effects of water bath development as compared to Amidol.

Hope this helps,

Don Bryant

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 8, 2004

donbga said:
Francesco,

You may wish to review the write up on paper developers for AZO by Dhananjay Nayakanakuppam found on the Unblinking Eye.

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Azo/azo1.html

His curve data seems to indicate that Ansco 130 with Glycin has a very similar curve shape to MS's amidol developer. I've not had a chance to try it yet but by my calculations the 130 formula could reduce developer cost by 50% or more per liter of working solution. AFAIK, Photographers Formulary are the only sellars of small quantities of Glycin.

It's not clear to me what the tray life of Anco 130 would be as compared to Amidol developer and the effects of water bath development as compared to Amidol.

Hope this helps,

Don Bryant

Been there, done that and reported the results in other APUG threads. To summarize:

My side-by-side print/developer test results comparing Ansco 130/Azo with Michael Smith Amidol/Azo resulted in a small but noticeable tonality advantage for Amidol/Azo.

I am planning some additional tests using Ansel Adams version of Ansco 130 in a split development scheme (as a soft working warm tone developer). I plan to soak the print in "straight" Ansco 130 for a short time, then transfer the print to the AA version and complete development. Water bath development is an additional contrast control treatment that is appropriate for Ansco 130 development.

Since I use both Amidol and Ansco 130 as one-shots, tray life is not an issue with me. I have found that 1 liter of either working developer will process at least 20 8x10 prints without any noticeable change in performance.

"AFAIK, Photographers Formulary are the only sellars of small quantities of Glycin. "

There are other sellers of glycin in small quantities, Bryant Lab is one. However, it appears that PF currently has the lowest price.

chrisg · Sep 8, 2004

I use Formulary/Ansco 130 at 1:2, 70 deg F, 2 minutes. Good results with MGIV, Galerie, and Seagull. I plan to try it with Azo.

Chris

chrisg · Sep 8, 2004

Oh, yeah. I initially tried it 1:1 at 70 deg but found the print contrast a little too high for my liking. Dropping down to 1:2 reduced the contrast and maybe warmed the tone a little - still pretty neutral though.

Chris

sanking · Sep 8, 2004

Tom Hoskinson said:
Been there, done that and reported the results in other APUG threads. To summarize:

My side-by-side print/developer test results comparing Ansco 130/Azo with Michael Smith Amidol/Azo resulted in a small but noticeable tonality advantage for Amidol/Azo.

Tom,

Would you explain what you mean by "a small but noticeable tonality advantage for Amidol/AZO," in comparison to Ansco 130?

Sandy'

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 9, 2004

Sandy, I can see subtle differences in tonality - a bit better tonal separation in the fine detail with the 8x10 negatives I am printing. In the deep blacks the MS Amidol prints also seem to yield a bit more detail than the Ansco 130.

The Ansco 130 prints are excellent, very close to what I am getting with MS Amidol. I want to try split development with the Ansco 130 and see if that will equal (or exceed) the Amidol.

BTW I am not toning the prints in this comparison.

Francesco uses split development (Moersch Catechol and Agfa Neutol WA) to produce wonderful Azo prints. I have examples of his images and I would be very happy if I could equal their tonal qualities with split 130.

I will try scanning examples and posting them to the Technical Gallery.

donbga · Sep 9, 2004

Francesco uses split development (Moersch Catechol and Agfa Neutol WA) to produce wonderful Azo prints.[/QUOTE]

Tom or Francesco,

Can you tell us a bit more about this developer combination? Apparently I may have missed any previous discussions about this.

Thanks,

Don Bryant

skahde · Sep 9, 2004

donbga said:
Francesco uses split development (Moersch Catechol and Agfa Neutol WA) to produce wonderful Azo prints.

Up until now I haven't done my own testing but from my head and after reading and comparing a bunch of formulas and descriptions it boils down to two simple formulas.
Take a hard working developer wich acts on the shaddows (i.e. low speed. Brenzcatechin, hydroquinone only or combined. No phenidon, no metol) as the first bath and tweak its tone by adjusting the restrainer (bromide/benzotriazol). Use Agfa 120 as a starting point, dilute less which will get you rid of the brown-tone effect, adjust the restrainer, try benzotriazol, replace half of the hydroquinone with brenzcatechin.

Use a metol-only developer as the second bath, Agfa 105 will be fine. Again, tone is adjusted by the restrainer.

Or get yourself the Moersch VGT-Kit, which allows you to taylor such combinations without weighing in raw chemicals and basically follows the above line of thought as far as I understood Wolfgang Moersch.

best

Stefan

Ole · Sep 9, 2004

skahde said:
...Brenzcatechin, hydroquinone only or combined. ...

Translation: "Brenzcatechin" is German for "Pyrocatechin". Just in case it confuses someone else as much as it did me the first time I bought my chemical suplies from Germany...

rjr · Sep 10, 2004

Re that GAF Universal Developer - when visiting the Foma factory shop in Prague three weeks ago
I shopped a packet of their kind of "Universal Developer". It´s a bag of 220g, mixing up to 5l solution and
is designed for developing papers at stock strength and film when dilluted 1+3.

According to the package it contains Sodium pyrosulphite (whatever salt that is!), hydrochinone and phenidone.

The pack is labeled with "univerzalni vyvojka - univerzalna vyvojka - universal developer" and cost me
48 czech crowns, est. 1,50EUR.

No standard time for all films, though. Fomapan 100 is listed with 5min at 20°C, 200t at 3.5min, Foma 400 at 7.5min.

Look at www.foma.cz for the details and ask J and C or Fotoimpex if they can order it for you...

BTW - I bought just out of curiosity and because I read your message regarding that GAF developer few weeks earlier. ;-)

Best, Roman

removed account4 · Sep 10, 2004

rjr said:
Re that GAF Universal Developer - when visiting the Foma factory shop in Prague three weeks ago
I shopped a packet of their kind of "Universal Developer". It´s a bag of 220g, mixing up to 5l solution and
is designed for developing papers at stock strength and film when dilluted 1+3.

According to the package it contains Sodium pyrosulphite (whatever salt that is!), hydrochinone and phenidone.

The pack is labeled with "univerzalni vyvojka - univerzalna vyvojka - universal developer" and cost me
48 czech crowns, est. 1,50EUR.

No standard time for all films, though. Fomapan 100 is listed with 5min at 20°C, 200t at 3.5min, Foma 400 at 7.5min.

Look at www.foma.cz for the details and ask J and C or Fotoimpex if they can order it for you...

BTW - I bought just out of curiosity and because I read your message regarding that GAF developer few weeks earlier. ;-)

Best, Roman

thanks roman!

that is great news ... i'll check it out

-john

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 10, 2004

rjr said:
Re that GAF Universal Developer - when visiting the Foma factory shop in Prague three weeks ago
I shopped a packet of their kind of "Universal Developer". It´s a bag of 220g, mixing up to 5l solution and
is designed for developing papers at stock strength and film when dilluted 1+3.

According to the package it contains Sodium pyrosulphite (whatever salt that is!), hydrochinone and phenidone.

The pack is labeled with "univerzalni vyvojka - univerzalna vyvojka - universal developer" and cost me
48 czech crowns, est. 1,50EUR.

No standard time for all films, though. Fomapan 100 is listed with 5min at 20°C, 200t at 3.5min, Foma 400 at 7.5min.

Look at www.foma.cz for the details and ask J and C or Fotoimpex if they can order it for you...

BTW - I bought just out of curiosity and because I read your message regarding that GAF developer few weeks earlier. ;-)

Best, Roman

"According to the package it contains Sodium pyrosulphite (whatever salt that is!), hydrochinone and phenidone."

Sodium pyrosulphite Na2 S2 05 is also called sodium disulphite (bisulfite) or sodium metabisulphite (metabisulfite).

AFAIK the first Phenidone/Hydroquinone "Universal Developer" formulation was published by Ilford. It does not contain either Glycin or Metol and thus is not similar to Ansco 130. I started compounding it in the 1970's and used it for many years as a paper developer (I added benzotriazole). The results were very similar to Kodak Dektol, but with a longer shelf life for the concentrated stock solution.

juan · Sep 10, 2004

Tom, have you tried 130 with phenidone replacing the Metol yet? Why not? Ha. I may get a chance to mix up a batch and try it this weekend if the new hurricane leaves me alone. I learned last weekend that it's not really possible, at least for me, to shoot 8x10 in 50-60mph winds (and that's with a C-1 and regular Zone VI tripod).
juan

rjr · Sep 10, 2004

Tom,

thanks for the hint towards sodium bisulfite - I already considered that, but forgot to check it. It helps me with another "project" - a clearing bath for a reversal process.

All the best,
Roman

PS: Are you the one Tom Hoskinson participating on Kiev-Report, too?

sanking · Sep 10, 2004

I did some comparison tests today of AZO in Ansco 130 1:1 and Amidol using Michael Smith''s Amidol formula.

Data as below.

1. Paper = AZO #2 (old #2)

2. Exposure = 4 seconds with 65 watt R40 lamp, at 33" from print frame. Test negative was a Stouffer TR 45 step wedge.

3. Develop for two minutes at 72º F. Amidol stright as per MS's formula, Ansco 130 1:1, standard 130 formula.

4. Tone with Rapid Selenium 1:100 for three minutes.

5. Air dry.

6. Read densities and plot curves.

Conclusion. Results were virtually identical. Both developers gave the same exposure scale (ES) of 1.45, Dmax was identical at 1.99, and printing speed at two minutes of development was also virtually identical. The only significant difference was that Anso 130 1:1 has a slightly shorter toe, which results in a curve that is slightly more straight line than the curve of Amidol. Howver, if compared to the typical curves of silver papers other than AZO, the curves of AZO in both Amidol and Ansco 130 1:1 are much more straight line.

After evaluating the tests I made two real prints from a digital negative, exposing both for the same time. I developed one in Amidol, the other in 130. The prints are now dry and they appear to my eyes to be identical. For all practical purposes they are so similar that I can not tell them apart from visual inspection, even when observing them side by side in the same light.

I am attaching three images. The first shows both curves plotted together, the second is the Ansco 130 1:1 curve, the third is Amidol straight.

All of these prints were developed with constant agitation and timed to the second. No water bath was used, either for the test prints or for the *real life* prints.

Sandy

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 10, 2004

Thanks---that's an interesting test. It would be interesting to see if Azo responds to water bath processing in 130 the way it does in amidol.

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 11, 2004

Sandy, your results are similar - but not identical to mine. I notice (your Azo Forum post) that you developed for 2 minutes in both developers.

I developed for 1 minute (- 0, +5 sec) in MS amidol at 21C, followed by the MS recommended (strong) acetic acid stop bath & fix.

I diluted the Ansco 130 stock 1:1 with water and developed for 2.5 minutes (- 0, +5 sec) at 21C, followed by a standard strength acetic acid stop bath & fix.

I did not tone the prints - I wanted to compare image tone/color after dry down. I can always tone them later - if I wish.

David, Morris Germain states that contrast can be controlled with Ansco 130 by dilution of the stock solution.

Morris Germain recommends a 1:1 dilution for normal contrast; undiluted for high contrast; 2:1 for low contrast. I expect that use of a water bath would also lower contrast.

Recall that Ansel Adams left out the Hydroquinone, which yielded a soft working version of Ansco 130 with lower contrast and delicate fine detail rendering characteristics. He would then add Hydroquinone - if needed - to increase contrast.

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 11, 2004

rjr said:
Tom,
PS: Are you the one Tom Hoskinson participating on Kiev-Report, too?

I am indeed that Kievaholic, Roman.

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 11, 2004

juan said:
Tom, have you tried 130 with phenidone replacing the Metol yet? Why not? Ha.
juan

No, but I did mix a batch of 130 with no Hydroquinone - a la Ansel Adams.

How did the big wind treat you? Is your bellows still intact?

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 11, 2004

Thanks, Tom.

Part of the attraction of water bath processing is that if you're printing several negatives in one session, and some of them would work better with water bath processing, then it's not so hard to add another tray of water to the setup and then just dump it to get it out of the way, or if one uses a water stop anyway, just refresh the rinse tray and use it for the water bath with no agitation. Controlling contrast with different developer dilutions means having to group negs by contrast in advance or having enough space for extra developer trays.

sanking · Sep 11, 2004

David A. Goldfarb said:
Thanks---that's an interesting test. It would be interesting to see if Azo responds to water bath processing in 130 the way it does in amidol.

BTW, when doing the AZO Amidol vs 130 tests yesterday I also tested both Amidol and 130 to see if dilution affects contrast. The answer is basicaly no for both developers. There was virtually no differnce in contrast between AZO when developed in both Amidol and 130 straight, diluted 1:1 and diluted 1:2.

Different dilutions do result in curves that are slighly different in terms of both toe and shoulder, however. The most straight line cuve with 130 was obtained with the 1:1 dilution, whereas the most straight line curve with Amidol was obtained with the 1:2 dilution.

I later tested 130 with water bath development, with the following scenario: a) 2.0 minutes in developer, 1.0 minutes in water bath, b) 1.5 minutes in developer, 1.5 minutes in water bath, and c) 1.0 minutes in developer, 2.0 minutes in water bath. The water bath resulted in a change of speed but no change at all in exposure scale, which was 1.45 for all three situations described above.

Sandy

waynecrider · Sep 11, 2004

I would like to try some 130 style developer both as a paper and (4x5) film developer. My question is, what paper would others suggest. My preference for size is 11x14 and I am considering both RC and fiber. My former paper was Polymax RC, but my (smaller size) leftover stock is getting old and I'd like to try somthing else, and at the same time offer support to companies supplying traditional materials. I'll be using a DevTec for development.

dancqu · Sep 11, 2004

MikeK said:
My problem is with the raw glycin before it is put into solution. Wthin 4 weeks or so it has turned light brown and nowhere near as potent as fresh.

I've yet to order some glycin. Just how do you go about putting it
into solution? Dan

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 11, 2004

Glycin is soluble in alkaline solutions. It is only slightly soluble in water. In my experience it is very stable in both Agfa 8 film developer and in Ansco 130.

Agfa 8 Film Developer

Deionized Water @ 125 Deg F 750ml
Sodium Sulfite 12.5 grams
Potassium Carbonate 25 grams
Glycin 2.0 grams
Deionized Water to 1000ml

Check this thread for more information:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Tom Hoskinson · Sep 11, 2004

dancqu said:
MikeK said:

My problem is with the raw glycin before it is put into solution. Wthin 4 weeks or so it has turned light brown and nowhere near as potent as fresh.

Dan

Click to expand...

Glycin is described in the chemical lliterature as a light tan colored powder. I have aquired Glycin from two different sources, and it is indeed a light tan (or brown) powder in both cases. My Glycin is stored in amber glass containers which are kept in a cabinet around 21 deg. C under low humidity conditions. I have seen no change in the powder color and no change in activity over several months.

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