Ansco 135 chemistry question

[PVia]

I'm looking for a warm-tone developer recipe and saw Ansco 135 in the formula section. It doesn't contain metol, so I was wondering if it's a soft-working or low-contrast developer?

Also, what would happen if you added glycin, an ingredient of Ansco 130?

If you've used this developer, I'd love to hear some comments on your experiences.

 

[dpurdy]

Water, 125F/52C 750 ml
Metol 1.6 g
Sodium Sulfite (anhydrous) 24 g
Hydroquinone 6.6 g
Sodium Carbonate (monohydrate*) 24 g
Potassium Bromide 2.8 g
Cold water to make 1L

The formula I found calls for Metol. This developer doesn't look very unique, maybe a bit weaker than I am used to with Dektol or D54. But probably won't make a significantly different looking print, maybe a bit softer. You could add Glycin to it but I don't believe that will warm it up much.

Basically what you want to do to make a developer warmer is decrease the Sodium Carbonate and increase the Potassium Bromide. This Ansco 135 formula does call for less Sodium Carbonate and more Potassium Bromide than a lot of formulas. You could add a lot more Potassium Bromide to it to warm it up.

 

[Ian Grant]

This is one of the formulae that differs between the Agfa Ansco and the German Agfa versions. However both are MQ developers and the formula given above (there was a url link here which no longer exists) in the articles section.

I prefer Phenidone developers as they give warmer tones and it's worth trying ID-78 which is very similar to Agfa Neutol WA.

Ian

 

[PVia]

My mistake in thinking the Ansco 135 was without metol...I see it now.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

I'm looking for a warm-tone developer ... doesn't contain metol.

If you want no metol and warm print tones try G-262:

S. Sulfite 70g
Hydroquinone 25g
S. Carbonate 90g
P. Bromide 2g
Water to make 1L

Use:

Full Strength Brown-black
1:2 Brown
1:4 Brown-Red
1:6 Red

Develop up to 6 minutes.

“A few papers will react in unusual and inconsistent ways to this developer.”

Even more unusual and inconsistent with toning.

Source: Darkroom Cookbook, S. Anchell