Any truth to this?

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo · Apr 2, 2019

Pentode said:
Has anyone tried this? Does it actually work?

I read the same quote for the first time a few weeks ago and tried it last week. I had bought some 30 years old Soviet era black and white film (Svema Foto 65) and could not find any resouces on the internet at all, at least not in English, on how to develop this film. Neither new, nor taking the age into consideration. It was originally a 65 GOST (72 ASA) Film, so I overexposed by about 2 stops to compensate for the age and did the mentioned 'dip test' in the developer of choice and measured some 13-14 seconds. Following the rule, that should give a 260-280 seconds development time, but I rounded to 300 seconds, 5 minutes, for good faith. If I had just guesstimated a time as a starting point for a test series, I would most probably have given the film a much longer development for a first attempt.

I may of course just have been lucky and to be frank, most black and white films tolerate several stops over- and under-exposure or over- and under-development and will still yield perfectly printable negatives. But perhaps, even if it the test does not give you the exact same time as determined by film manufacturers and published in data sheets for the film or the developer, it is not completely unlikely that it actually gives a rough idea on how fast a film reacts in a specific developer and can be used as a starting point for further optimizations.

So I gave the Svema 65 a bath for five minutes in the developer and actually got very usable negatives. Being so old, the negatives had of course a relatively high level of fog and the negatives were perhaps a little bit less contrasty than ideal, but they look perfectly usable. I haven't tried to wet-print them yet, but scanned, they show really nice tonality throughout the density range:

Pentode · Apr 2, 2019

Okay. There’s one vote for “Yes”.

pentaxuser · Apr 2, 2019

Pentode said:
I believe by “double-spiral reel” he’s simply referring to a typical stainless steel reel. There’s a spiral on each side, hence, double spiral.

I read it pretty much the way you did. I assumed the agitation would just be a twisting motion. Since this is intended to arrive at a rough starting point I’m not sure the agitation is all that mission-critical. There would have to be some fine tuning in the long run anyway.

What I’m really wondering is whether this method or the one I linked to in the OP really saves any time or effort over simply guessing at a starting point based upon similar emulsions with known, available data.

OK and thanks pentode. So in that method you judging matters by being able to examine only a third of the width of 24 mm so 8mm only. This might be Ok but it seem a very thin strip to me on which to judge. I can understand why you cannot use inversion agitation as this is the only way to keep the developer liquid from touching the rest of the film. In fact even a slow swirl is likely to "contaminate" the rest of the film. A very gentle swirl with the Paterson twizzle stick might work OK but as your results are dependent on minimal agitation then unless you can convert min agitation into the appropriate reduction in time when you use normal agitation, you are stuck with minimal twizzling once you have arrived a a time.

Given that we have now one person who appears to have used your method with success it may be that Pixophrenic's method offers no more success. The real issue is that unless you have stash of film as opposed to finding say one film in a very old camera whose name and even make is unknown then it might take you the best part of that one film you found to fine tune the development time using Pixophrenic's method

pentaxuser

Pentode · Apr 2, 2019

pentaxuser said:
Given that we have now one person who appears to have used your method with success it may be that Pixophrenic's method offers no more success.

To be fair, it's not my method at all. It's just something I found on the internet and two people so far (if we include the original source) have had reasonable results with it. As I stated before, I just wonder if they might have had more or less equivalent results simple by guessing. I don't know the answer. I would like to compare both methods to known times, though, just out of curiosity.

DREW WILEY · Apr 2, 2019

Well, a follow-up on my pizza quip. I happen to dry my test strips in a little toaster oven. I can achieve the same incredible DMax on ANY kind of print paper just by leaving it in there about 10 seconds too long.

mshchem · Apr 2, 2019

Pentode said:
To be fair, it's not my method at all. It's just something I found on the internet and two people so far (if we include the original source) have had reasonable results with it. As I stated before, I just wonder if they might have had more or less equivalent results simple by guessing. I don't know the answer. I would like to compare both methods to known times, though, just out of curiosity.

You are innocent You have a very nice interesting site. I enjoyed reading about recovering silver from fixer. Don't let me or any other grumpy gus get to you. Personally I would engage in something that might be easier to understand the results.

I am a bit of a by the book guy, however I have found excellent results can be obtained by unorthodox methods. I spouted off earlier in your thread, I still think this is nuts, but I apologize if I came off too harsh. Keep having fun.
Best Regards Mike

mshchem · Apr 2, 2019

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo said:
I read the same quote for the first time a few weeks ago and tried it last week. I had bought some 30 years old Soviet era black and white film (Svema Foto 65) and could not find any resouces on the internet at all, at least not in English, on how to develop this film. Neither new, nor taking the age into consideration. It was originally a 65 GOST (72 ASA) Film, so I overexposed by about 2 stops to compensate for the age and did the mentioned 'dip test' in the developer of choice and measured some 13-14 seconds. Following the rule, that should give a 260-280 seconds development time, but I rounded to 300 seconds, 5 minutes, for good faith. If I had just guesstimated a time as a starting point for a test series, I would most probably have given the film a much longer development for a first attempt.

I may of course just have been lucky and to be frank, most black and white films tolerate several stops over- and under-exposure or over- and under-development and will still yield perfectly printable negatives. But perhaps, even if it the test does not give you the exact same time as determined by film manufacturers and published in data sheets for the film or the developer, it is not completely unlikely that it actually gives a rough idea on how fast a film reacts in a specific developer and can be used as a starting point for further optimizations.

So I gave the Svema 65 a bath for five minutes in the developer and actually got very usable negatives. Being so old, the negatives had of course a relatively high level of fog and the negatives were perhaps a little bit less contrasty than ideal, but they look perfectly usable. I haven't tried to wet-print them yet, but scanned, they show really nice tonality throughout the density range:

Great! !

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo · Apr 3, 2019

But I mean, it is not really difficult to verify or debunk the method with a few different films instead of just speculating, so I did so by trying some Ilford films in Rodinal 1+25:

FP4+ measured 5:20, data sheet says 9:00
HP5+ measured 5:40, data sheet says 7:00
Delta 100 measured 4:00, data sheet says 6:00
Delta 400 measured 3:20, data sheets says 9:00

So it looks as I was just lucky with the old, but successfully developed Svema films. For the Ilford films, there does not seem to be any reliable correlation between the measurements and Ilford's developing recommendations.

baachitraka · Apr 3, 2019

3-pages and not so pseudo science gaining the main-stream.

Lanline · Apr 3, 2019

With old film or unknown films, I use Rodinal 1:100 stand development.

I prefer to shoot fresh film stock and I save the stand development for found film (in thrift store cameras) and with Holga & pinhole cameras.

Pentode · Apr 3, 2019

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo said:
But I mean, it is not really difficult to verify or debunk the method with a few different films instead of just speculating, so I did so by trying some Ilford films in Rodinal 1+25:

FP4+ measured 5:20, data sheet says 9:00

HP5+ measured 5:40, data sheet says 7:00

Delta 100 measured 4:00, data sheet says 6:00

Delta 400 measured 3:20, data sheets says 9:00

So it looks as I was just lucky with the old, but successfully developed Svema films. For the Ilford films, there does not seem to be any reliable correlation between the measurements and Ilford's developing recommendations.

Thank you!! This is exactly what I was planning to do when I had time but you beat me to it. Given your results, I probably won’t bother. I think it tells us everything we need to know.

mshchem said:
You are innocent You have a very nice interesting site. I enjoyed reading about recovering silver from fixer. Don't let me or any other grumpy gus get to you. Personally I would engage in something that might be easier to understand the results.

I am a bit of a by the book guy, however I have found excellent results can be obtained by unorthodox methods. I spouted off earlier in your thread, I still think this is nuts, but I apologize if I came off too harsh. Keep having fun.
Best Regards Mike

I think you’re confused regarding the source here. I did, in fact, start this thread but it was not me who originally presented the method in question. I didn’t start the thread to tout that method but, rather, because I was skeptical of it. I also don’t have a website; nice, interesting or otherwise (although if I had one I’d like to hope it would be both!).

I still believe in trying things, though, and I’m glad that, overall, the thread ended up being a pretty reasonable discussion and not just a bunch of us yelling over each other as can often be the case.

Everyone can return to your darkrooms now. Nothing to see here.

Pixophrenic · Apr 18, 2019

pentaxuser said:
I have read this several times and I am still confused. Can I state what I have made as assumptions and ask questions that do not seem to be covered.

1. When you pull out 15cm in the dark, this is in addition to the fogged(i.e. exposed leader)? So on development for the times stated you have both exposed and unexposed film?
2. What is a double spiralled reel is onto which you feed the film and how does this differ from the usual reel? In the usual reel, using the quantities of developer stated you will get the film developed in stages but in a lateral direction not a vertical direction so for judgement purposes you are relying on one third of 24 mm of film to make the judgement? In a double spiralled reel the agitation is not by inversion so how else do you do it. Do you need a twirling stick which I think only old Paterson reels have? This may be connected to the use of a double spiralled reel, hence my question at the start of point 2. Have I got this correct?
3. Does fogging matter to the extent of establishing a fogging time? Can you not print through fogging as others have stated?

Thanks for your additional coverage of my questions

pentaxuser

Sorry this comes so late, but here you go:
1. Yes, you need a completely fogged portion and unexposed portion on the same film piece. The exposed portion gives you the idea of a minimal time, and the unexposed one the maximum time when fog becomes too high. This test gives you boundaries, but not the exact time for "box speed".
2. Since the short film needs to be held securely in place you need spirals on both sides. Reels with a spiral on only the bottom side are not that common, but I wanted a cover-all description. Ideally a "self-loading" reel like Paterson's should be used, where you can just push the film in and be certain it stays in place.

Radost · Dec 9, 2022

Is a good scanner and a silver fast densitometer a fairly accurate way to mesure?

Any truth to this?

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