Bellini hydrophen

Times are here. Kentmere is on last page.

https://ntphotoworks.com/shop/produ...oper-100ml-replaces-rodinal-specialstudional/

If the dev times for Kentmere 100 on the nt photo works page are correct (7:30 at 20°C), then this developer is not "brutally fast" or anything, in fact they are just a tad short than what's listed for D-76/ID-11 in massive dev chart.

The formula Gerald posted can not represent what's in the bottle sold by nt photo works: even if it represented working solution after 1+15 dilution, there is no way one could dissolve the necessary amounts of Sodium Sulfite in a concentrate, at least a switch to potassium salts would be required.

darkroommike said:

Based on the instructions on the Bellini site (I don't speak Italian but I do speak tech) the developing times for this stuff are brutally short, I wouldn't think it's a fine grain developer, no times given for Kentmere, and I'd pass.

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Seems to have been updated since I looked the other day the very sort times ater ar 1+15, now there's times foe 1+15 and Kentmere is listed.

Ian

The stuff seems brand new and new products in these later days are always welcome, anyone see a product review or testing on this stuff yet? The company selling it does mostly mini-lab products.

Rudeofus said:

If the dev times for Kentmere 100 on the nt photo works page are correct (7:30 at 20°C), then this developer is not "brutally fast" or anything, in fact they are just a tad short than what's listed for D-76/ID-11 in massive dev chart.

The formula Gerald posted can not represent what's in the bottle sold by nt photo works: even if it represented working solution after 1+15 dilution, there is no way one could dissolve the necessary amounts of Sodium Sulfite in a concentrate, at least a switch to potassium salts would be required.

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To second what Rudeofus,says the formula posted is for Foma W 17 the commercial version is sold as Hydrofen. It is different from the Bellini product.

darkroommike said:

The stuff seems brand new and new products in these later days are always welcome, anyone see a product review or testing on this stuff yet? The company selling it does mostly mini-lab products.

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No he's taken over the formulae of another Italian photo chemical manufacturer Ornano so they aren't new products just a new supplier/manufacturer.

Ian

Ian Grant said:

No he's taken over the formulae of another Italian photo chemical manufacturer Ornano so they aren't new products just a new supplier/manufacturer.

Ian

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Well then, new to me, a lot of this stuff doesn't get much mention in the US sources. And there is only one thread, this one, on Photrio.

Gerald C Koch said:

Foma Hydrofen A fine grain developer

Distilled water (50°C) …………………………………………… 750 ml
Sodium sulfite (anhy) ……………………………………………… 50.0 g
Hydroquinone ……………………………………………………………………… 3.5 g
Phenidone .…………………………………………………………………………… 0.1 g
Sodium citrate ………………………………………………………………… 10.0 g
Borax ………………………………………………………………………………………… 6.0 g
Potassium bromide ………………………………………………………… 0.4 g
Distilled water to make ………………………………………… 1.0 l

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This formula was originally published and I think sold as Foton N10 and made in Poland, there was also N10R a replenisher as well as N10T a tropical developer based on it. Foton became a part of Foma some years ago, and are now the Polish distributor.

Ian

Thanks for all the advice and yes I'm giving up on exotic developers and going to use ilford ID-11. I'm going to use it as a one-shot at either 1-1 or 1-3. Is there any advantage of one over the other, apart from economy?

Rudeofus said:

Yes, Jerry, can you post the formula, so we can see what Hydrofen is similar to?

@derek andrews : If an ISO 100 emulsion looks too grainy, then most likely your scanner is the culprit. Switching developers can improve things to some extent, so can overexposure plus pulling, but neither will do miracles. Can you give us some idea which format you shoot and how far you want to enlarge the negs (either as final size or in pixels, depending on your work flow) ?

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I was interested in your observation re my scanner being at fault. I'm using vuescan software with an old Epson scanner

There are many, many threads about the various dilutions of D-76/ID-11, and the general consent appears to be that higher dilutions give higher sharpness at the expense of higher graininess. Again, the proclaimed "huuuuge differences" between dilutions are most likely just moderate at best to neutral observers.

About scanning: flat bed scanners suffer from great difficulties with negative film, since their rather small bit resolution (8-9 real bits max) strongly clash with negative's typical low contrast. What appears as "grain" is typically just scanner noise, and for both color and B&W negs my observation holds that optical enlargements tells a very different story than my scanned images. Another thing is resolution: If you look at the scan of a 35mm neg full screen on a nowadays standard 24" monitor, that's effectively a 1:15 enlargement, which is quite a lot. Such an enlargement is going to be grainy, and unless you use some spectacular lens and a god tripod with good technique, somewhat blurry (every RAW converter software sharpens images unless you jump through hoops to completely turn that off, and of course all direct to JPG cameras sharpen images).

If you want to judge your image on your monitor for granularity and sharpness, match viewing size to typical real enlargement factors, which are usually no more than 10. This would mean about 2/3 linear coverage of a 24" monitor, viewed from a typical distance of a meter or more, as you would in a gallery.

Rudeofus said:

Yes, Jerry, can you post the formula, so we can see what Hydrofen is similar to?

@derek andrews : If an ISO 100 emulsion looks too grainy, then most likely your scanner is the culprit. Switching developers can improve things to some extent, so can overexposure plus pulling, but neither will do miracles. Can you give us some idea which format you shoot and how far you want to enlarge the negs (either as final size or in pixels, depending on your work flow) ?

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Gerald C Koch said:

Foma Hydrofen A fine grain developer

Distilled water (50°C) …………………………………………… 750 ml
Sodium sulfite (anhy) ……………………………………………… 50.0 g
Hydroquinone ……………………………………………………………………… 3.5 g
Phenidone .…………………………………………………………………………… 0.1 g
Sodium citrate ………………………………………………………………… 10.0 g
Borax ………………………………………………………………………………………… 6.0 g
Potassium bromide ………………………………………………………… 0.4 g
Distilled water to make ………………………………………… 1.0 l

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I am sorry if the initial idea of this thread was different, but after the formula was posted, I find it suspiciously similar to Agfa Final, except that there is slightly less sulfite, and metol is replaced by phenidone. The amount of borax, citrate and bromide is exactly the same as in Final. It just so happened that I was eyeing a number of now obscure recipes from the days of yore, and in particular the developers where phosphate and citrate were used as alkaline salts, otherwise I would have hardly noticed this thread. Curiously, Agfa Final reportedly possessed a near mythical property of self-cleansing, in that a partially used developer was said to reject some crud produced during development as a coarse precipitate, easily filtered away, and that the developer itself kept very well with occasional use. Sounds like a dream, but I am still curious, because this recipe is not that far from D-76, less the presence of sodium citrate. Could anyone of the actual users of Final please comment?