Book: Formulas for Photo Chemicals

[ErinHilburn]

Hello,
I've become interested in mixing my own photo chemicals. I've discovered a large variety of books out there that discuss these matters, but as I'm newly aware of them and they're on the internet I can't really see what is in the books. I wondered if anyone here would have any suggestions in regards to a good book of photo chemical formulas. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Erin Hilburn

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

The two classics you want to have because of their excellent pedagogical aspects are The Film Developing Cookbook and The Darkroom Cookbook, both by Anchell and Troop. They explain safety, photochemical formulas principles, applications, developing procedures, etc for both film and paper development.

They also come with a full catalog of formulas with basic developing time. The neatest thing about these formulas is that they explain to you WHY they were created in the first place.

Gee, I don't even mix my own chemistry and those books were amazingly useful!

 

[Gerald Koch]

http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/files/Kodak j-1.pdf online version of Kodak's Publication J-1, contains the basic Kodak formulas plus a lot of other useful information. Can't beat the price.

There are the Anchel books.

Ilford and Agfa also published very useful books on photochemistry. Check used book sources online.

 

[reellis67]

There are a lot of formulas in the older British Journal Annuals too...

- Randy

 

[ErinHilburn]

Thanks I'm in the middle of trying to get a temp darkroom ready, b/c as students we can't use the school darkroom in the summer b/c the professor travels all over the place. The good news is I live with three other photographers, the bad news I think one of us is going to have to live in the living room to make room for a darkroom But we decided we wanted to try mixing our own chemicals, so here we go...
-Erin

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

Have fun mixing, Eric.

I assume you've looked in the APUG Chemical Recipes

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

 

[ErinHilburn]

hmmm...no I can't say that I even knew that was there, so thanks for pointing it out. I also recently bought a copy of an old ilford manual and there are a few recipes in there as well

 

[srs5694]

The two classics you want to have because of their excellent pedagogical aspects are The Film Developing Cookbook and The Darkroom Cookbook, both by Anchell and Troop.

A small correction: The Film Developing Cookbook is by Anchell and Troop; The Darkroom Cookbook is by Anchell alone. The second is also in its second edition.

Here are a few Web sites with useful information and/or formulas:

• (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
• Ryuji Suzuki's film and paper developers.
• The Unblinking Eye. Check the Articles link, in particular. It's got several articles on photochemistry, including some with formulas.
• Jack's Photographic and Chemistry Site
• Digital Truth's chemistry data section

You can easily dig up more, especially sites that present just one or two of the author's favorite formulas. Try searching on keywords like "film phenidone" to find formulas based on phenidone, for instance.

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

hmmm...no I can't say that I even knew that was there, so thanks for pointing it out. I also recently bought a copy of an old ilford manual and there are a few recipes in there as well

The Morgan and Morgan Compact Photo Lab Index has a lot of formulas - Agfa, Kodak, Ilford and GAF.

There were many editions of the Photo Lab Index - I have the 1977 edition. I recently spotted a copy in a used book store that was priced at $5.00

 

[jim appleyard]

When you go to unblinkingeye, check out the dev times. You'll find some unconventional devs and times there. For instance, Agfa 14 and Rodinal 1+75.

 

[p krentz]

One I used a lot over the years is Dignan's 150 B/W Formula's. one of the best. Pat