Bulk stand developing TriX

Hello,
I need everyones brain to help solve a workflow quality control issue. First of all this isn't my project but what is needed to be accomplished is the following:

Bulk developing triX 35mm 20 rolls at a time in a tank possibly with water jacket for temp control using manageable chemistry suitable for stand development that will produce negatives to be printed starting at 24x30. A special state-of-the-art darkroom was built from scratch for this work flow so it is a serious endeavor.

My task seems to be to come up with a developer best suited for this system. Some ideas which were thrown around include Precyscol (which I know nothing about) and Pyrocat HD, FA1027, FX-2 formulary version.

The film IS TriX and so needs to have good acutance, excellent grain, rich midtone, and manageable highlights so printing is relatively straight-foward. The images will be journalistic in nature, war, genocide, human carnage.

Microdol-X grain was noted as the standard for comparison.


My own experience with stand development and bulk processing is limited. Any suggestions on where to start testing and bulk processing technique will be most appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Chris

Hire the best B&W processing guy in your city to be a consultant.
He will have both expertise, experience, and have to be accountable.

"I need everyones brain to help solve a workflow quality control issue."
With all due respect, you need a professional's brain.

WOW! would love to see the pics when they are done.

I'm not sure those parameters are realistically achievable. Microdol-X as a comparison for grain for stand development of 400TX 135? TFX-2 would create too much grain. Maybe Pyrocat-HD would be more of the order, but I still believe that it is unrealistic to expect the fine grain you wish to achieve with 400 speed film in 135 and stand development. Acutance and highlights should be to your expectations.

HC-110 @ 1:119 from stock might be an option, too.

Years ago, Costa Manos did a series on Boston with 4x6 foot enlargements the needed end result. He used Tri-X and sulfited Rodinal. I still do not know what the &**$ is the cause for the "cachet" about "stand" development for something as mundane as Tri-X; but, then, he did not have the Internet to pass on "information."
Harrumph!

Thanks for the quick replies.

The stand development seems to be a consequence of having to process so many rolls at once. The actual tank to be used hasn't been obtained yet, but, it seems like some agitation will have to be possible. The work flow is being created for a specific artist to their specs. I agree that grain is secondary to acutance and highlights in this scenario. I made the same suggestions for the first tests, Pyrocat and HC110 1:120. I was wondering if anyone has anyone tried Precyscol?

BTW, I can't answer the question as to why I was the chosen one, but, likely the professionals didn't want to be involved due to the unreasonable nature of the project or the reclusive nature of the artist. As a Physicist, weekend triX processor, and neighbor I suppose I seemed like a good candidate to help on a crazy project. Or maybe I'll be of no use, who knows but I'll give it a go, you never know what lies around the bend, and so far this has been a strange and incredible experience which I can hardly believe myself and wouldn't trade for anything.

Thanks for all the information so far!

Chris

Chris,
It was not a fine-grain process, and it was down-and-dirty convention photography, but on the road, we used to soup twenty rolls at a time of 120 in hotel rooms in Permadol using the old Nikor tank which took the reels in double rows in a thing which looked like the carrier the milk man used on his route. Boy, I AM dating myself now--the milkman; Permadol.
I do not see why a similar rig could not be made up from brass tubing availabe at any hardware store and any kind of a deep enough tray.
Your reclusive artiste is just too precious for words, it seems to me, in my curmudeony and jaundiced view. But he may wish to try googling Costa Manos's Boston series to see what one good photographer did with sulfited Rodinal for BIG enlargements from 35mm negs.

I don't know what your deadline is, but AnscoJohn has a great point about the big tanks and the milkman basket. These should be available on Ebay and you can easily fit 20 rools of 135 in them. If you feel like driving to the Adirondacks, you can use mine!

For something like this, Rodinal diluted 1+200 or 1+300 is a good choice; cost effective, easily mixed, great with TX and used often for stand dev.

Saganich said:

The film IS TriX and so needs to have good acutance, excellent grain, rich midtone, and manageable highlights so printing is relatively straight-foward. The images will be journalistic in nature, war, genocide, human carnage.

Microdol-X grain was noted as the standard for comparison.



Chris

Click to expand...

Simple, if anyone tells you to use any developer other than a pyro based developer for 35mm enlargements to 24x30 then you should discount anything that person tells you from that point forward.

my 2 cents, Cheers !

The Manos's images are wonderful and is definitely worth exploration. I might be able to get more info on what he did. There isn't a particular deadline and driving to the Adirondacks sounds like something I'd like to do. Thankfully I'm not involved with the equipment only brainstorming about the soup and perhaps making some initial tests, which is something I enjoy.

i would have your friend make a big 8 gallon tub of caffenol c
be plentiful with the C and just eyeball all the amounts ..
THEN every 1L of solution, add 100cc of straight, undilute ansco130.
let steep/stand for 26minutes.
for each 1 roll of film, replenish with the same solution ( caf C + a130 )
100cc.
the film will look very nice.
kind of pyro-y, with nice contrast from the a130.
i can't say what huge enlargements will look like ...

Chris, you said the magic words -- initial tests. Get it wired before you jump in with both feet. Get your exposure and processing down. Make a test enlargement on a piece of 11x14 paper from a portion of the negative enlarged to the equivalent size of the final prints. Keep testing until the print looks the way you want it to look. You're trying a 24X enlargement. This will push every bit of your workflow to the max, every error will show. Good luck!

Peter Gomena

Saganich said:

I was wondering if anyone has anyone tried Precyscol?

Click to expand...

The first pyro developer I tried was Prescysol. It is quite similar to Pyrocat HD. In fact the only difference I can discern is that it gives slightly higher film speed than home brew Pyrocat (read my home brew Pyrocat – the difference may very well be the result of errors on my part when mixing it).

Bottom line – Prescysol is a very good developer, and if you don’t want to mix your own developer from raw chemicals it is certainly worth a try. It works very well with minimal agitation.

Chris

You have an interesting set of criteria,
and they remind me of my perfect car:

Drives like a Porsche,
hauls like a Ford pickup,
seats 2 to 6 comfortably,
get 50 mpg, and costs less than $20,000.
And safe, it has to be safe.

Obviously no car can ever be built which might satisfy more than
two of these needs. Actually, any car that can meet any two of these
requirements is pretty remarkable. And that brings us to your lab.

First, look at the problems specific to developing film in tanks.
Take a look at this recent thread on Tank Development:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I’d pay specific attention to Bob Carnie’s comments and Bowzart’s.

Tank Development can be extremely good, or a disaster,
and if you address the specific conditions you have to satisfy to make Tank Development work, you might agree that some of your priorities have to be examined. Agitation is essential to give film throughout the tank the same development. Standing development, with any formula, won’t do the job. Tank development, while beyond the normal experience of most photographers today has been the focus of much research over the past hundred years, and you can make good use of Kodak’s publications. But Carnie and Bowzart summarised the process very neatly.

AS to the developer, some developers ware superb in tanks, some are not so good. XTOL and HC-110 are unsurpassed for tank development. D-23 was formulated in 1940 to meet the shortcomings of D-76.

A replenishment system will offer many good qualities, in particular a way to satisfy the conflicting criteria of acutance, tonality and fine grain. Replenishment is well suited to Tank processing, and XTOL is probably the best replenishment developer ever formulated. A negative developed in a well replenished system has a very different, and very attractive quality, and you can meet many of your criteria this way. A piece of Tri-X processed in a replenished system looks quite different than one souped in a one shot system.

Standing development is problematic in tanks, and one of the reasons it was rejected for large scale commercial use was it unsuitability for tank development. The developer in a tank DOES circulate even if you are just letting it sit there. And it moves in ways that only a physicist could appreciate. Agitation equalises the development.

You’re looking at an interesting project,
and you have every chance for success. But the processing itself has its own conditions for success that are quite different than most of us encounter in our own lab work.
Look at Carnie and Bowzart.

RIT & Kodak are probably the finest sources of data and research for your problem on the planet, and NYC where most of this kid of work has been done, over the past hundred years. You’re lucky you have these resources.

If I were designing the project, I'd also take a long and hard look at whether Tri-X is the best choice. TMY-2 meets - easily meets - the most difficult criteria, while pressing TriX violates most of the laws of nature. But TriX is very charming, and if the shooter wants to use TriX than that is that.

Good luck !

As DF Cardwell has pointed out, it'd be nice to find someone to consult with in person. Jim at MV labs on little west 12th, has always been a very friendly and kind resource for questions when I've went in and talked with him. If anyone has hands on experience w/ what you're attempting, it's him.

Saganich said:

The Manos's images are wonderful and is definitely worth exploration. I might be able to get more info on what he did. There isn't a particular deadline and driving to the Adirondacks sounds like something I'd like to do. Thankfully I'm not involved with the equipment only brainstorming about the soup and perhaps making some initial tests, which is something I enjoy.

Click to expand...

*******
Chris,
Have been digging. According to my notes from an old photo mag article, Manos's Boston negs were Tri-X, EI 400, Rodinal 1:75 with 50 grams Sodium Sulfite per liter of working developer. Agitation 10 seconds per minute, 9-10 minutes. Also says that many had to be printed on a Nr. 4 paper.

But as DF Cardwell sez, the parameters given you are not of this photographic planet.

Saganich said:

Thanks for the quick replies.

The stand development seems to be a consequence of having to process so many rolls at once.

Click to expand...

So stand development isn't necessary, then. Baskets were made to hold 20 Nikor type reels. They were designed specifically to fit in standard 3-1/2 gallon tanks. This was very common.

This is how 35mm films were hand processed into the 1970's, prior to the rash of continuous process machines where all you had to do was to put the film in and it came out dry. Most serious labs with professional clients had tank lines like this. Agitation is absolutely necessary as dfcardwell points out for the reasons he gives, and it must be done according to a strict regimen, otherwise the unevenness will kill you. By the early 1970's, nitrogen burst had become the standard. It gave a very uniform and repeatable agitation pattern, and because it used nitrogen instead of air, oxidation was not a problem. If you could find a nitrogen rig, that would definitely be the way to go.

My short treatise on agitation of a basket of hangers or reels is at (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

That leaves you with the choice of developer. You don't necessarily need to use a replenishment system; as I mention in the referenced posting, a friend of mine uses a tank one shot. This gives him great uniformity. Of course he goes through a lot of developer, but the one he uses is quite economical. It is NOT particularly fine grained, however so it is not for you.

Another question. Why fine grain? Is this an appropriate parameter, or something someone wants to do because fine grain is supposed to be good?

At what distance will these prints be viewed? I would think that the requirement for "fine grain" ought to recognize that our eyes can tell the difference between one grain size and another, until we reach our limitations on resolution. Beyond that, why would it matter? Will each image have a loupe on a string hanging beside it so that viewers can OO AHH about the invisibility of the grain?

Saganich said:

Hello,
I need everyones brain to help solve a workflow quality control issue. First of all this isn't my project but what is needed to be accomplished is the following:

Bulk developing triX 35mm 20 rolls at a time in a tank possibly with water jacket for temp control using manageable chemistry suitable for stand development that will produce negatives to be printed starting at 24x30. A special state-of-the-art darkroom was built from scratch for this work flow so it is a serious endeavor.

My task seems to be to come up with a developer best suited for this system. Some ideas which were thrown around include Precyscol (which I know nothing about) and Pyrocat HD, FA1027, FX-2 formulary version.

The film IS TriX and so needs to have good acutance, excellent grain, rich midtone, and manageable highlights so printing is relatively straight-foward. The images will be journalistic in nature, war, genocide, human carnage.

Microdol-X grain was noted as the standard for comparison.


My own experience with stand development and bulk processing is limited. Any suggestions on where to start testing and bulk processing technique will be most appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Chris

Click to expand...

I think they have started this process going bass ackwards..... They picked a film and methodology without thinking through the developer, they may have spent a lot of money on building a darkroom that wasn't really needed.

You determine a result you want, then pick a film and developer that gives that result, then the process to make that work is pretty easy to figure out. With 20 rolls at a time, I wonder if a roller transport type machine would be the best way to go, especially if they want consistency batch to batch.

Thanks so much info this is great. Ah, nitrogen burst tank system, sweet, I'll have to send that one along. My second thought was to use a different film also, we will see that happen as a last resort since after 40 years of shooting triX it would be like dumping an old friend. My first thought was to use the M8 sitting on the table. The volume would not be consistent like a commercial lab, I imagine the scenario to be like 4 weeks travel, get home with 100 rolls, process and print as fast as possible. I don't think replenishment will be necessary although after using the same 1 liter of D23 for nearly a year with triX replenished after every roll the negs do take on different characteristics. I'll start with what I have in the cabinet, Rodinol, Hc110 1:120, D23 1:9 then work my way to Pyrocat and Prescysol if anyone gives me some to work with.

Thanks again for all the input!

What is the total number of rolls for the project? A single person using 2 Patterson 8 systems (one in each hand) could easily develop 32 35mm rolls per hour using what ever developer you wish. That is only 8 rolls in each tank in each hand per half hour. It would be a long day but in two 5 hour shifts you could knock out 320 rolls of 35mm film. Have two people do it and you could knock out 640 rolls. You biggest issue would be having enough reels to do that but you are going to need a bunch of reels anyway.

I am not sure why you want stand development, if it is just to be quick and not have to worry as much about times and temps you could also use Diafine.

I also wonder if you end goal is very large prints why not shoot with Medium Format?

eye_of_wally said:

You biggest issue would be having enough reels to do that but you are going to need a bunch of reels anyway.

Click to expand...

Not enough reels. Seems like mine multiply like rabbits when I'm not looking. Not so much recently, but I swear everything I bought off eBay a few years ago came with at least 1 if not more Paterson style reels. I must have a dozen of them, and I wasn't even looking for them. I image had I been trying to get reels I could have bought scores of them. Of course, if you were actually looking for them, then Murphy might dictate they won't show up for weeks or months at a time.

But I will admit that it's very, very nice to have a stack of *DRY* reels at my disposal if I've gone bonkers and shot more film that a sane man should. (Hell, with my photographic talent maybe shooting any film is more than I should.)

MB