I found it interesting that no one mentioned the yellow stain from the first roll I developed, which wiped off with my fingers. In the video comment section, a few people speculated on the cause, such as "Oxidation products of Metol in a low sulphite environment."
Pre.soak is a bit self explaining but thanks!!
That should be a good idea... But have you tested it? ( With and without, 1 min, 2 min or 30min, running water? Destilled? Soda water? Or even spiked with sodium perborate??)
The idea that it prepares..., sooths the emulsion, more evenly receiveing the developer is probably just that, an idea. If there is water saturating the emulsion, when the developer comes (in a aqueous solution), then the process is not absortion but diffusion and the thing that you want to avoid is what you are doing, slowing initial development and maybe even uneven it.
Carbonate is way more manageable, best maybe even buffered... But if acutance is the goal: fx1 ( a beutler relative) or fx2 should be more useable without the alchemy shananigans and waste of time of stand development without a proper developer (fx2 or maybe pyrocat hd).
But you seem to have fun
The best!!
I found it interesting that no one mentioned the yellow stain from the first roll I developed, which wiped off with my fingers. In the video comment section, a few people speculated on the cause, such as "Oxidation products of Metol in a low sulphite environment."
I meant to ask - are you using distilled water for mixing the developer?
I use distilled water for some developers like Pyrocat-HD, but not D-23.
May I sugget the formula called Kalogen? It's basically Metol-Hydroquinone and Hydroxide and is quite similar to D23 spiked with Hydroxide
Pre.soak is a bit self explaining but thanks!!
That should be a good idea... But have you tested it? ( With and without, 1 min, 2 min or 30min, running water? Destilled? Soda water? Or even spiked with sodium perborate??)
The idea that it prepares..., sooths the emulsion, more evenly receiveing the developer is probably just that, an idea. If there is water saturating the emulsion, when the developer comes (in a aqueous solution), then the process is not absortion but diffusion and the thing that you want to avoid is what you are doing, slowing initial development and maybe even uneven it.
Carbonate is way more manageable, best maybe even buffered... But if acutance is the goal: fx1 ( a beutler relative) or fx2 should be more useable without the alchemy shananigans and waste of time of stand development without a proper developer (fx2 or maybe pyrocat hd).
But you seem to have fun
The best!!
Beutler is on my list, especially because it's a 2-bath.
A poorly done pre-soak (and on the balance of meta-observation, that's most of them) is worse than none. Obsession with them usually tends to correlate to a lack of reasonable skepticism about the various silver-bullet developer formulae (especially the staining ones) bandied about.
There is some good evidence that the major film manufacturers have been aware for decades that pH and acutance share a bell curve relationship with some degree of variance relative to specific ingredients - essentially it peaks at about the optimal carbonate buffering range, and by the time you're out at Rodinal pH, it's back down to about level with D-76/ D-23 etc. This also matches the microdensitometry results Richard Henry got (and strongly suggests that people misleadingly confuse more strongly apparent granularity as inherently meaning enhanced sharpness - which isn't the case).
It isn't meant to be used as a 2-bath. It is a very sharp working developer with a far more solid basis in imaging science (exhaustion effects of metol below 0.5g/l) than any staining developer, but there are other routes to the same end that allow for more effective balancing of speed, granularity, sharpness and highlight density control (this was a research focus within the major manufacturers, but a lot of the knowledge only seems to have been commercialised in a limited way) - if you have the laboratory and data resources necessary to do so.
A poorly done pre-soak (and on the balance of meta-observation, that's most of them) is worse than none. Obsession with them usually tends to correlate to a lack of reasonable skepticism about the various silver-bullet developer formulae (especially the staining ones) bandied about.
There is some good evidence that the major film manufacturers have been aware for decades that pH and acutance share a bell curve relationship with some degree of variance relative to specific ingredients - essentially it peaks at about the optimal carbonate buffering range, and by the time you're out at Rodinal pH, it's back down to about level with D-76/ D-23 etc. This also matches the microdensitometry results Richard Henry got (and strongly suggests that people misleadingly confuse more strongly apparent granularity as inherently meaning enhanced sharpness - which isn't the case).
Now I really have to try it!
Andy,
If you are talking about Kalogen I think you really should give it a go. Gerald Koch (I really miss him) was a fan of Kalogen, and he never ever gave me bad advice. The nice thing about Kalogen is it can be used for slow films, fast films and paper too. I have a half full bottle that was made in 2016 that still works just fine. I actually like it better than Rodinal, but that's just me. I really don't know why folks here don't have this on the shelf as a backup in case they run out of their main brew.
what a properly done pre-soak might be
I realize that it's likely an approximation
One that respects whether there might be components within the emulsion intended to regulate/ speed up developer access that could be accidentally removed/ changed via a pre-soak. Not using one will not hurt any emulsion today, but using one wrongly might send your sensitometric results off by varying degrees from where they should be in different layers - and in colour, for example, that could be a real problem.
a mechanism of harm when doing this with monochrome films.
I think that Ilford's warning about pre-rinses may be because they use (used?) development accelerators in some products, whereas Kodak possibly didn't (or used ones that weren't vulnerable to a pre-rinse).
I have made extensive use of D-23, D-76, DK-50, HC-110, PMK, and Pyrocat-HD using both standard and low agitation, stand type development with some of these.
I continue to look for good shadow speed, high acutance, pronounced edge effects, low grain, expanded mid tone contrast, and controlled highlights. Really, that's all I want
Is Beutler my next try, I wonder ...
Component |
Amount in grammes |
Metol |
2.1495 |
Sodium Sulfite |
30.0 |
Hydroquinone |
1.0995 |
Phenidone |
0.1245 |
Sodium Metabisulfite |
6.15 |
Potassium Carbonate (monohydrated) |
22.035 |
Sodium Bicarbonate |
3.9 |
Sodium Citrate |
3.9 |
Potassium Iodide |
0.0825 |
Potassium Bromide |
0.33 |
Sodium Hydroxide |
5.0 |
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