D23 , I love it but cant describe why ?

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I love D23 since I first saw an Ansel Adams catalogs 24 years ago. I looked to the internet images and it was there , I gazed the images very long time and it was better than sex as they say. Like you see the loved woman after long break and cant still stand.

Why is that , why that developer creates such a feeling to me ? Such a smooth , peaceful tones and like looking to a glass piece , such transparent and nice tones ?

Do you have same feelings to that developer ?

Umut

 

[Dali]

No.

 

[Xmas]

D23 is low contrast - Ansell had wide contrast sceanes and he used a post borax or water bath at need.

Easy to mix and use, micro scales to 0.01gm.

Turkey has nice scenery, eg bulbs in spring fading off into horizon.

Use rubber gloves and face mask with metol, some people have allergy problems...

 

[baachitraka]

It is just a normal developer nothing to praise or complain about.

 

[railwayman3]

I remember hearing a talk when I first started photography by an old guy who's speciality was architectural photography. He had some amazing and beautiful shots (historic churches exteriors and interiors in particular), all taken on Ilford sheet film (some earlier work using glass plates), quarter-plate and 5x4 IIRC.
I recall he used only D-23 and his formula was very casual, like "jug of water, handful of sulphite, teaspoon of metol".

 

[bernard_L]

Umut, show us pictures some day. You live in a very picturesque country and city. Lenses, chemicals, etc, are meant to produce pictures.

 

[BetterSense]

D23 is a fine developer, although my testing shows that, like Microdol and other fine-grain developers, it costs as much as a stop of film speed: http://chazmiller.com/projects/devtest.html

I agree that you aren't "seeing D23" in Ansel Adams prints. When viewing the tonality of finished prints, you can assume the tonal presentation is 75% lighting, 20% post-processing (e.g. darkroom manipulation, photoshop, exposure+development) and 5% or less attributable to tertiary variables like developers.

 

[presspass]

I've been using it for about a decade. Although I make occasional use of others, including the D-76 variants, I always seem to come back to D-23. It also works well replenished and as part of a two-bath developer. It's easy to mix and, if used 1:3, is remarkably sharp. A wonderful developer for those of us who like to mix our own. I suspect Michael R. is right, we see what we want. In my case, I get results I like. That's why I use it.

 

[DREW WILEY]

It worked, and could even be tweaked for water-bath technique on old-school thick emulsion films. But I gave up on it decades ago. Once I
started using pyro, I never looked back.

 

[Rick A]

One thing we should all know, Ansel was a master printer, and could manipulate contact prints with his custom built contact printer. I don't know anyone else so masterful at printing. Many of his negatives were mediocre at best, but he made them look magnificent.

 

[bdial]

For example, have a look at these two versions of Moonrise, Hernandez, NM;

Dead Link Removed

 

[cliveh]

No.

+1

 

[removed account4]

One thing we should all know, Ansel was a master printer, and could manipulate contact prints with his custom built contact printer. I don't know anyone else so masterful at printing. Many of his negatives were mediocre at best, but he made them look magnificent.

hey rick

goes to show any negative can be a masterful negative in the hands of a great printer

 

[Rick A]

The trick is to learn to print.