D76 1:3?

[AnselMortensen]

I have to agree with Matt...the negs look a bit under-developed.
The edge lettering would normally be darker, and they're a little bit thin.
Those negs look like they should scan well, though.

 

[madNbad]

I tried a single roll of the FPP-76 1+1 for 10 minutes at 20c as recomended by the Kodak data sheet. Did two rolls in a single 480ml tank using FPP-76 at 1+1 today but increased the time to 12.5 minutes. I think I'm finding what works for me.
Dambo Troll, Swedish Consol Grounds, Metzger, Oregon
M4-2, Voigtlander 28 2.8 Color Skopar V2, Tri-X @ ISO 200, 022 yellow filter, FPP-76 1+1

 

[peter k.]

Need some verification ...

Want to try this 1:3 dilution out, but were using a home made ABS development tank, where we develop only one or two 2x3 sheet films in, or just one 4x5 by itself at a time, ... using a 1:1 dilution that equals 4oz total.

So for this 1:3 dilution we came up that we would need at least 1.3 oz of D=76 to meet the requirement amount for the developer strength, and then add the 3,9 oz of water to it .

Did we get it right?

 

[MattKing]

One 8x10 sheet requires 8 ounces stock for normal development times, or 4 ounces stock for normal + 10% development times.
So divide those numbers by 4 for one 4x5 sheet. I would use the same calculation for two 2x3 sheets.

 

[peter k.]

So divide those numbers by 4 for one 4x5 sheet. I would use the same calculation for two 2x3 sheets.

Yes that's what we use, 2oz for one or two sheets of 2x3, with d76 at 1:1 dilution, but we want to try 1::3, for that, ... what would be correct?

 

[MattKing]

Yes that's what we use, 2oz for one or two sheets of 2x3, with d76 at 1:1 dilution, but we want to try 1::3, for that, ... what would be correct?

According to Kodak, the minimum quantity of stock D76 needed for a 4x5 sheet is two ounces if you use recommended times or one ounce if you are willing to accept a small compromise in image quality and are willing to extend development times by 10%.
So for a 4x5 sheet and 1 + 3 dilution, that means 8 ounces working solution is recommended, but 4 ounces will work if you extend development time.
Arguably, two 2x3 sheets would require about 60% of those volumes, but I'm not sure I would calculate that so finely.

 

[peter k.]

So for a 4x5 sheet and 1 + 3 dilution, that means 8 ounces is recommended,

Ok Mr confused here ...
You mean 8 ounces total, a third of that being the D-76 part?

 

[MattKing]

Ok Mr confused here ...
You mean 8 ounces total, a third of that being the D-76 part?

Yes - 8 ounces of 1 + 3 working solution.
It's best to refer either to "stock" (solution), or to "working solution", accompanied by the dilution used.

 

[peter k.]

Ah ha... Got it and thanks for the clarity, we needed that in using the correct terminology.
Will give 1:3 a try.

One more thing ... my use of d-76 1:1, ... for one sheet of 4x5, ... the working solution for this would be four ounces.
Correct?

According to Kodak, the minimum quantity of stock D76 needed for a 4x5 sheet is two ounces

Thanks so much ... need all the help we can get ;-)

 

[MattKing]

One more thing ... my use of d-76 1:1, ... for one sheet of 4x5, ... the working solution for this would be four ounces.
Correct?

Yes - although theoretically you could use two ounces of 1+1 working solution if you increased times by 10%.

 

[Saganich]

You probably could increase exposure one + stops with same development time and the highlights would still be fine, especially at 1:3. I would try some bracketing just to see where the highlight compensation rolls off at same time and dilution.

 

[chuckroast]

You probably could increase exposure one + stops with same development time and the highlights would still be fine, especially at 1:3. I would try some bracketing just to see where the highlight compensation rolls off at same time and dilution.

I solve this problem by semistand processing with higher dilution developers. It gets you to full shadow speed and has a noticeable highlight compensation effect. I usually open tank process, though, in 2 liter rubber tanks so I never have to worry about developer capacity or aerial oxidation during the hour that the film is in solution.

Having done this with a wide range of films and developers, I will say that I get better results from non-MQ developers like D-23 and Pyrocat. When I tried highly dilute DK-50, for example, I got contrasty prints without as much highlight compensation as I would have liked. Then again, this may be selection bias. I have done way, way more D-23 and Pyrocat extended development than I have DK-50.

You can actually superdilute D-23, DK-50, and probably, D-76. I've taken D-23 out to 1+9 by adding 0.5g of lye (sodium hydroxide) per liter of developer to keep the alkalinity cranked up. This works really well for larger formats but the grain can get to be obnoxious in 35mm.

Here is 35mm in D-23 1+9+lye. Notice that you get both good shadow detail and controlled highlights even though the sun was just pounding down on the scene. You either like this look or you don't:

By way of comparison, here is a 9x12cm negative processed the same way. In fairness, the image above was shot on Double X, and this one on Fomapan 100, so it should be less grainy inherently. Still, the sharpness is pretty amazing:

 

[craigclu]

If it's any use for folks, attached is a calculator to get in the ballpark for various dilutions. I've found it to be helpful and reasonably accurate. Personal use and not ready for prime time, I'm afraid but should be logical to apply.

 

[pentaxuser]

craigclu, Thanks for the link. I hope this doesn't sound ungrateful and it may be that I have misunderstood your instructions but assuming that dilution 1+1 is 2 dilution components ie. 1 of developer plus one of water and dilution 1+3 is 4 dilution components then for the Ilford stock time of 15 minutes for Perceptol I get 1+1 =21.2 mins( two dilution components) and for 1+3 (so 4 dilution components) I get 30 mins

The Ilford Perceptol times are 1+1 = 17mins and 1+3 = 22 mins

So 1. Have I done it correctly?
2. The differences seem quite large at nearly 25% and 36 % respectively

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[Saganich]

I solve this problem by semistand processing with higher dilution developers. It gets you to full shadow speed and has a noticeable highlight compensation effect. I usually open tank process, though, in 2 liter rubber tanks so I never have to worry about developer capacity or aerial oxidation during the hour that the film is in solution.

Having done this with a wide range of films and developers, I will say that I get better results from non-MQ developers like D-23 and Pyrocat. When I tried highly dilute DK-50, for example, I got contrasty prints without as much highlight compensation as I would have liked. Then again, this may be selection bias. I have done way, way more D-23 and Pyrocat extended development than I have DK-50.

You can actually superdilute D-23, DK-50, and probably, D-76. I've taken D-23 out to 1+9 by adding 0.5g of lye (sodium hydroxide) per liter of developer to keep the alkalinity cranked up. This works really well for larger formats but the grain can get to be obnoxious in 35mm.

Here is 35mm in D-23 1+9+lye. Notice that you get both good shadow detail and controlled highlights even though the sun was just pounding down on the scene. You either like this look or you don't:


By way of comparison, here is a 9x12cm negative processed the same way. In fairness, the image above was shot on Double X, and this one on Fomapan 100, so it should be less grainy inherently. Still, the sharpness is pretty amazing:

Interesting. One hour in the tank. What's the pH of 1+9 +lye D23? Normally I'm measuring pH of 7.8 for fresh D23...is it much higher?

 

[chuckroast]

craigclu, Thanks for the link. I hope this doesn't sound ungrateful and it may be that I have misunderstood your instructions but assuming that dilution 1+1 is 2 dilution components ie. 1 of developer plus one of water and dilution 1+3 is 4 dilution components then for the Ilford stock time of 15 minutes for Perceptol I get 1+1 =21.2 mins( two dilution components) and for 1+3 (so 4 dilution components) I get 30 mins

The Ilford Perceptol times are 1+1 = 17mins and 1+3 = 22 mins

So 1. Have I done it correctly?
2. The differences seem quite large at nearly 25% and 36 % respectively

Thanks

pentaxuser

This is a notational confusion that has been much discussed in the past. It stems from the fact that this notation does not have an agreed to meaning ... "1:3"

1. I was taught that this means "One Part A plus Three Parts B", but ...
2. Some people learned this meant "One Part A in 3 Parts total". That is, One Part A plus Two Parts B for a total of Three Parts.

Kodak was fond of using X:Y to mean 1. above but not everyone follows this convention consistently.

So, to avoid confusion, the preferred notation is "X+Y" taken to mean "X parts of A added to Y parts of B for a total of X+Y parts. So now, I don't write "D-23 1:9", I write "D-23 1+9".

(There was an extended discussion about this over on the UK 5x4 site as I recall that basically proved that notation was learned and understood differently based on geography, among other things ...)

 

[pentaxuser]

Yes thanks for that chuckroast but what counts in craigclu's link is what does he mean? I am sure he will clarify matters

pentaxuser

 

[chuckroast]

Yes thanks for that chuckroast but what counts in craigclu's link is what does he mean? I am sure he will clarify matters

pentaxuser

I don't think @craigclu is the originator of this spreadsheet. It suggests that Francis Miniter was the author.

The math is clear enough: Take the original time and multiply it by the square root of the dilution component ratio.

It would appear that the author is taking the geometric mean of the two dilutions to find the new time coefficient.

This does not match the Ilford published times (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/36/a4/31/36a431c3aed059f09542f6c4f96a68a6.jpg) for ID-11, as just one example.

So, I don't think it's a simple as this formula suggests. This has been discussed before here on Photrio to the conclusion that a general formula actually isn't that simple. See:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/developer-dilution-vs-dev-time.75149/post-1041020

Now let me further muddy the waters, if I may. Shadows develop much more slowly than highlights. The more you dilute the developer, the more development time you'll need to achieve expected speed OR the more you have to expose the negative (lower EI) to maintain shadow detail. But either way, you are also going to be pushing the highlights up the H/D curve and run the risk of blowing them out and getting featureless white.

In my own practice, when I want the sharpness benefits of increased dilution, I pretty much always resort to semistand or Extreme Minimal Agitation for this exact reason. These extended development schemes let the film sit in the developer for a long time. This gets you to an EI that is full box ASA (or nearly so) thereby preserving shadow detail. But the limited amount of agitation combined with the highly dilute developer, ensure that the developer exhausts quickly on the highlights and keeps them from blocking up.

The more interesting thing is that - with EMA or semistand - the actual time in developer is far, far less critical. You just need two things: Enough time in developer to get full shadow speed, and sufficiently dilute developer so that the highlights don't get over done. I've done semistand anywhere from 45 min to 24 hours without a great deal of difference in the final negatives (though the 24 hour development had a kind of funny finish to the negative).

Take a look at the picture of the ticket stand I uploaded in post #37. The light was just blazing on those white foreground surfaces, but the distant trees were in fairly deep shadow. A long, highly dilute development protected both nicely. It also created a lovely mid-tone local contrast.

With conventional dilutions and normal development, I would have had to increase exposure a bunch (reduce EI) and then underdevelop (N-) to hold the shadows and highlights respectively. But that would have collapsed the mid tones into a boring gray. I spent years chasing better negatives using Zone system exposure and development controls and never consistently got what I wanted. It wasn't until I understood better how film works, and how you have to control for shadows, midtones, and highlights properly when developing that I started getting better results. Long, dilute, low agitation schemes were a path to this.

I hasten to point out that this is not something that is appropriate for all subjects. For example, I would not do portraits this way.

 

[chuckroast]

Interesting. One hour in the tank. What's the pH of 1+9 +lye D23? Normally I'm measuring pH of 7.8 for fresh D23...is it much higher?

I actually don't know. I don't have a pH meter here. The addition of the lye was suggested by some on the UK 5x4 forum. It worked great with D-23 at 1+9. I did test without the lye and got very thin negs suggesting considerably less development action. I doubt the pH is way higher than normal, the lye probably just brings it back somewhere into the normal range after the much greater dilution.

Please note that this kind of development requires particular care to suspend the negative properly above the bottom of the tank and using the right kinds of reels or sheet film support. More details here:

tundra/Stand-Development

gitbucket.tundraware.com

 

[pentaxuser]

Chuckroast, thanks for #43 This would appear to explain the large difference between Ilford times and craigclu/Miniter times

So to avoid problems with the Miniter table it seems we ought to be pointing this out to the membership here as using the table may or is even likely to result in times that seriously overdevelop films v what will happen if manufacturer's times are used. Yet craigclu has found it reasonably accurate so there's a puzzle there

Perhaps the formula works better with some developers or with some developer and film combinations

Maybe craigclu will come back and say which films/developers he has had success with and hopefully show us the results he had

It may be that craigclu prefers what others might term overdeveloped negatives so it would be nice to see craigclu's results

While a 35% increase in development time is a lot we know from another thread that another OP has decided that that his 1+1 probably needs the same kind of increased development time. This is why there is nothing like seeing the results and then judging if we feel the same way or wish to reject them

pentaxuser

 

[chuckroast]

Chuckroast, thanks for #43 This would appear to explain the large difference between Ilford times and craigclu/Miniter times

So to avoid problems with the Miniter table it seems we ought to be pointing this out to the membership here as using the table may or is even likely to result in times that seriously overdevelop films v what will happen if manufacturer's times are used. Yet craigclu has found it reasonably accurate so there's a puzzle there

Perhaps the formula works better with some developers or with some developer and film combinations

Maybe craigclu will come back and say which films/developers he has had success with and hopefully show us the results he had

It may be that craigclu prefers what others might term overdeveloped negatives so it would be nice to see craigclu's results

While a 35% increase in development time is a lot we know from another thread that another OP has decided that that his 1+1 probably needs the same kind of increased development time. This is why there is nothing like seeing the results and then judging if we feel the same way or wish to reject them

pentaxuser

Let's also keep in mind that there is more than just exposure control and development time at play here. How you reproduce the negative affects this deeply. You have to "design" your negatives differently (thanks Steve Sherman for that description) for condenser enlargement, diffuse enlargement, point source enlargement, AZO contract printing, palladium contact printing, digital scanning, etc. ....

So, one photographer's "too much development" is "just right" for another.

 

[MattKing]

The discussion about how development changes with increased dilution, and how to determine development times with increased dilution seems to be more general - not specific to D-76 1:3. I would suggest that any experience regarding that will likely be somewhat developer specific - or at least developer type specific.
If anyone would like to start a new thread on that subject, or is aware of an existing thread on that subject, I'd be happy to wield my magic moderator's wand and move some posts to it.

 

[chuckroast]

The discussion about how development changes with increased dilution, and how to determine development times with increased dilution seems to be more general - not specific to D-76 1:3. I would suggest that any experience regarding that will likely be somewhat developer specific - or at least developer type specific.
If anyone would like to start a new thread on that subject, or is aware of an existing thread on that subject, I'd be happy to wield my magic moderator's wand and move some posts to it.

As noted in post #43, this has been discussed previously here.

As an aside, I wonder how developer specific this really is. When I was working on the compensating developer timer, I found that there was a temperature compensation curve that was fairly consistent across papers and another one that was fairly consistent across films. They were not perfectly curve fit for every single manufacturer's recommendations, but they were close enough for all practical purposes. (See: https://gitbucket.tundraware.com/tundra/devtimer)

As you point out, it's less clear that dilution/time curves could be developed that are that generic, but I really do wonder if you couldn't get a "close enough" first order approximation. I mean, if the difference between "generic" and "exactly right" is, say 30 seconds across 7minutes total time, is that going to make that much difference? I dunno. I do know that reading the aforementioned older thread brought back memories of trying to come up with generic film and paper temperature correction tables for the timer ...

P.S. I shoot a lot of stuff with leaf shutters. I stopped worrying about highly precise development practices when my testing showed the significant variability of shutter accuracy across shutters, or even within a given shutter across all speeds. It's not uncommon to see these be off (inaccurate) by as much as 1 full f/stop at higher speeds. Combine that with the fact that - at higher speeds - the center of the image gets more exposure than the edges and you star to realize that what really matters most in monochrome photography is repeatability not accuracy and not precision.

 

[pentaxuser]

I have used Ilford Perceptol at 1:3 @ 200 asa with good results.
35mm negs enlarge to 16 x 20 with no problem.

I hadn't spotted this post hence the delay in asking this question, Melvin but was this one roll of 35mm and was it in a síngle 35m m film tank?

If it was what was the size of the tank- a 250ml or a 300ml tank so in terms of the quantity of stock Perceptol, was that 62.5ml or 75ml?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

Just put a single roll in that 500 ml tank of 1+3 D76 and you will be fine - provided you add 10% to the recommended times.

Matt,so a minimum stock quantity of 125ml for either a 135 or 120 film? Does that represent the safe minimum quantity of stock with the addition of 10% to the the Kodak recommended development for its recommended stock quantity? So 10% extra dev time is compensation for what? - the reduction of the Kodak recommended minimum quantity which is 8 fluid ounces or 227ml

If this is what it means then my maths say that a saving of about 100ml of stock can be achieved for a 10% increase in development time

Am I right ?