d76 borax or... carbonate

[ruilourosa]

hello, probably a done issue but would there be a benefit from exchanging borax for carbonate?

grain? acutance? speed?

thanks!!!!!

 

[Donald Qualls]

If you use carbonate instead of borax, you'll raise the pH, making the developer faster working, which will also tend to reduce the grain softening and possibly the achieved film speed (because the sulfite in solution has less time to work on the halide grains). You'll wind up with a developer that has some crossover to the characteristics of D-72, aka Dektol.

 

[gorbas]

Or use Kodalk instead as mention in Recepie #22 of The Darkroom Cookbook by Stephen G. Anchell?

 

[ruilourosa]

Well... i was planning to adjust the amount of sodium carbonate...

i was looking for increased definition but maintaining tonal characteristics...

 

[Donald Qualls]

Unless there's some buffering going on, the concentration of alkali has little effect on the pH -- trace amounts will produce lower than standard, but above some (rather small) level, you'll get the same pH (about 10.6 for sodium carbonate) with a little or a lot. To adjust you have to balance ("buffer") the alkali with either a weaker alkali (sodium bicarbonate, for instance) or a weak acid (sodium bisulfite, perhaps). You could probably balance a mix of carbonate, bicarbonate, and bisulfite to get close to the pH of the original borax mix -- but unless you live in EU and can no longer buy borax, why?

 

[Anon Ymous]

Well... i was planning to adjust the amount of sodium carbonate...

i was looking for increased definition but maintaining tonal characteristics...

If by "definition" you mean accutance, then you could try using D76 with a 1+3 dilution.

 

[ruilourosa]

i hate borax...

 

[ruilourosa]

i tend to prefer the grain of carbonate...

i was aiming at FX-1 or beutler but with a tad more tonal range and maybe a little less acutance...

 

[narsuitus]

I use Borax and Sodium Carbonate in the following 2-Bath Buffered Divided Developer:

Bath A
1 liter Distilled Water 50 degree C
40 gm Sodium Sulfite (anhy) antioxidant preservative (pH 9.7)
12 gm Metol (Elon) low-contrast; soft-working developing agent
20 gm Hydroquinone high-contrast; hard-working developing agent
2 gm Potassium Bromide anti-fogging; restraining agent
12 gm Boric Acid acidic buffering agent; slows development (pH 5.5)
Distilled Water to make... 2 liters

Bath B
1 liter Distilled Water 32 degree C
40 gm Sodium Sulfite (anhy) antioxidant preservative (pH 9.7)
12 gm Borax alkaline activator (pH 9)
12 gm Washing Soda alkaline activator (pH 11)
4 gm Sodium Carbonate (mono) alkaline activator (pH 11)

Distilled Water to make... 2 liters

 

[Donald Qualls]

12 gm Washing Soda alkaline activator (pH 11)
4 gm Sodium Carbonate (mono) alkaline activator (pH 11)

Not sure I see the point of using two forms of sodium carbonate -- washing soda is generally monohydrate anyway (though it often has a trace of scent).

 

[relistan]

i hate borax...

Why?

Not sure I see the point of using two forms of sodium carbonate -- washing soda is generally monohydrate anyway (though it often has a trace of scent).

I am thinking those must have been meant to be three different options for the alkali, all to be paired with the sulfite.

@narsuitus that's a lot of developing agent. Have you checked for carryover issues with the second bath? Dump 20ml of A into B and see if it develops film on its own. That represents the typical carryover on and in one roll of film. I recently discovered that one of my two baths was not working how I thought. You may find that also.

 

[cmacd123]

not a chemist, but the Borax is supposed to act as a buffer to keep the pH level under control.

 

[Lachlan Young]

i was looking for increased definition but maintaining tonal characteristics...

What are you using as a method of defining 'definition'? Darkroom prints with optimised lenses and a well set up enlarger with good vibration dampening? High end scanning setup? Or a consumer flatbed?

There's no reason why you couldn't replace the borax with a carbonate/ bicarbonate buffer, and see what sort of dilution you could go to without getting excessive developing times (there is evidence in the academic literature of D-76 at 1+4 being known to produce adjacency effects with early 1970s emulsions - and pyrocat-HD is essentially a set of substitutions/ alterations on a D-76 skeleton to make it staining and non-solvent). However, I think you will find that what you think is 'definition' will potentially not rise as much as you think with modern films, no matter how much the pH change may alter aspects of the developer's behaviour - and not just the rate of development. In fact you may end up having to add silver solvent back in (KSCN for example) to be able to access the iodide in the emulsion(s) - which is what really has an impact on perceptible sharpness. There are likely ways in which the borax could be directly replaced by a better, more modern substitute (I think this is what Adox have hinted at doing with their D-76-alike) and there are historical examples of sped-up D-76's that used 20g/l of borax or 2g/l of metaborate to give 1/2 or 1/4 of regular D-76 development times (I think that's what I recall reading).

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

There's no reason why you couldn't replace the borax with a carbonate/ bicarbonate buffer

Any reason why Kodak didn't do this replacement in D76 though Borax's environmental impact is much higher than that of Carbonate/Bicarbonate?

 

[ruilourosa]

I am looking for a diferent grain... But similar tonal response...
I do not hate borax... But there is a kind of a myth regarding some *borax grain shake*...

I must confess that the grain pattern of beutler or fx 1 is quite appealing...

 

[relistan]

I am looking for a diferent grain... But similar tonal response...
I do not hate borax... But there is a kind of a myth regarding some *borax grain shake*...

I must confess that the grain pattern of beutler or fx 1 is quite appealing...

It sounds like you might just want a developer with less sulfite. The sulfite in D-76 has a huge impact on the grain. Have you tried it 1+1 or 1+3?

Better might be fx-15 diluted Similarly:

http://www.pictorialplanet.com/advanced_photography/fx-15_crawley_developer.html

 

[ruilourosa]

lenses

I am enlarging... Focomat v35 and 40mm apo componon or m805 and 90mm for 6x6

 

[koraks]

40 gm Sodium Sulfite (anhy) antioxidant preservative (pH 9.7)
12 gm Borax alkaline activator (pH 9)
12 gm Washing Soda alkaline activator (pH 11)
4 gm Sodium Carbonate (mono) alkaline activator (pH 11)

So what is the pH of the resulting solution? The pH values listed don't make sense if you combine these different compounds. The only thing that's certain is that none of those values represents the actual pH of your solution. Have you run the numbers or done measurements on this?
Also agree with Donald; very odd to combine two carbonates one of which one is of an undefined species. Is your washing soda decahydrate or monohydrate? Why combine it with the monohydrate that is properly defined and that you evidently also keep around?
What's the logic behind this odd approach?

 

[Don_ih]

If you want to use sodium carbonate in place of borax, do so. There are plenty of formulas that do that. It won't be D76, anymore, though, even if its times are all the same. So, perhaps you should look up some other formulas and see if one does what you want. So much work has already been done by other people, you almost never have to guess.
Or you could experiment a bit. There's only 2 grams of borax in a liter of d76. You probably won't have any problems if you change that to 1 gram of sodium carbonate. Or 2 grams. Or 3 grams. Used at 1:1, the impact will be diminished.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Any reason why Kodak didn't do this replacement in D76 though Borax's environmental impact is much higher than that of Carbonate/Bicarbonate?

I think it's mainly because it's only really become a potential regulatory issue in the last 10 years or so - and not because of photochemical uses.

I am looking for a diferent grain... But similar tonal response...
I do not hate borax... But there is a kind of a myth regarding some *borax grain shake*...

Afraid to say that this sounds like someone looking for a chimera while smeared in snake oil. A fractionally wobbly enlarger on the other hand is a far more likely cause. If there was a real and measurable sharpness impact from borax, Kodak etc would have ceased using it decades ago.

Truth is that the measurable sharpness differences between D-76 and dilute D-23-with-enough-carbonate-added-to-speed-them-up type of developers are very limited - and the more solvent developers have an advantage by being able to access the sharpness enhancing iodide in the emulsions - without the resolution limiting noise that less solvent developers can cause.

 

[ruilourosa]

snake oil... probably... but we all love some... from lens magic to pyro wonder...

Wobbly enlarger... no... v35 is a very good enlarger... and i used others... from meopta to devere and durst... i have acess to many

i was just thinking of the utility of having a developer with a good tonal range, known table of times basis, easy mix, and a (at least) different grain pattern

Thanks to all your comments!

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

I use Borax and Sodium Carbonate in the following 2-Bath Buffered Divided Developer:

Bath A
1 liter Distilled Water 50 degree C
40 gm Sodium Sulfite (anhy) antioxidant preservative (pH 9.7)
12 gm Metol (Elon) low-contrast; soft-working developing agent
20 gm Hydroquinone high-contrast; hard-working developing agent
2 gm Potassium Bromide anti-fogging; restraining agent
12 gm Boric Acid acidic buffering agent; slows development (pH 5.5)
Distilled Water to make... 2 liters

Bath B
1 liter Distilled Water 32 degree C
40 gm Sodium Sulfite (anhy) antioxidant preservative (pH 9.7)
12 gm Borax alkaline activator (pH 9)
12 gm Washing Soda alkaline activator (pH 11)
4 gm Sodium Carbonate (mono) alkaline activator (pH 11)

Distilled Water to make... 2 liters

Do you have some examples that you can share?

 

[narsuitus]

Do you have some examples that you can share?

Macro by Narsuitus, on Flickr



Pinhole image by Narsuitus, on Flickr



Portrait by Narsuitus, on Flickr



Still Life by Narsuitus, on Flickr

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

@narsuitus: thanks for sharing! I remember seeing the last picture, perhaps in my Flickr stream. Nice work!

 

[narsuitus]

Not sure I see the point of using two forms of sodium carbonate -- washing soda is generally monohydrate anyway (though it often has a trace of scent).

Back in the late 60s and early 70s, I used a 2-Bath Buffered Divided Developer for my black & white film.

I liked the developer because it was not temperature sensitive as long as the temperature was between 18-27 degrees C, it was not time sensitive as long as the time was between 2 and 4 minutes per bath, it had a long shelf life, and it worked well on all thick emulsion films. It did not work well on thin emulsion films.

I tried to recreate the developer from memory. The only reason I can think of that justifies using Sodium Carbonate mono and Washing Soda Sodium Carbonate is the price difference. The Sodium Carbonate mono cost $6.75 for 1 pound. Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda cost $4 for 3 pounds 7 ounces.

Plus, I can use the washing soda to wash my clothes.