Developer for long tonal scale on e.g. Fomapan 200

[koraks]

This one should be right up your alley!

I'm doing carbon printing and it turns out that using DAS as a sensitizer pretty much forces me to use extremely long tonal-scale negatives. It's a long story; if you're curious, here's the background to it: https://tinker.koraks.nl/photograph...of-das-carbon-with-continuous-tone-negatives/

To quantify (sort of, approximately):

The tonal range of this negative is around 1.95logD. This is about the lower limit of the kind of density range I need. A little punchier than this negative would be nice. I guess 2.10 or 2.25 from a 'normal contrast scene' (sorry; vague) would be right on the money.

I did this (on Fomapan 200) by exposing at 125 and overdeveloping by roughly 100% in Instant MyTol. In fact, I think for this negative I just heated the developer to 40-ish degrees (C) and developed for 6 minutes or so.

Here's my wish-list:

• I like short development times. 5-6 minutes is nice.
• Low b+f would be (very) preferable.
• I strongly prefer DIY developers; i.e. mix from bulk chemistry. I have carbonate (Na and K), hydroxide (Na and K), borax, bromide, benzotriazole, hydroquinone, metol, phenidone, pyrocatechol, pyrogallol, ascorbic acid and some other stuff at hand.
• Preferably not a compensating developer.

I'm fine with one-shot developers. I develop in trays, mostly. I'll be using Fomapan 200 (sheet film obviously) for most of this work in the near future.
Grain the size of planet-crushing asteroids is not really a problem. This is for contact prints, so what gives.

Previously, I tried the following (but mostly with Fomapan 100, I admit):

• ID62 paper developer - works OK, and remains a viable option I guess. It's not as fast as I had anticipated at 1+4 or so.
• Pyrocat. It's a fine developer, but I don't like it for this purpose. It's too slow to my taste and with the necessarily long development times, there's some overall stain that is especially obnoxious to print through with DAS carbon. It also seems to be compensating so strongly as to become a problem for my purpose; due to the tanning of the emulsion, it's difficult to push certain films (e.g. foma 100) to regions where I need to go.
• 510 Pyro: same as Pyrocat, but far more problematic in terms of b+f and as a result unusable.
• (Pa)rodinal: works OK-ish, but too slow to my taste at 1+25. A little foggy. Have not tried adding a restrainer to it.
• Instant Mytol with some sodium hydroxide and potassium bromide added to it to give some more punch. Punch it gives, alright, but fog also shoots up (the bromide apparently didn't help enough).

There's lots of things I could come up with myself, and for sure on a rainy day I'll try some of them. But I'm curious what you guys & gals make of this. Maybe you've got tricks up your sleeves that I hadn't thought of.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Foma 200 struggles with expanded development despite its long exposure scale. It's not a substitute for old Super-XX or Bergger 200 in that respect. While this film develops quite well in staining pyro developers with respect to ordinary purposes, when it comes to UV processes, those same highlight stains restrain contrast, so might not be the best route in that case. I'd experiment with HC-110 instead, since it works well over such a wide range of concentrations. But I don't know where my old notes on that film & dev combination now are, if I ever kept them. The only problem I recall was the usual one - Foma 200 develops exceptionally fast.

 

[revdoc]

Possibly bleach and redevelop in a staining developer? You'll have the same speed, less aerial stain, and better UV density. It's an extra step, of course.

I haven't tried this sort of thing with Foma 200, but I did with Foma 400, and the limit was with the film's inherent shoulder. Bleach and redevelop in pyro was the only solution I could find.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Try Dektol/D-72 for 'punchy' negatives in just a few minutes.

My alt-process work has been with 35mm negatives enlarged on to lithographic film that was then reversal processed. Someone posted on this on LFF - https://www.largeformatphotography....eter-is-working-now-and-Liam-Lawless-shootout My own work was more hit-or-miss, with enough misses to make me glad that lith film was cheap.

 

[koraks]

Possibly bleach and redevelop in a staining developer?

Sorry, forgot to mention, but I've done that a lot on Foma 100 especially. Also chromium intensifier. A simple bleach & redevelop with e.g. Pyrocat gives a noticeable but limited UV contrast boost. It's generally not enough unless the negative already has a long tonal scale. For instance in the negative shown above it would work to give it a little more punch. However, any b+f also gets stained a little, and while this may be barely visible, it does affect carbon printing times. This especially becomes a problem if the procedure needs to be repeated to iteratively build density. Plus, the tanning effect of these staining developers creates problems with highlight compression with iterative treatment. So it's a useful technique but with some limitations.

As an alternative, I've tried sepia toning on occasion - this used to work extremely well on collodion negatives when I was doing those. But on silver gel negs the UV density gain seems more limited and the additional fog is a real problem.

Chromium intensifier gives a bit more of a boost, but also adds to existing fog.

Overall my impression is that getting there in one go tends to be the cleanest way. It's also quicker, of course, although I don't necessarily mind doing some post-processing on a negative.

Try Dektol/D-72 for 'punchy' negatives in just a few minutes.

Thanks, I'll mix up some D72 next time I'm testing some 4x5's! This approach is analogous the ID62-route I've explored extensively, but mostly with Foma 100. I need to revisit it with Foma 200 some more. And I'll try D72 instead of ID62 to see how that goes; I expect it to be really similar, but it's definitely worth a try.

My alt-process work has been with 35mm negatives enlarged on to lithographic film that was then reversal processed.

I've done that on occasion with x-ray film, but I hear you on the hit-and-miss nature of the procedure - that's my observation as well

 

[relistan]

@koraks if you didn’t try it already, I think my PC-512 Borax meets most of those requirements. I use it one shot but expect the capacity is more. I have not tested that aspect. But it’s simple to mix, short times, low fog, and looks good on Fomapan 200.

Formula here https://imager.ie/a-simple-phenidone-ascorbic-acid-concentrate-developer/

Sample 35mm Fomapan 200

 

[koraks]

Thanks @relistan, that's an interesting angle for sure! I'll mix up some of that and see how it goes. I suspect I may want to replace the borax with a carbonate solution instead to boost its speed a little further; grain is not an issue for me in this application. I also think I'd be trying it at 1+25 for the same reason.
Have you tried adding some restrainer to cut down the fog? I can see how that's not an issue for normal enlarger printing or scanning, but for carbon transfer, fog is annoying and sometimes even downright problematic.

 

[Don_ih]

I wonder how FX37 would be with Foma 200? It's possibly the lowest-fog developer I've ever used.

 

[koraks]

That sounds promising, @Don_ih. The internet turns up the following formula:

• Sodium sulfite anhydrous 60g
• Hydroquinone 5g
• Sodium Carbonate 5g
• Phenidone 0.5g
• Borax 2.5g
• Potassium bromide 0.5g
• Benzotriazole 1% 5ml
• Water to make 1 liter

From here: https://photographicanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/what-is-fx37/

The inclusion of both potassium bromide and benzotriazole makes low fog sound plausible.
Sounds like something I would be using undiluted instead of it's more sensible 1+3 dilution for normal development.

 

[Don_ih]

Sounds like something I would be using undiluted instead of it's more sensible 1+3 dilution for normal development.

I've never tried it undiluted. I don't know how controllable it will be. You might quickly get too-high contrast.

 

[relistan]

Thanks @relistan, that's an interesting angle for sure! I'll mix up some of that and see how it goes. I suspect I may want to replace the borax with a carbonate solution instead to boost its speed a little further; grain is not an issue for me in this application. I also think I'd be trying it at 1+25 for the same reason.
Have you tried adding some restrainer to cut down the fog? I can see how that's not an issue for normal enlarger printing or scanning, but for carbon transfer, fog is annoying and sometimes even downright problematic.

If you use carbonate or increase to 1+25 it will definitely have more fog. At 1+50 and with borax, it is balanced nicely and doesn't produce substantially any more fog than I get from XTOL. @Andrew O'Neill experimented with it and restrainer, you might find and check out his video. I'd suggest to give it a shot with borax at 1+50 if you have any, and tweak it after that if you don't get what you were looking for.

 

[Lachlan Young]

D-19, D-11, D-8. Phenisol if you want something in a bottle. Standard stuff if you know what you should be looking for.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

It fails your speed criterion but what about stand processing in Rodinal?

 

[Alan Johnson]

If you like, the highlights may be expanded in portraiture:

Mortensen Revisited

Robert Balcomb – TheScreamOnline

thescreamonline.com

 

[koraks]

You might quickly get too-high contrast.

Sounds promising Point taken, though.

@Andrew O'Neill experimented with it and restrainer, you might find and check out his video. I'd suggest to give it a shot with borax at 1+50 if you have any, and tweak it after that if you don't get what you were looking for.

Thans for these useful hints! Will do, but I think I'm going to prioritize FX37 at this point. But maybe I'll just mix up both for a next set of experiments (not yet scheduled...)

D-19, D-11, D-8. Phenisol if you want something in a bottle. Standard stuff if you know what you should be looking for.

Thanks! Nope, don't know what I'm looking for apart from what I outlined in the OP. I've never any of the ones you mentioned, but they look very useful indeed.

It fails your speed criterion but what about stand processing in Rodinal?

I'm not a stand processing guy for several reasons. Patience is a major one. Lack of a good setup to do this economically with 8x10" film is another. I've done some experiments with a DIY spin on BTZS tubes and it just didn't do it for me.

If you like, the highlights may be expanded in portraiture:

Mortensen Revisited

I've always found that article inspiring
To be clear, portraiture isn't my main aim for this, although I'm trying to get a portrait project off the ground that would use this 'tech' for sure. The example I posted just happens to be a portrait, but that's a bit coincidental; it's a test image I have a lot of copies of my desk on.

 

[pentaxuser]

It fails your speed criterion but what about stand processing in Rodinal?

Out of curiosity why is this? I wasn't sure what koraks speed criterion was exactly but on a video which I mentioned on another thread recently a speed of 200 appeared to be achieved for FP4+ with stand developing

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

I wasn't sure what koraks speed criterion was exactly

It's a different meaning of the term 'speed' than you are thinking of:

I like short development times. 5-6 minutes is nice.

I have no worries about the speed of the film as such since I give it liberal exposure anyway. It's large format so the additional stop is usually not much of a problem, especially since I mostly shoot under daylight conditions or strobes. Wind is a problem, but in those cases, there's not that much that would help in the first place.

 

[koraks]

Btw, this is an example just for the heck of it of trying to rescue a negative for the purpose of carbon printing with a low contrast tissue:

4x5" carbon print from part of an 8x10" negative to the left. This negative at this stage would probably have printed OK-ish on grade 0, I guesstimate. Insufficient for this particular carbon tissue formulation, so I gave it a round of chromium intensifier (nasty, but it does the job well). The print on the right is from the same negative, same carbon tissue, same exposure etc. There's some gain in b+f but it's still manageable.

The original negative was developed for 6 minutes in Instant MyTol with a small teaspoon of sodium hydroxide pellets and a pinch of potassium bromide added to it. Temperature was probably 25-ish C. Development after the chromium intensifier bath and thorough washing was with ID62 for a minute or so.

Of course, I prefer to get it right in the first pass, so that's why I'm very grateful for the suggestions in this thread

 

[Don_ih]

Well, you know, @Vaughn is the carbon print guy in residence, so maybe he would have some ideas for you.

 

[albada]

In my experience, PQ developers have higher fog than PC, so I like @relistan 's idea. Maybe start with his 512 Borax, double its concentration to shorten dev-time, and add some restrainer to ensure minimal fog.

Mark

 

[koraks]

Well, you know, @Vaughn is the carbon print guy in residence, so maybe he would have some ideas for you.

His input would definitely be welcome I know he also uses very long-scaldd negatives due to his emphasis on high relief printing.

In my experience, PQ developers have higher fog than PC

Oh, that's a relevant remark for sure; interesting!

 

[relistan]

For the record, dev time for Fomapan 200 at box speed in PC-512 Borax 1+50 is about 5.5 minutes at 20C. Which is pretty short already. I personally find it a bit hard to get repeatable results below 5 mins.

 

[albireo]

For the record, dev time for Fomapan 200 at box speed in PC-512 Borax 1+50 is about 5.5 minutes at 20C. Which is pretty short already. I personally find it a bit hard to get repeatable results below 5 mins.

Relistan I'd love to try out your developer, any reputable sources for the chemicals needed in Ireland or the EU?

 

[Vaughn]

To stretch out the contrast a little, I have given negatives a light bleaching, then fix, wash, then selenium toned.

You might try beaching/fixing before chromium intensifing...or before bleaching for re-development in a staining developer. Just knocks the shadows down nicely (on a well-exposed negative) to strengthen up the the blacks in the print -- adding a sense of increased contrast.

I use FP4+ and PQ Universal for carbon printing...sometimes at paper strength (1:9) for lower contrast scenes.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

To increase a negative's contrast range, to print in carbon, I've had success with selenium intensification. It's like giving a film N+1 development without the increase in B+F...