Developer volume - Anchell's view

[Ian David]

Ralph
Ian G seems to be saying that you need a sufficient excess of the relevant developing agents, but that 0.02g excess metol per film (as in 75ml stock D76) is not sufficient unless perhaps you are agitating continuously.
Which still leaves unanswered the question of what is a sufficient excess of developing agents for optimum results with a normal agitation regime in D76...
Ian D

 

[kraker]

Anyone have any thoughts on Steve Anchell's view that, if you want maximum negative quality, you should not go below 250ml of (full strength) developer per roll of film?

That would mean developing in a bathtub full of diluted developer when using Ilfotec HC in 1+49 dilution... Or am I taking it to the extreme now?...

 

[Ian Grant]

Extremes now.

It's the concentration & volume of the actual developing agents not the dilution of the commercial developer

Ian

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Thanks Ian, I got it now.

Does this put even more value into Haist's suggestion to omit hydroquinone in D76 altogether and raise the Metol content to 2.5 g/l instead? Would that give sufficient excess at 150 ml of D76 1+1?

 

[Ian Grant]

Ralph
Ian G seems to be saying that you need a sufficient excess of the relevant developing agents, but that 0.02g excess metol per film (as in 75ml stock D76) is not sufficient unless perhaps you are agitating continuously.
Which still leaves unanswered the question of what is a sufficient excess of developing agents for optimum results with a normal agitation regime in D76...
Ian D

That sums it up well.

Using 300ml ID-11/D76 at 1+2 per film gives better results, less loss of highlights than 300ml at 1+3 and we have excess Metol present at the end of development.

Ian

 

[RalphLambrecht]

This is a great Apug improvement! Ian's laugh looks a lot friendlier now.

 

[kraker]

Extremes now.

It's the concentration & volume of the actual developing agents not the dilution of the commercial developer

Ian

That's a relief! I'll start re-reading from the first post...

 

[Ian Grant]

Thanks Ian, I got it now.

Does this put even more value into Haist's suggestion to omit hydroquinone in D76 altogether and raise the Metol content to 2.5 g/l instead? Would that give sufficient excess at 150 ml of D76 1+1?

The Hydroquinone regenerates some of the Metol so it's swings and roundabouts, and possibly worse if just metol is used as there's no regeneration at all.

It's easier to just increase the volume of 1+1 dev to 200 ml per film, this gives a safety factor but is still way below some of Kodak's older minimumum recommendation. It will have an effect on the curve but you're testing takes that into account anyway.

100ml of stock is Kodak's current (as of 2008) recommendation per film for Xtol and ties in with Ilford's past recommendation of 200ml minimum for ID-11 at 1+1

Ian

 

[Rick Jones]

"Maximum negative quality" and "far better results" - what does that actually mean in terms of final output of the printed image? Apparently Steve doesn't go into further detail and that is a shame because specific knowledge of his actual results to support those statements would give us a head start on confirming those results in our own work. That problem seemed to be part of the rationale for Richard J. Henry's book "Controls in B&W Photography". On another note Dick Dickerson and Sylvia Sawadzki wrote a series of articles on using very dilute developers. When asked what is the minimum amount of stock developer required to develop a roll of film (80 sq inches) they sated: 100ml. So where does that leave us? I have concluded that more may not be better but it does no harm.

 

[Ian Grant]

"Maximum negative quality" and "far better results" - what does that actually mean in terms of final output of the printed image? Apparently Steve doesn't go into further detail and that is a shame because specific knowledge of his actual results to support those statements would give us a head start on confirming those results in our own work. That problem seemed to be part of the rationale for Richard J. Henry's book "Controls in B&W Photography". On another note Dick Dickerson and Sylvia Sawadzki wrote a series of articles on using very dilute developers. When asked what is the minimum amount of stock developer required to develop a roll of film (80 sq inches) they sated: 100ml. So where does that leave us? I have concluded that more may not be better but it does no harm.

I've always read it as the safe minimum, and below this level of developing agents exhaustion causes a loss of Dmax and tonal compression, which is tantamount to saying you lose image quality, and get worse results.

Ian

 

[RalphLambrecht]

... and ties in with Ilford's past recommendation of 200ml minimum for ID-11 at 1+1

Ian

That's hard to do with a 35mm Jobo tank which holds 150 ml for rotation processing. But again, even that works fine with D76 1+1.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

... That problem seemed to be part of the rationale for Richard J. Henry's book "Controls in B&W Photography". ...

I didn't get it. What problem and what rationale?