Direct Positive sepia-toned slide with Shallot-based developer

[Peter de Groot]

Interesting stuff. I'm curious why you get a positive image. But it does look cool. If this works with paper as wel that would be even better!

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

haven't tried it with paper yet...glad you mentioned it

EDIT - one test I forgot to do is...make a clip of the film after development but before the fixer

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

ok this is the shallot developer...second time I got a reversal....after 1 hour



from left to right....original image...."autolevels" in photoshop...desaturated image

...also got images after 2.5 hours, but my scanner doesn't work well with dark images so I didn't post them

 

[removed account4]

this is one of the coolest experiments !

these are shallots chopped/minced and steeped in alcohol for 5 days ?
or was it made another way ? ( i know you made it several ways ) ...

thanks !
john

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

shallot are mutilated in a cuisinart....then soaked in 70% isopropyl alcohol with a little extra water for 7 days

when I didn't wait 7 days I got blank film with an amber tone on it

when I soak it in water only I get a negative....I took the onions that had soaked in water and soaked them in 99% isopropyl alcohol and got clear film with amber tone

so one of the next experiments is to reverse it - soak the shallots in 99% alcohol...drain fluid, test film...then soak the onions in water and test that

have read online that some people tried onion juice as a fixer....might have to try that too

at some point I need to eat these things too...since it seems most things that develop film are also healthy

 

[Peter de Groot]

I like the results. I'm glad you are doing the experiments. Now i can be lazy and watch this thread. Also I don't have the space to experiment anyway. But I will have a go at it anyway. Did you fix the images with normal fixer?

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

develop, stop, fix, wash

the only thing that's unusual is the results - unless you consider a developer made from vegetables to be unusual...

 

[keithwms]

Once you find the best method(s), we need precise, step by step instructions!

I wouldn't be surprised if the potion makes a good toner too. I am guessing that selenium is in there; I think it is found in all of the alliums. Maybe that actually quenches the quercetin (?) development?

 

[aleksmiesak]

This is fascinating! And it reminds me of when I was a kid growing up in Poland we used to boil the skin of onions to "color" our Easter eggs (how timely...). Not sure why just the skin, but it gave the eggs kind of a sepia tone. So I'm guessing what keithwms mentioned might be correct, this method might make a good toner as well.

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

well the skins are supposed to be where all the quercetin and other good things are...

well so far it seems the toner part is soluble in alcohol...but the developer is water soluble -- which surprises me since the reason I added alcohol was that I thought I needed it to dissolve the quercetin...

I'm wondering if I could make separate colutions...of the water & alcohol extract...then try and add what I think is needed & see what happens...for example....use the alcohol extract and add quercetin to see if I get the same results...or maybe quercetin & fixer since there may be thiosulfate in the shallots etc etc

just put tri-X in garlic developer for another smelly experiment...will post that in the other thread

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

Once you find the best method(s), we need precise, step by step instructions!

I wouldn't be surprised if the potion makes a good toner too. I am guessing that selenium is in there; I think it is found in all of the alliums. Maybe that actually quenches the quercetin (?) development?

toning would be a great thing to try

I was assuming it was the sulfur compounds generating the color...like a sodium sulfide toner

but...even the average onion knows more about toners than I do

 

[keithwms]

I'd guess that the smelly part is going to contain most of the sulfur and selenium. So if you succeed in knocking out most of that by the water soak, that might be a way to separate the two actions.

When you put your film in the potions, why not throw in some useless untoned negs too and see if you get any toning.

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

interesting idea...

fully developed negatives....and maybe some bleached film/paper

a million things to try

also going to try a monobath developer tonight http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/007YBh

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

I'd guess that the smelly part is going to contain most of the sulfur and selenium. So if you succeed in knocking out most of that by the water soak, that might be a way to separate the two actions.

When you put your film in the potions, why not throw in some useless untoned negs too and see if you get any toning.

next test is to do the alcohol soak first THEN water

in 2 days I have another batch ready to go which will be a water/alcohol mix...but mostly water this time

the second time I tried this I used the same water/alcohol as the successful experiments, but I didn't wait long enough & got blank film with tone

so it seems water/alcohol ratio & the amount of time soaking is important

 

[removed account4]

shallot are mutilated in a cuisinart....then soaked in 70% isopropyl alcohol with a little extra water for 7 days

when I didn't wait 7 days I got blank film with an amber tone on it

when I soak it in water only I get a negative....I took the onions that had soaked in water and soaked them in 99% isopropyl alcohol and got clear film with amber tone

so one of the next experiments is to reverse it - soak the shallots in 99% alcohol...drain fluid, test film...then soak the onions in water and test that

have read online that some people tried onion juice as a fixer....might have to try that too

at some point I need to eat these things too...since it seems most things that develop film are also healthy

thanks!

there is a guy on flickr who fixes his film with a super saturated salt solution ...
it takes a long time, but he says it works ...

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

I saw that...and tried it but it didn't work

although IIRC he said it must be kept warm...and mine wasn't all that warm...so maybe I'll try it again for fun

now...everyone else says salt will not work.....but everyone also told me I couldn't develop kodachrome and I did it without too much trouble ( the results weren't amazing, but I got a color image )

 

[Peter de Groot]

interesting idea...

fully developed negatives....and maybe some bleached film/paper

a million things to try

also going to try a monobath developer tonight http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/007YBh

Monobath works awesome. Although with 35mm film I got uneven development near the sprocket holes. As you can see here on my blog:http://darkroomninja.blogspot.com/2011/08/monobath-3.html But it is great fun to try out. I found the recipe on the new55 blog.

On topic maybe I will buy some shallots and make a batch myself. What kind of alcohol do you use? Something I can buy at a pharmacist?

 

[keithwms]

I agree, monobath is amazing. I have most use for it when dev'ing larger format stuff, for which I could care less about minor loss in acutance and contrast.

Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) can be had at any pharmacy. They may also have some ethanol (ethyl alcohol).

I am guessing that the alcohol acts as a solvent for the cell matrix and liberates the chems that you want. You could probably speed that along by mashing and lightly microwaving the shallots before the treatment. Don't microwave the alcohol though, please! It'll just evaporate.

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

glad you mentioned mashing...I didn't do that, but meant to start trying it

my monobath came out looking great last night -- just from looking at the negatives...of course, I'm so used to weird-looking negatives now

Peter...here's what I have been doing....chop, grind, mutilate 330g or so of shallot, add 500ml 70% isopropyl alcohol and 100ml water (rubbing alcohol from the store)...let it stand for 7 days
...after a week strain out the shallots....then add 100ml water and add 3 tablespoons of sodium carbonate...and develop for up to 3 hours...the last time I used a 2 reel tank and took one reel out after one hour and the second reel came out after 3 hours....the most recent images I posted were in the developer for one hour

stop and fix normally ---although with these weird developers I always do a few quick water washes before the stop to get any weird gunk off the film so I won't have vegetable debris getting into my stop & fixer

*--when I waited less than 7 days all I got was the sepia/amber tone with no negatives --- dunno why that test failed, but I just went back to waiting a whole week and it worked again

you'll notice I add 100ml water after the soaking period....the water is added to help dissolve the sodium carbonate...it was added after the soaking period simply because of the size of the containers I was using to soak the shallots in.....since I have noticed differences in what happens when I soak shallots in water vs alcohol it seems the ratio of water/alcohol is important...SO soaking the shallots in 500ml alcohol plus 200ml water might work fine also...or it might alter the balance a bit

in a couple days I'm doing a run with more water in the mix to see how that affects things

 

[Peter de Groot]

Thanks for the info! It'll probably be a couple of weeks before I will try out but I will give it a go. I do have some direct positive paper from Ilford so it might be worth the experiment. Thanks!

 

[Alan Johnson]

Shallots have a high phenolic content:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15506817
Phenols could be the developer.
Shallots might provide allicin,which contains the thiosulfinate group,sounds like a fixer?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allicin

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

thanks Alan...I have seen similar things elsewhere, but I don't recall reading about allicin

I need to try this w/o fixing to see what the film looks like

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

testing a new version...shallots soaked in 400ml water + 200ml 70% isopropyl alcohol for 9 days

2 reels in the tank...first reel came out after 1 hour...gonna leave the second reel in for 3 or so hours

after one hour VERY faint images that seem like positives...but it's sooo faint hard to tell while the film is still wet

 

[DarkroomExperimente]

OK...1st reel was 1 hour and had very faint negative image with very faint amber tone on film ( it seemed like a positive when wet...but was clearly negative when dry )

2nd reel was in developer for 4 hours and has a positive image

 

[Peter de Groot]

Cool. Nice to know that duration makes a difference.