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Glycin stand development

Alan Johnson said:
Two forms of apparent sharpness with CHS100 II.

Mainly acutance effect within the emulsion (PC-512 Borax) and mainly adjacency effects in solution (GSD10 semi stand)


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Interesting stuff. The monitor doesn't do a wonderful job of showing the nuances of difference, but it looks like the GSD with CHS II is overall the subjectively sharpest. Do you concur?
 
It's quite possible that the adjacency effect may be confined to CHS 100 II which was closely matched to the old Efke 100/ CHS100 Art and that it is not so significantly found with newer films including the FP4 type 517 I tried.

CHS 100 type II now available in 120

Just in time for the holliday season: CHS 100 type II is now available in 120 as well. Europeans can shop directly: http://www.fotoimpex.de/shopen/films/adox-chs-100-ii-120-medium-format-film.html We introduced CHS 100 type II as a follow up to our beloved CHS 100 type I which Fotokemika took...
www.photrio.com
So regarding modern films Lachlan & Co are likely right, apparent sharpness is mostly related to acutance in the emulsion.
 

Once difference is that the Efke "100" emulsions were ISO 200 and I don't think the Adox is.
 
The bottom example does appear to me to have more distinct line detail - although it is difficult to know if the difference is due to edge effects versus overall contrast without knowing if the two films were developed to the same gradient.

In any case how would you get around the extremely poor uniformity / mottling problem inherent in these methods?


 
Agree. That's why I said "This one rather poor test is not conclusive"
A proper test with matched contrasts is a lab job. Nobody will do it in the forseeable future.
 
Alan Johnson said:
Two forms of apparent sharpness with CHS100 II.

Mainly acutance effect within the emulsion (PC-512 Borax) and mainly adjacency effects in solution (GSD10 semi stand)


Click to expand...

I've been struck by how evenly skies and other uniform areas develop with PC512. And there are no weird halos around edges.

For me the first image is far more pleasing than the second (tonality and evenness).

Which is sharper? I guess it's not that important to me.
 
Augustus Caesar said:
Duh...I don't always do tests for anyone else.
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Fair, but why the need to rain on the parade of those who do?

Personally, I find the explorations of other interesting and I am encouraged people care enough about craft to try these things.

P.S. You might keep in mind that a haughty manner did not end well for the real Ceasar
 
Alan Johnson said:
Two forms of apparent sharpness with CHS100 II.

Mainly acutance effect within the emulsion (PC-512 Borax) and mainly adjacency effects in solution (GSD10 semi stand)
Click to expand...
I'm seeing a difference in contrast between the two, that makes it more difficult to compare sharpness..
 
Craig said:
I'm seeing a difference in contrast between the two, that makes it more difficult to compare sharpness..
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Yes, I see that also. PC-512 seems more contrasty, while GSD10 has less and more open shadows. I'm sure one could play with each to get them to look pretty equal.
 
Augustus Caesar said:
My tests are very closely controlled. From what I see of others' tests, I find them poorly done.
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Please enlighten us to your closely controlled methods.
 
OP asked the question if Glycin based developers produce edge effects and found that they do for some films but not for other films. OP provided details of their test setup as well. Anyone who is interested in reproducing OP's results or wants to investigate the effect of CI on edge effects is encouraged to do so. Let's thank OP for their work.
 
Agree. It's particularly difficult with stand/sort-of-stand development methods as there would need to be quite a few trials / lots of time spent trying to match gradients. It's also tricky to generate sensitometry data when development uniformity is so poor. I ran into this problem when trying to objectively test Rodinal stand development. It ended up being a somewhat statistical exercise.
Alan Johnson said:
Agree. That's why I said "This one rather poor test is not conclusive"
A proper test with matched contrasts is a lab job. Nobody will do it in the forseeable future.
Click to expand...
 
I've only used Pyrocat-HDC and Rodinal for any of the stand/semi-stand development. Rodinal is all I tried with full stand development and the results were not very good. I did do Rodinal Semi-stand 1+100 for one hour with light agitation midway through and that was even hit and miss. This was all with 120 film and not 35mm or 4X5. When it worked it was great, but when it didn't.............well, you get the drift.
 

It's all about what reels you use and how you suspend it in a tank. I use only low profile stainless Nikkor reels and suspend them above the bottom of a double height tank (or open rubber tank) with an inverted funnel. Sheets are suspended with minimal contact hangers horizontally in a 1/2 gal rubber tank.

This combined with a single midpoint agitation has eliminated streaking across all films (Tri-X, Plus-X, Double-X, Fomapan, Across, Agfapan, Lucky, Tmax ...) and developers (Pyrocat, D-76, HC-110, D-23, DK-50, FX-1 ...) I have tried. The only exception was 30+ year old 2x3 Plus-X sheet film that streaked no matter what I did.
 
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Hear, hear!
 
Augustus Caesar said:
My tests are very closely controlled. From what I see of others' tests, I find them poorly done.
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If you're doing lab sensiometric testing, absolute control and repeatability is mandated.

But practical photography has sufficient variability within the workflow itself that multiple digits of precision are pointless. For example, a leaf shutter will show notable variability from shot to shot. Older analog meters of the sort many of us still use, can vary their readings somewhat across multiple measurements and show considerable nonlinearity at their measurement extremes.

"Closely controlled" is always in context to the task at hand. When I was doing lab research, I worked one way. When I am in the darkroom, I work another way. It's the difference between being a musicologist and a performance musician.

In this case, the OP is giving us helpful feedback about the "shape" of the results and that itself is helpful if not absolutely definitive. To describe that as "poorly" done misses the point entirely.

And, as has already been noted, you are quick to jump in with your condescension and apparent contempt for the honest work of others, but we never manage quite to see your own work. I wonder why?

(There is a longstanding history in the anonymity of the internet wherein people are quick to crap on the work of others, but never manage to provide a better path themselves. If you have a better plan, do share.)
 
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chuckroast said:
So, I guess we're all out of control. That tracks...
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In this day and age being out of control is the "IN" thing you know.

I remember reading about you suspending the film reel off the bottom of the tank with a funnel and getting good result, but I never tried it myself. I just gave up on the whole stand thing with Rodinal. Now I use Rodinal for situations that called for stand or semi-stand and instead use it at 1+25 with very, very gentle agitation. I like it at 1+25 better for films like HR-50.
 

I don't care whether you might like my photos. I did a number of "controlled" tests about 15 years ago. All were of the same scene (an apartment building) with consistent light (clear sky) taken over a brief period. The photos were all taken with the same lens, mounted on a tripod. Exposure was varied using the shutter speed setting. All films were developed quickly thereafter. The exposed films were cut into three shorter strips and developed separately for differing times. These times were modified based on the results from the first trials. I then selected the negatives that looked most similar and calculated the speed based on the exposures that gave the best prints. When the negatives printed the same I knew I had determined the proper time for each film type. It was very interesting to see that Acros developed much slower than Pan-F but had virtually the same grain and sharpness, at double the speed (50 for Acros vs 25 for Pan-F+).

I tested HP5+, FP4+, Pan-F+, Tri-X Pan, Neopan 400, Neopan 1600, and Acros. I did not see any significant difference between Tr-X Pan and HP5+.

Others who try different films and developers do not develop them to the same contrast, so it is impossible to judge the results. This is typical:

B&W Film Stock Comparisons: Kodak Tri-X vs Ilford HP5 vs Kodak T-Max » Shoot It With Film

Black and white film stock comparisons comparing Kodak Tri-X, Ilford HP5, and Kodak T-Max in a variety of lighting situations.
shootitwithfilm.com
 
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That's a reasonably good anecdotal test but - as you insist on rigor - certainly not fully "controlled" by any means for several reasons at the very least:

  • Changing the shutter speeds for different exposure combinations usually introduces some speed error unless you used a known calibrated electronic shutter.

  • You selected "the exposures that gave the best prints". Assuming you viewed the prints at the exact same distance and angle under identical lighting (which a controlled test would demand), the determination is still very much up to how you view what is "best". Perfectly reasonable, they're your prints, but this is hardly a rigorous or objective test.

  • The only formal way I am aware of how to test all this is with a transmission densitometer for the negatives and reflection densitometer for the prints. This is the way to ensure that the negatives and prints were processed to the same contrast index. But even then, the print is always interpreted by the printer so - again - it's a subjective judgment about what print is "best".

  • Beyond that, the CI doesn't tell the whole story. Different film/dev combos and development schemes handle mid tones rather differently. Mid tones rendering is a strong influence of how most people judge a print's goodness.
I would suggest that your tests were "controlled" only in the sense that you used a more-or-less constant process with the limitations noted above, but in reality you came to a good sense of the data exactly like our OP did here. More specifically, you found out what you preferred, not an objective performance measure.

(And here is my "shape of the data"...)

I have tested dozens of film/dev combos and measured the outcomes on a densitometer. Virtually every single combination hits the requisite FB+F for Zone I at an EI of 1/2 box speed, and preserves highlights for a normal SBR with about a 20% reduction in development time. I do this with a temperature compensating development timer I created that has tables built in to adjust timer speed by measuring the actual developer temp during process.

This is so consistent that I don't bother with densiometric testing anymore when faced with a new film/dev combination. I just assume it's true and check the first negatives for proper shadow detail and highlight preservation. Even if I am somewhat wrong, it just doesn't matter. If you are close, the combination of film latitude and split VC printing techniques pretty much always guarantee me a technically decent print can be made. Once the first negatives are in, I can tune EI and/or development time accordingly. I much prefer doing this to endless testing cycles gray targets in open shadow.

After 20+ years working this way, I realized that I still hated a lot of my prints because of a lack of mid tone contrast separation. This is a big problem, especially in long SBRs where N- processing of some sort has been the recipe for many decades. The reduced development - even with an increase in EI - not only compresses the highlights as desired, it also clobbers mid tone contrast. It was that realisation that caused me to go down the high dilution/low agitation/very long development rabbit hole, but that's a story for another day.

I'm glad you found a way to home in on the prints you like. But, it's a fallacy to assume that people who don't work that way are sloppy or that their results are irrelevant. Especially in an electronically mediated world, where the currency of the realm is a glowing monitor image, "shape of the data" is about all any of us can share even for those of us willing to actually post our images ...

Vita brevis, ars longa, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile​
- Seneca​
​
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam​
- Hannibal​

​

 
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My field trial with CHS 100 II in glycin semi-stand developer showed that this film with its "old fashioned" type emulsion can give strong edge effects :


Usually though the effects are unobtrusive:

Stand developing in my Jobo 2400 tank is not up to @chuckroast standards:

A compromise with agitation every 3 min may be called for.
Specks on the film are due to floaters in my GSD-10.
 
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