Harvey's

ColColt · Feb 23, 2016

Over the past month I've read in several of my photography books on Eisenstaedt, HCB and a couple others the use of "Harvey's 777" developer. Anyone ever used it before? I wonder if you can still find the chemistry to make it yourself and what the results would be with todays film like Tri-X and HP-5.

removed account4 · Feb 23, 2016

coldcold
you want togo to blue grass packaging.
they own the formula and sell it

also look at this thread
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

have fun !
john

Wayne · Feb 23, 2016

Who was Harvey?

JW PHOTO · Feb 23, 2016

Wayne said:
Who was Harvey?

He was Jimmy Stewards very good friend! Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me!

removed account4 · Feb 23, 2016

hi wayne
it was harold harvey ( harvey's panthermic 777 )
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Harvey/harvey.html

ColColt · Feb 23, 2016

jnanian said:
also look at this thread
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Thanks for the link...seems folks like it for the most part. Lots of good info I'm still reading about. I'd like to just try it as it has that "old" look about it from years gone by from the photos I've seen. I do like that photo of Natalie in the link provided about Harvey...simply beautiful tonal rendition.

Marco Buonocore · Feb 23, 2016

There's a great article about Harold Harvey in Popular Photography on this blog:

http://adfasi.blogspot.ca/2014/11/harold-leroy-harvey-1899-1971.html

It's basically an advertisement, but who cares? I love that era.

ColColt · Feb 23, 2016

That was a good read. I have a book called, "The Best of Popular Photography" published by Ziff-Davis back in 1979 that shows many of those old ads in that link and then some. It's a wonderful book that I'd urge anyone interested in the development of photography to have in your library.

ColColt · Feb 23, 2016

well, from what I can figure it's more trouble than it's probably worth for me. I've read it has to be "seasoned" and used in a large tank with a lot of film put thought it...not exactly a one shot developer like HC-110 and Rodinal.

ParkerSmithPhoto · Feb 23, 2016

Is there a way to pay a lab to sample and reverse engineer a developer formula? It would be wonderful to reveal and publish some of these older, proprietary formulas, like 777 and Diafine.

ColColt · Feb 23, 2016

From all I understand, 777 was never a published formula. He sold the patient to Dupont and then at some point down the road bought it back. Dupont of course, did a little change to incorporate their changes when they had it. I don't know if anyone knows the exact ingredients of the original formula. Harvey died in 1971, I believe it was, and left no notes behind other than the ones he gave to friends who are probably all gone now.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 24, 2016

The stuff is not cheap and you have to buy a lot of it. It works well only when used in deep tanks. Granted it does last a long time. Then there is also the problem that they manufacture at odd intervals. You may have to wait a long time get some. It is intended for LF format film at least 4X5 in size. You certainly would not use it for 35mm or 6X6.

Although Bluegrass denies it, the appearance of the mixed developer being opalescent and having a distinctive odor would indicate that it cotains paraphenylenediamine and Glycin which has a limited solubility.

jim appleyard · Feb 24, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
... It is intended for LF format film at least 4X5 in size. You certainly would not use it for 35mm or 6X6.

QUOTE]

Can you go a bit further on this?

removed account4 · Feb 24, 2016

hi jerry:
i agree with you wholeheartedly that it works best in deep tanks, like so many developers
of that era, but that doesn't mean that it can't be used in small tanks. i seem to remember having a conversation
with someone who used it, and used it often and unless i am mis-remembering what he said, i think he had a jug of it,
and he would pour it out into whatever he was developing, and then pour it back in the jug. i could be wrong in my understanding of what he did.
i use DsumatranolC in a deep tank the same way, sort of, i have 4 L of it in a big bin, and i scoop some out, use it, and put it back in the bin ...
of course YMMWBDIFYDT

Wayne · Feb 24, 2016

jnanian said:
hi wayne
it was harold harvey ( harvey's panthermic 777 )
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Harvey/harvey.html

Darn. I was hoping it was my dad and I was due royalties.

MartinP · Feb 24, 2016

Something that might be interesting to try and easier to get/make is Agfa/Ansco 130, another glycin developer. Although used for printing these days it was also used for sheet film with the usual glycin blah-blah about the wonderful results. It has the advantage that it can be bought easily (in the US anyway) as a finished product, or can be mixed from raw ingredients to it's known and tested formula without any guesswork being needed.

removed account4 · Feb 24, 2016

hi martin:

i just stopped using ansco130 for processing film last year. i was on a long run using it ..
at one point i was going to write an article for a well known large format publication
together with jerry katz, the photo chemist who did the work for morgan+lester's photo lab index for 50+ years ...
we had hoped to raise awarness of this great developer, unfortunately jerry passed away,
and then the publisher of the magazine was unhappy with the formulary ( one of the last places that makes glycin )
so i would have written the article on my own ( wouldn't have been too hard ) but i woudln't be permitted to say
"formulary 130" or "photographer's formulary" or let people know where to purchase ingredients to make it
because the publisher didn't want me to mention their name, and i didn't know about artcraft back then ...
so i gave up on the idea. currently i use dektol, which has similar film developing properties ( d72 if made from scratch )
but it doesn't last as long in the bottle or tray.... ( YMMV )
if you poke around the web searching for ansco 130 and film processing, you will probably find things i have written.
have fun !
john

MartinP · Feb 24, 2016

Photo-grade glycin is available from several industrial chemical suppliers here in Europe and a few even have order-options for non-commercial customers (ie. small orders, paid in advance) so, fortunately, we are not limited to one source in the US - especially considering the import duties that get put on anything like that! I bought a pack from Photographer's Formulary several years ago, but unfortunately mixing it coincided with an unexpected house move so I never got to play with it very much.

I'll have a look at the Ansco130 'sticky' and do some more googling -- maybe I'll invest in a balance for weighing in tenths of a gram (and get investigated for illegal drug preparation, oops) to make up my own developer.

ColColt · Feb 24, 2016

This doesn't sound like the developer for folks who only process on or two rolls at a time. However, from all I've read, the labs for Eisenstaedt and Cartier-Bresson used 777 pretty much exclusively and of course both of them only used the Leica.

removed account4 · Feb 24, 2016

ColColt said:
This doesn't sound like the developer for folks who only process on or two rolls at a time. However, from all I've read, the labs for Eisenstaedt and Cartier-Bresson used 777 pretty much exclusively and of course both of them only used the Leica.

35mm shouldn't be much of a problem ...
it's not hard to put roll film reels in a basket or straighten
a coat hanger and slide reels a it and process it in a deep tank. I used to do
this often in a big 3l Tupperware bin, and before that in a 5 gallon tank that also was used to
hanger process 5-7 sheet film. you just raise and lower the wire/film a little bit to agitate it,
and you have to be careful putting it in and out because or surge marks ( just like hangered film ).
like with a lot of these seasoned tank developers, the more you use it, the better it gets. we used DK50 a lot
i heard about people who used it as a 1shot developer and complained it gave too much contrast or other things ..
and i had never experienced that because it mellowed after a bit, and when you counted up
how many films went through it, and decided to make some more, you always left a bunch of developer
in the tank to mellow out the new batch ( pre seasoned ). while i havenb't ever used 777, from all reports
( and the unblinking eye article ) it is the same sort of thing.
YMMV ov course.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 24, 2016

I suppose you could use 777 for something small like 35mm.However you will lose the very think for which it is known glorious tonality. Bur if you only have a hammer then everything looks like a nail.

Roger Pellegrini · Mar 5, 2016

I used 777 extensively in the past when it was still commercially available as a liquid in gallon bottles. Yes, there are other developers today that can be considered as good, but 777 is extremely stable and, when replenished, will last a very long time. In fact, I believe it gets better with time. My family started in the Photography business in NYC in the late 1940's. We have shot many, many rolls and sheets of b&w film, and still do. I, personally, like the quality achieved with 777 more than anything else... but it is a personal preference. Photographer's Formulary sells something similar but only Bluegrass has the original formula.

I have been corresponding with them and it seems that they will produce it for sale periodically if there is sufficient demand. If you are interested, send an email to ellen@bluegrasspackaging.com

Ellen Waddle
Bluegrass Packaging
3651 Collins Lane
Louisville, KY 40245
T: (502) 425-6442

mgb74 · Mar 5, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
The stuff is not cheap and you have to buy a lot of it. It works well only when used in deep tanks. Granted it does last a long time. Then there is also the problem that they manufacture at odd intervals. You may have to wait a long time get some. It is intended for LF format film at least 4X5 in size. You certainly would not use it for 35mm or 6X6.

Although Bluegrass denies it, the appearance of the mixed developer being opalescent and having a distinctive odor would indicate that it cotains paraphenylenediamine and Glycin which has a limited solubility.

I know an excellent photographer that uses it quite successfully with both 35mm and medium format. But he does stock up when Bluegrass has it available. I believe he's using it in small tanks but definitely not one shot.

Gerald C Koch · Mar 5, 2016

jim appleyard said:
Can you go a bit further on this?

Tank developers like 777 and DK-50 were designed for LF film. Little attention was paid in their formulation for film granularity or sharpness. That was taken care of by the small magnifications required to make prints. So they could be used for small format but image quality would suffer. Harvey 777 contains a silver halide solvent PPD which would decrease the sharpness of 35 mm film. But if you like the results from Perceptrol or Microdol-X then you won't miss much.

Roger Pellegrini · Mar 6, 2016

ColColt said:
Thanks for the link...seems folks like it for the most part. Lots of good info I'm still reading about. I'd like to just try it as it has that "old" look about it from years gone by from the photos I've seen. I do like that photo of Natalie in the link provided about Harvey...simply beautiful tonal rendition.

Gerald C Koch said:
Tank developers like 777 and DK-50 were designed for LF film. Little attention was paid in their formulation for film granularity or sharpness. That was taken care of by the small magnifications required to make prints. So they could be used for small format but image quality would suffer. Harvey 777 contains a silver halide solvent PPD which would decrease the sharpness of 35 mm film. But if you like the results from Perceptrol or Microdol-X then you won't miss much.

Harvey's

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