HC-110 stand development expirement

Ty Phillips · Jul 10, 2008

Hi all! Newly registered to the APUG forums, although I have browsed them extensively in the past.

I have recently become enamored with stand development using R09 (1:100). The results (Neopan 400, APX 100) seem more or less the same as what I get with 1:50 using normal agitation, but I find stand developing much more convenient.

I also shoot a lot of 35mm HP5+ which I expose at box speed and normally soup in HC-110 dilution H. I am currently in the process of experimenting to see if I can stand develop this in dilute HC-110 in an attempt to replace the normal 10 minute regimen. Why HC-110 and not R09? Well, if you have to ask then you've apparently never seen the golf ball sized grain that HP5+ in Rodinal gives.

My first experiment was somewhat of a failure. I exposed the HP5+ at 400 and stand developed in HC-110 dilution G (1:125) for 45 minutes with 1 minute initial agitation. The negatives, most of which were shot in relatively high contrast daylight came out extremely contrasty with little shadow detail, dense highlights and almost no midtone range, which is usually where HP5+/HC-110 excels. :confused:

I realize HC-110 is a much different animal than Rodinal, which is a true compensating developer, but the results puzzled me. All scenes were carefully incident metered. If the contrast range of the scene was wide, I usually favored the shadows in determining the proper exposure.

If the film were overdeveloped, I would have expected more shadow detail. I was also surprised with the very high contrast. I would have thought a high dilution like G would have produced relatively low contrast negatives.

My understanding is that at high dilutions, HC-110 does have some compensating properties and I was hoping that 45 minutes at dilution G would allow the developer to work on the shadows after exhausting around the highlights. But maybe 45 minutes is not enough. Or perhaps the highlight density simply cannot be controlled well when shooting at box speed. I wonder if the results would have actually been better had I pushed 1-2 stops and increased development time.

I realize I am probably trying to do the impossible, but if anyone has any input I would love to hear your thoughts. My knowledge of photographic chemistry is about as advanced as my knowledge of women's handbags....

Thanks,
Ty

2F/2F · Jul 10, 2008

You ran out of activity at such a high dilution. Your highlights quickly developed and sucked up a lot of the developer during your first agitation, and there was little left to develop the shadows and midtones as your film stood. You need at least 3mL of concentrate per roll of 135/120, regardless of dilution. This means 1:79 maximum dilution for a roll of 135 in a Nikkor tank. If you use more solution than is required just to cover the film, you can dilute more.

I would also agitate more initially.

As we have recently discussed here, it is not the dilution that compensates. It is a lower agitation:time ratio that does so. Higher dilutions just give you a longer time so the development is not so sensitive to minor inconsistencies.

Ty Phillips · Jul 10, 2008

Thanks for the information, 2F/2F. Very interesting.

I should have had enough developer. I only developed one roll and I use stainless 16oz. tanks so I used 4mL syrup + water to make 500mL total.

More agitation intially? Wouldn't this increase the agitation/time ratio you refer to?

Would I have had better luck using dilution H and reducing the time to 20-30 minutes?

2F/2F · Jul 10, 2008

"I should have had enough developer. I only developed one roll and I use stainless 16oz. tanks so I used 4mL syrup + water to make 500mL total."

In that case, I am wrong. You had more than enough syrup to completely develop the film.

Agitation:time ratio would be figured by considering the total time of agitation and the total time of development. So, more agitation up front would be balanced by so little later on, and would not necessarily give you a tight ratio. The initial agitation would basically set the stage and make sure that all the tones were at least somewhat developed, and evenly developed.

I use dilution H for almost everything, but I have never done a full-on stand development for almost the entire development time. I normally do my development so that I decrease agitation frequency as time goes on. I agitate as normal up front for a bit. Then less often. Then less often again.

There are a million different ways to do it, but I think the most successful do actually involve periodic agitation, and not a full-on stand for the entire time.

Ty Phillips · Jul 10, 2008

Agitation:time ratio would be figured by considering the total time of agitation and the total time of development. So, more agitation up front would be balanced my so little later on. The initial agitation would basically set the stage and make sure that all the tones were at least somewhat developed, and evenly developed.

Gotcha. Make sense.

I use dilution H for almost everything, but I have never done a full-on stand development. I normally do a half-assed stand, where I decrease agitation frequency as time goes on.
I too have had great results with semi-stand. I have pushed HP5+ to ISO 3200 and still obtained acceptable shadow detail. It's a PITA to babysit your film for that long, though. Hence my interest in full-on stand development.

If anyone out there has direct experience with HC-110 and full stand development I would be very interested. I found some posts about someone using it for Tri-X pushed to 1600, but not at rated speed. Maybe exposure at 400 is a bad idea for HC-110 stand because the highlights blow out relatively quickly.

Ty Phillips · Jul 10, 2008

I should mention one additional piece of information. Not sure if it matters or not.

My intial 1 minute agitation was fairly vigorous with roughly 1 full inversion per second. My previous semi-stand experiments were done with very gentle agitation.

The reason for the more vigorous agitation was to prevent uneven development, which I had initially when first trying R09 stand development and using gentle agitation.

MikeSeb · Jul 10, 2008

I'd always heard that 6mL is the minimum concentrate, however diluted, for one roll of 135-36 or 120.

gainer · Jul 10, 2008

I would try the so-called "semi-stand" method. Use half again as much time as for normal agitation and agitate initially, at half time and at normal time, vigorously each time. So if I can find a dilution that requires 20 minutes with normal agitation, I would agitate initially, at 10 minutes and at 20 minutes.

Andrew O'Neill · Jul 10, 2008

HC-110 is not well suited for stand development when using HP5. The best I've ever used (and I've used many) is pyrocat-hd. With stand development you get extreme edge effects. I prefer as Patrick Gainer suggests the semi-stand method. With semi-stand also reduce the chances of mottling and bromide streaking.

Thomas Bertilsson · Jul 10, 2008

Well, if you didn't have any shadow detail, no matter how bright the light, you underexposed the film. No developer in the world can salvage underexposure.
I have no experience with HC-110, but I've used Rodinal (much like the R09 you use), Pyrocat-MC, and Xtol 1+3 with semi stand and stand development.
For semistand, I add about 30% to the times I use for regular development, and for stand, I add 100%.
Semi stand - I agitate vigorously for the first whole minute, then three times during the course of the development cycle. I usually end up around 13 minutes with Pyrocat, regardless of film, although Foma 400 requires 16 minutes to develop the highlights to where I want them. I expose most of my film at box speed too.
Stand - I agitate vigorously for the first whole minute, rap the tank pretty hard on a folded up towel five or six times, and then set it down for 25 minutes. Works great.
I always fill my tank with developer whether I have one or five rolls in it. Call it a waste if you want, but it helps me use up the Pyrocat before it goes bad.
I wish you the best in your experiments, but I believe you may have underexposed the roll that you described first. If it was extremely bright, it's easy to fool the meter. When it's broad daylight like that, I always forget about my meter and use the Sunny 16 rule. Never fails me either.
- Thomas

RobC · Jul 10, 2008

Over expose shadows by 1 stop. That also over exposes the highlights. But the critical thing is to presoak the film in water for at least 30 seconds. That will stop the take up of pure developer into the emulsion which I suspect is what is causing your blown highlights. Agitate for 1st minute and then every 3 to 4 minutes for 10 to 15 seconds.

But if your purpose is just to save you having to handle the development process, then buy a Jobo ATL Processor.

Ty Phillips · Jul 10, 2008

Thanks to everyone for your input.

MikeSeb, there seems to be some debate as to whether the minimum HC-110 concentrate per roll is 3mL or 6mL. I've had good luck with 5mL and semi-stand in the past.

Patrick, your suggestion sounds very interesting. Sort of a cross between the semi-stand I used in the past (agitating every 3-5 minutes) and full stand development. Maybe I will try this next.

Andrew & Thomas, I've heard amazing things about pyro developers but I've always avoided them due to the toxicity.

Thomas, it is possible that the shadows didn't receive enough exposure. I am also a regular practicioner of Sunny 16 but a lot of these shots were taken very late in the day when the sun was at its lowest and my brain has been known to make mistakes in these situations so I metered them. As I mentioned, the lighting was quite harsh so it was sort of an extreme test of sorts.

Rob, I think your suggestion to essentially pull the film by 1 stop is likely on the money. Normally with HP5+/HC-110 I can shoot in the harshest possible lighting conditions and still have very printable negatives with reasonable contrast. But it seems that in my case the highlights may have been overdeveloped. Oh, I forgot to mention that I did a 5 minute pre-soak. So I don't think that is the problem.

I might mess around with it some more, but the general consensus seems to be that I will get much better results with a couple agitation cycles thrown in.

Ty Phillips · Jul 10, 2008

Well, I went back and looked at my negatives again, comparing them to some others taken in similar lighting conditions and developed normally. I also scanned a few more that I hadn't done before.

I think my intial criticism of the results was too harsh. Upon closer examination, I believe there is sufficient shadow detail on all of the negatives. The shadows are very thin in some cases, but there is detail present.

The problem, I now believe, is more just a contrast issue. The highlights are simply too dense for the thin shadow areas to make an easily printable negative. I'm guessing if the lighting was more flat the results would have been fine.

I think if I can get the highlight density down a bit the negs will be pretty nice actually.

phenix · Jul 10, 2008

Minimum quantity of HC-110 syrup per roll:
- 135/36 & 120 = min. 6ml/roll (of which exhausts 4ml during development)
- 135/24 = min. 4ml/roll (of which exhausts 3ml)
- 220 = min. 12ml/roll (of which exhausts 8ml)

With HC-110, I don’t care about dilution types. I just add the minimum syrup quantity to the tank capacity and calculate the dilution (which is atypical). Than, I calculate the developing time, based on a typical dilution (ex: B) and the linear variation of times with dilutions.

Even if the syrup is cheap, I do replenish it with the exhausted quantity to make the minimum for another roll. I also can easily change the film type - ex: from 135/24 to 135/36 or 120. Of course, with each replenishment the dilution loses in exactitude, so I do develop only 3-4 rolls this way. The rest is agitation (to get the desired results). It works like a wonder!

2F/2F · Jul 11, 2008

Yes, 6mL *officially*. But like most minimums quoted by the chemical companies, you can half it without any ill effects. (Personally, I would say with "better" effects for general photography.) You can also use half as much D-76 stock per roll as Kodak recommends. Rodinal as well. I imagine this means most developers are similar. Many people's, and my own, independent testing reinforce this assertion. You may run out of activity in a severely overexposed neg., but in that case, you kind of want to run out anyhow. My goal is to have just enough syrup to barely develop all of the neg. areas evenly and quote-unquote completely.

eddym · Jul 11, 2008

gainer said:
I would try the so-called "semi-stand" method. Use half again as much time as for normal agitation and agitate initially, at half time and at normal time, vigorously each time. So if I can find a dilution that requires 20 minutes with normal agitation, I would agitate initially, at 10 minutes and at 20 minutes.

Patrick, forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but are you saying that you agitate the film just before you dump the chemistry at the end of 20 minutes? Why???

gainer · Jul 11, 2008

eddym said:
Patrick, forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but are you saying that you agitate the film just before you dump the chemistry at the end of 20 minutes? Why???

Sorry if I wasn't clear. If the film-developer combination requires 20 minutes with standard agitation (5 seconds every minute for me) I give it 30 minutes with agitation at 0, 10 and 20 minutes. Thus the final agitation is 10 minutes before dumping.

Ty Phillips · Jul 11, 2008

I would have to agree with 2F/2F that 6mL per roll seems excessive. I regularly develop 2 36 exp. rolls in a 16oz tank with dilution H. This ends up being 3.75mL per roll and I've never had any problems. However, for stand development I could see it being more of an issue, so....

I think my next experiment will be to slightly increase the dilution to 1:100 and try about 30 minutes. This should give slightly less development time than my previous attempt, but more developer itself. I'm hoping this will allow sufficient development of the shadows but keep the highlights somewhat under control.

If this fails then I want to try Patrick's semi-stand method, which sounds like a sure thing and not all that less convenient than full stand development.

Thanks again to everyone for your great input and advice!

eddym · Jul 11, 2008

gainer said:
Sorry if I wasn't clear. If the film-developer combination requires 20 minutes with standard agitation (5 seconds every minute for me) I give it 30 minutes with agitation at 0, 10 and 20 minutes. Thus the final agitation is 10 minutes before dumping.

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

Ty Phillips · Jul 11, 2008

Well, I tried a second stand development experiment. This roll was shot in very similar (high contrast) lighting conditions to the previous roll. An acid test for sure.

This time I used a dilution of 1:100 (I'll call that dilution "R" in honor of Rodinal). 5mL of syrup + water to make 500mL. 1 minute initial agitation, stand for 30 minutes, 20 deg C.

Although I haven't scanned any of the negatives yet, they appear somewhat dense again, at least for my tastes (scanning, condensor enlarger).

I'm starting to think 1 minute of initial agitation is too much. Next time I'll reduce to 30 seconds. But I'll reserve final judgement until I scan the negs.

namke · Oct 20, 2008

Sorry to be late to this party, but this thread is interesting to me as I'm about to experiment in a similar manner. I've got some HP5+ (135-36) shot at 800 in some fairly harshly-lit situations, and would like to keep the highlights under control whilst getting some shadow detail. I've got some Ilfotec HC (which is similar to HC-110), and was considering stand/semi-stand approach for a change.

As a side note, I've shot extremely low-light situations on Delta 3200 (@3200) and developed in DD-X for the recommended times, and always end up with _very_ contrasty negatives - the experiment with HP5 is an attempt to get contrast under control (and eventually work up to 1600ASA if possible - my new lens means that 1600 will be sufficient!)

nsouto · Oct 20, 2008

sorry for the slightly off-topic question, but:

where does one find info on minimum amount of concentrate developer for EACH developer?

digitaltruth doesn't appear to have that info, or I'm too stoopid to find it...

skahde · Oct 20, 2008

namke said:
As a side note, I've shot extremely low-light situations on Delta 3200 (@3200) and developed in DD-X for the recommended times, and always end up with _very_ contrasty negatives

This is how things are supposed to be when pushing. You crank up the contrast as fas as remotely tolerable to earn a few degree ISO in the shaddows. As an alternative I can recommend Diafine.

best

Stefan

namke · Oct 20, 2008

skahde said:
This is how things are supposed to be when pushing. You crank up the contrast as fas as remotely tolerable to earn a few degree ISO in the shaddows. As an alternative I can recommend Diafine.

This is the reason I was considering a higher-dilution/longer time combination to get some 'compensating' effect... I should own up that I'm relatively new to all of this, I set up my darkroom only about 2.5 years ago, and I'm still reading, and still learning!

Lee L · Oct 20, 2008

nsouto said:
where does one find info on minimum amount of concentrate developer for EACH developer?

It's more a question of whether or not this is commonly stated for a given developer. In short, it's not, and only gets discussed much with developers that are commonly used at high dilution or pushed somewhat beyond manufacturers specified dilutions.

I'd also take issue with 2F/2F's statement that it's not the dilution that compensates, that it's solely the resulting extended development time and reduced agitation that provides compensation. With many developers it is the dilution that allows stand development to compress the tonal range and provides less development in the highlights through exhaustion while there is still enough active developer in the shadow areas to develop them more. It's a system, and often high dilution is an important part of the system. At full strength and low agitation, the contrast wouldn't necessarily decrease to the same degree or in the same manner as with low agitation at higher dilutions. This is to some degree a matter of semantics, and high dilution may not be necessary for compensation with some developers, but it's an important distinction to make in understanding stand development, and dilution can and does play a role.

Lee

HC-110 stand development expirement

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