I might be lying...

[Máx Arnold]

Something interesting happened on today. I made an experiment with reducing sugars, which are a kind of sugars known to be able to reduce certain metal ions (i.e. Ag+) through their aldehyde or alpha-hydroxy-ketone groups.
I made a solution of sugar and lye as follows:
- Table sugar (sucrose) -> 20grs
- Lye pellets (NOT anhydrous, they clump. I can't measure how much water there is in) -> 16grs
--> Into 50ml of tap water.

I made tests and it "proved to be a developer, with poor shadow density but rendering all detail".
I thought I had found a replacement for Vitamin C in my Rude Rodinal but...

Then I remembered:

(This comes from the Ilford datasheet for my KENTMERE VC deluxe RC paper)

You couldn't believe how I felt.
I made another test, using a heavily fogged paper strip and I used as "Developer" a plain saturated solution of lye pellets. I knew if the developer in the paper was of interest I just had to activate it. It worked.
But I truly wanted to experiment with alternative developers!! Silver monohydride!! (AgH!!)

How can we get around this? For my tests are biased...

 

[cmacd123]

mix up your own emulsion and coat it on some substrate. then you will know what is in it.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Or test it on film. Developer Incorporated is a thing, but only on enlarging papers. As far as I know, there are no DI films.

Sugar is used as the reducing agent in chemically silvering a mirror -- with the silver starting in an ammoniacal nitrate solution. Adding a small amount of sugar solution to that silvering solution will result in the silver plating out on the container and anything else wetted by the solution (including a telescope mirror) over a pretty short period, comparable to developing time. Try your lye-sugar solution on a 35mm leader clip. Try the lye alone on the same film. That will tell you something.

 

[Máx Arnold]

Those are good replies. I honestly thank you.

I haven't tried to make my own emulsion yet because of cost, and because I need more equipment and I can mess it up very easily. But it's on my plans for sure.

Next time I get some film I'll try using the leader for something like this, for now, I've already cut all the leaders available to me, and the results weren't great: Rude Rodinal didn't develop my leader (I could see no image, nor colour change) and after a couple of hours the emulsion ripped from the film base. My ilford rapid fixer at 1+9 dillution didn't clear the film completely, but I surely didn't left it long enough.

Anyway, that's it by now... Could there be any other way? Out of interest...

It's because of the Tollens' reagent that I thought it might work, if anything sugar is a well known retardant for developing that I guess doesn't reduce developers achievable density, giving more control over pyro developers, and mostly used on Wet Plate Collodion photography to control the aggresive-if-alone ferrous sulphate developer. (if it doesn't work a good try would be adding some ammonia, if I could my hands on some...)
Hint: Cyanotype ferric tris-oxalate which has become ferrous by the action of sunlight does work as a cold tone developer (And I can tell it wasn't the developer in the paper because the solution is highly acidic, so there's no way it could have been activated )

 

[Donald Qualls]

Before organic developers were invented (Rodinal, around 1880) ferrous sulfate was the most common developing agent, and it worked in a mildly acidic solution. You can probably get that locally; it's used as a supplement for gardening (some plants need iron added to the soil in some soils). If you have instant coffee (or brewed, but instant works better), there's always Caffenol.