Improved version of DS-10 by Ryuji Suzuki?

[Rudeofus]

Here's an interesting idea: Deliberately let the dev-agents be destroyed during development. This will cause them to be most active during the early part of development, and slow down near the end when grains are getting large. Perhaps this will reduce filament-formation and thus reduce grain. Physical development would presumably be more prominent near the end (i.e., higher physical/direct ratio). Or has this idea already been tried and rejected?

For this method to work you'd have to know how much silver halide you are going to reduce, and you normally don't know this until you go the images developed.

Next problem is that if the developer runs out of oompft (and let's assume decent agitation), the strongly exposed parts of your film will be already developed, while the weakly exposed parts won't. With this method, you will lose speed, develop mostly the largest grains and boost contrast somehow. Not sure if there's much use for that ....

 

[albada]

For this method to work you'd have to know how much silver halide you are going to reduce, and you normally don't know this until you go the images developed.

Next problem is that if the developer runs out of oompft (and let's assume decent agitation), the strongly exposed parts of your film will be already developed, while the weakly exposed parts won't. With this method, you will lose speed, develop mostly the largest grains and boost contrast somehow. Not sure if there's much use for that ....

I'll keep experimenting with this formula. At a minimum, I'd like to characterize what's causing this usually fine grain, whether exhaustion or some aspect of the chemistry. And as Rudeofus says, exhaustion is hard to control, so I'm hoping it's the formula.

BTW, after sitting in an open beaker for half a day, the orange developer became water-clear. Perhaps aerial oxidation rejuvenated it?

Mark Overton

 

[Rudeofus]

I'll keep experimenting with this formula. At a minimum, I'd like to characterize what's causing this usually fine grain, whether exhaustion or some aspect of the chemistry. And as Rudeofus says, exhaustion is hard to control, so I'm hoping it's the formula.

You could always try using the same formula, just use more soup with the same amount of film. Put one roll of film in a tank which holds 2 or even better 4 rolls, completely fill it with dev and see what happens. If you don't have a larger tank, try swapping out the dev a few times during the process. Since your test strip didn't trigger the exhaustion phenomenon yet showed good grain there is a good chance that exhaustion was not the driving factor.

BTW, after sitting in an open beaker for half a day, the orange developer became water-clear. Perhaps aerial oxidation rejuvenated it?

The orange color could come from sensitizing dyes. I know when I develop color silde film that the first dev takes on all kinds of colors which do disappear after a while. Many factors could cause this: oxidation from aerial oxygen, slow reduction in remaining dev, exposure to light, or some combination of these.

 

[albada]

Totally off-topic: My (there was a url link here which no longer exists) is probably getting little attention because most people don't know what's in there due to my poor title. It's my idea of humor. But I digress. Back to the topic at hand...

You could always try using the same formula, just use more soup with the same amount of film..

Looks like I'll need to do the equivalent: Put more developer into each liter. I'd like the dev to work conveniently with 1-roll tanks.

The orange color could come from sensitizing dyes. I know when I develop color silde film that the first dev takes on all kinds of colors which do disappear after a while.

Then shouldn't XTOL also come out orange? In fact, it comes out almost clear.

Well, I've devised a new concentrate that boosts the phenidone/dimezone by 50%, and the alkali/acid by 33%. As a concentrate, it would have 1+39 dilution.
Most of my testing is with 1.5-frame test-strips, but testing a whole roll at a time sure burns up film fast. It also gives me an excuse to take a bunch of pictures.

Mark Overton

 

[Rudeofus]

Looks like I'll need to do the equivalent: Put more developer into each liter. I'd like the dev to work conveniently with 1-roll tanks.

There could be a substantial difference between a lot of low concentrate and just enough of high concentrate, and the small reported grain may come from that difference. As I have mentioned before, I don't think that we with our limited resources can so easily beat Xtol in all respects, but we are at liberty to relax some of the rules which bound Xtol's designers. One of them would be "don't require more than 250ml for a 36 exp roll of 135 film". Note that if we needed at least 600ml to develop one roll of 120 film (which has same area as a 36 exp 135 film), this wouldn't even require a change of process for me, I never put more than one 120 roll on a spindle.

Then shouldn't XTOL also come out orange? In fact, it comes out almost clear.

Xtol is more concentrated, works at a much higher pH and may have some chems added to kill the sensitizing dyes. You wrote you tried upping Phenidone content, did this make any difference?

BTW: If you don't like wasting whole film rolls on testing dev capacity, how about roller development? This would use a lot less soup hence would allow you to test with less film.

 

[Rudeofus]

"Controlled exhaustion" of the developing agent is the principle underlying high acutance developers such as Beutler, FX1/FX2, Pyro formulas etc. It is also why true acutance developers are typically compensating by nature.

Michael, the controlled exhaustion in high acutance and/or compensating devs you all are writing about is a local effect. This has nothing to do with using insufficient developer in the whole soup and the results will be different, especially in the shadow region. Note that Beutler uses more Metol than D-76 but no super additive dev, which means it exploits local effects.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Maybe I should teach that workshop in the design of developers and fixers!

PE

 

[Alan Johnson]

If a low concentration of developing agents is used uniform throughout the solution,as in rotary processing, there is still an adjacency effect resulting from local concentration differences within the emulsion,see "Controls in Black and White Photography" by R.Henry p240,which gives results for the Beutler with Tri-X.
So if very low (but uniform throughout the solution) concentrations of phenidone/ascorbate were used,requiring much agitation to get development in a reasonable time,it seems adjacency effects would still occur within the emulsion.
But films like T-max show very little adjacency effect,I believe it was considered due to their high iodide content.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Yeah? Where, when and who would be interested?

PE

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

at my home in istanbul , anytime , if it would be my home , may be my mother , my cat and of course I will be there and the strangers who would like to see and touch a real american cowboy

 

[Photo Engineer]

Cowboy? I can't even ride a horse very well!

PE

 

[MattKing]

Cowboy? I can't even ride a horse very well!

PE

PE:

Maybe Umut means a space cowboy

 

[albada]

Yeah? Where, when and who would be interested? PE

I'd be very interested. Anywhere in San Diego County (California).

The problem is, we are scattered all over the world. I think a booklet or book would be most valuable, as this information doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. The photo-chemistry books cover various aspects of the chemistry, but little about the trade-offs involved in engineering such formulae.

Another document I want is a list of chemicals describing what they do, what they're used for, and their interactions. The pharmacopea (sp?) chapter in TDC (or FDC?) is a good start and helped me greatly, but I'd like to see much more depth.

Mark Overton

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, Bill Troop and I have been discussing such a book. Since it must draw on Anchell and Troop though, we must rely on Steve to either help with the book or let us use some copyright material or even worse, start from scratch - which is hard to do and time consuming.

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

Michael, IDK yet. Bill and I have talked about it and exchanged notes but it would be a very much in-depth coverage of the design parameters used in several developers, fixers and there would be a new color section. We want to start where A&T left off and do much more. Steve, at the present, has been uninterested in the project so we are trying to see what we can do. If Bill and I can't come up with something, I may go on to Volume 2 of my emulsion book or I may begin to design some new developers and fixers. However, you must know that the market is shrinking so fast that the emulsion work seems more relevant.

PE

 

[albada]

Yeah? Where, when and who would be interested? PE

Here's an idea:
Do the workshop through Skype.

Skype is free within its network, is worldwide, supports audio and video, supports all the platforms (linux/mac/windows/android), and supports conferencing.
My siblings have a cyber family-reunion a couple of times a month via Skype, internationally, for free. So I know it works well.

If a somebody only wants to watch the workshop, he only needs speakers on his computer.
To participate, he also needs a microphone.
For others to see him, he also needs a camera.

Something to consider...

Mark

 

[Alan Johnson]

Temporary diversion,for possible use of spoon measures in this project I measured the weight of sodium sulfite anhydrous in one LEVEL teaspoon.Sulfite was scraped level with the top of the spoon with a piece of card.Results are the average of 10 weighings for each of 4 spoons sourced in the UK,marked 1tsp or marked 5ml(pharmacy spoons).
Poundland........................13.7g +/- 0.2g
Asda(Walmart owned).........6.7g +/- 0.1g
Boots pharmacy.................6.3g +/- 0.1g
Independent pharmacy........6.1g +/- 0.1g

Conclusion:cannot rely on marking on the spoon, need to check weight of sulfite in level spoon before using it.
I may use 1 level Asda TABLE spoon which weighed in at 24.0g +/- 0.4g to make up sulfite solution.

 

[albada]

Temporary diversion,for possible use of spoon measures in this project I measured the weight of sodium sulfite anhydrous in one LEVEL teaspoon.Sulfite was scraped level with the top of the spoon with a piece of card.Results are the average of 10 weighings for each of 4 spoons sourced in the UK,marked 1tsp or marked 5ml(pharmacy spoons).
Poundland........................13.7g +/- 0.2g
Asda(Walmart owned).........6.7g +/- 0.1g
Boots pharmacy.................6.3g +/- 0.1g
Independent pharmacy........6.1g +/- 0.1g

Conclusion:cannot rely on marking on the spoon, need to check weight of sulfite in level spoon before using it.
I may use 1 level Asda TABLE spoon which weighed in at 24.0g +/- 0.4g to make up sulfite solution.

Alan, thanks for going through this effort. It would have been handy if the world used consistent sizes of teaspoons.
I bought a spoon-set from the local grocery store (Vons). Its measurements:

Vons.............................. 7.3g +/- 0.2g

Here's another idea:

Electronic gram scales with resolution of .1g or .01g are cheap. They only cost US$15-20 or £5-18. Search for "scale .01g" at these sites:

amazon.com
amazon.co.uk

​

Given that these are so cheap, I think it's reasonable to require that somebody mixing sulfite and concentrate use one.
BTW, I am measuring concentrate by weight instead of volume because it's easier and probably more accurate.

EDIT: You can also search for "taschenwaage .01g" at www.amazon.de. Typical prices are 10-20 Euros.

Mark Overton

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have posted a test here of one tablespoon type with NaBr from 3 sources. The error was over 20%. I do NOT recommend use of volumetric measure for solids.

Now, before gun aficionados weigh in saying you use volumetric measure for reloading powder into shells, I remind you of two things.

1. Powder companies make the powder more uniform than most crystalline chemicals for even burning purposes.

2. Powder measure use grain cutting to insure that each load is as close to identical as possible. We don't cut crystals of chemicals that protrude up above the edge of the spoon!

PE

 

[Alan Johnson]

PE,

I agree one should not use the same spoon calibration for sulfite from 3 different sources.

Here are the weights of 1 Asda teaspoon of sodium sulfite anhydrous from the same batch,in grams:
6.7, 6.8, 6.6, 6.7, 6.7, 6.7, 6.7, 6.6, 6.6, 6.7, =6.68 +0.12/ -0.08 an error of less than 2% if each spoon is first calibrated to each source.

One could use a spoon to measure the sodium sulfite to add to say 500ml working solution along with the 50x concentrate from a 10ml syringe.Using say 24.5g or 25.5g sulfite isn't going to make a detectable difference to the negatives.

But as you say,don't use the same spoon calibration for sulfite from different sources.
Nobody uses Crawley's FX-55 developer AFAIK,probably because it calls for some ingredient to be weighed out each time before use.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, I never uses spoons except to dip out chemicals onto my scale or balance!

Besides, I am still thinking SKYPE.

PE

 

[albada]

Well, I never uses spoons except to dip out chemicals onto my scale or balance!
Besides, I am still thinking SKYPE.
PE

The topic here is spoons, so SKYPE must stand for:

Spoons Kill Your Photographic Emulsion​

Stupid joke, but you'll never forget it.

Mark Overton

 

[Photo Engineer]

At my age you would be surprised how fast you can forget things!



PE

 

[nworth]

As for teaspoon measures, I generally side with PE, especially with developers. But it really depends on how much accuracy is needed. There are plenty of cases where a -50/+100 percent error is acceptable.

 

[albada]

Why does 1+1 dilution (with XTOL anyway) increase grain compared to 1+0?

Ron has said that longer dev-times can improve image-quality, but dilution (with longer time) makes it slightly worse.
I've also found that lowering pH (which means boosting time) improves image-quality to a point.

With a concentrate, there's a trade-off between concentration and dev-time, and the longer time that's associated with higher concentration means a little more grain (and I'm wondering why). I'm recovering that loss of quality by dropping pH, boosting time even more. As PE said, "What's the hurry?"

Mark Overton