Improving FX-11?

I am interested in FX-11 as it is claimed to give higher film speed than Microphen and I want to hand hold my roll film camera with 100 ISO film.
The formula dates from 1960:
http://www.jackspcs.com/fx11.htm
I think 'sodium carbonate' is a typo,it should be sodium borate.
Might it be possible to get more speed by replacing the hydroquinone by sodium ascorbate?Any other suggestions for obtaining a speed increase? Thanks.

Alan Johnson said:

I am interested in FX-11 as it is claimed to give higher film speed than Microphen and I want to hand hold my roll film camera with 100 ISO film.
The formula dates from 1960:
http://www.jackspcs.com/fx11.htm
I think 'sodium carbonate' is a typo,it should be sodium borate.
Might it be possible to get more speed by replacing the hydroquinone by sodium ascorbate?Any other suggestions for obtaining a speed increase? Thanks.

Click to expand...

You might try Crawley's FX-37 instead of FX-11.

http://www.jackspcs.com/fx37.htm

Thanks Tom, I forgot FX-37, it is an acutance developer and would likely be better for landscapes. However, I hope to continue investigation of solvent developer FX-11 as this could be used to give almost grainless portraits (guess),not my experience with FX-37 for this.

If you are going to mix your own anyway, you might try this simple formula:

a gram of phenidone, 10 grams of sodium ascorbate and 100 grams of borax to make a gallon of working solution. The working solution keeps very well.

If you don't have sodium ascorbate, use 9 grams of the acid. You will have enough alkali in the borax to buffer out the difference.

It works better than you might think, has no sulfite to eat away edges yet produces fine grain with FP4+ and HP5+ and gives about as much film speed as you can get without overdevelopment. I have been doing tests with bracketted exposures + and - 1/2 stop and have seen no loss of shadow detail or washing out of highs. It won't cost a lot to try, and you might like it.

Hi Alan,
I am a huge fan of FX37 and use it at 1+5. If you want grainless, give Germain's finegrain a try. I have used this a lot and with Tmax 100 you almost can't find the grain under the magnifier.

750cc H2O @125 deg.
7 gm Metol
70 gm Sodium Sulfate
7 gm Paraphenylene Diamine
7 gm Glycin
H2O to 1 liter

Use as stock or 1+1 (pretty good)

Evan Clarke

Geez, Sodium SULFITE (did I mention I am old and can't type?)
EC

Thank you.
I did wonder what was the optimum formula for phenidone/ascorbate/borate and will try Patrick's formula sometime.
I will have to give Germain's a miss as my supplier does not sell PPD.
Perhaps 'Improvement to FX-11' was a bit optimistic.

Patrick, I have been tempted to try something along those lines as a substitute for a stand devloper for Copex Rapid. I had plenty of speed with Rodinal 1:250 plus a little NaOH but wanted more gradation that metol or phenidone might give. Have you tried it as a stand developer at all?
I let the rodinal 'have at it' for 60 mins. Haven't scanned yet but looks good if a but contrasty.
Murray Kelly

You'd better thin it down. I didn't have any uneven development, but I surely had enough, and then some. As it stands, it is what I call an 8 minute developer. That's the ballpark its in. Even at that it's too hot for wide range scenes. Comparing it to Rodinal, it's about like 1:25.

Before you try the typical stand thing, try 8 minutes at full strength with no agitation after the first 10 seconds. Like any trial, let it be not something precious. I am not familiar with Copex Rapid, so in fact I don't know what I am talking about. All I can tell you is what I would do if I had some to experiment with. I did the 8 minute stand development on FP4+ with good results, after 12 minutes overdeveloped a lot.

I should have said that I think there was no visible bromide drag because Phenidone is not very sensitive to bromide concentration. Some old reports I read indicated that in fact, Phenidone alone was somewhat accelerated by bromide. In this case, if the ascorbic acid is actually only being used as an antioxidant to regenerate the Phenidone, it is perhaps not truly superadditive and some of the properties of the solution ought to be like those of Phenidone that doesn't wear out until the antioxidant wears out and/or the pH changes significantly. The upshot of this scenario might be that there will be little pictorial difference between stand and agitated development. So far, I have not seen any difference worth shouting about with this developer.

Patrick,
Is your PC-Glycol developer (diluted with sodium carbonate) something principally different from the above mentioned phenidone-ascorbate/acid-borax formula in sense of working capabilities, visual results produced: film speed, grain, sharpness, etc?

I haven't done a direct comparison yet. I am temporarilly out of film. So much depends on subject matter that I shall have to do a roll of the same subject and develope parts of it in different developers to find the differences.

The same effect will probably be obtained if the PC-Glycol is diluted with a solution of 24 grams of borax per liter instead of the carbonate solution. The major difference on the face of it should be the lower pH but better buffering of the borax solution. Whether the differences are practical or only theoretical I do not yet know. It may, of course, be more practical for some in either direction due to the availability of ingredients.

I can't think of any more "weasel" words right now.

I have calculated that the effect of the phenidone-ascorbic acid-borax
developer can better be simulated by using sodium metaborate as the alkali for PC-Glycol in the amount of 157/D grams/liter of working solution, where D
is the dilution ratio. Thus, a sodium metaborate solution of 157
grams/liter can be used as the alkali with PC-Glycol in the ratio 1:1:24
or 1:1:49, etc. These ratios will make the ascorbic acid into sodium
ascorbate while leaving borax as the alkali. The development for a given
dilution will take somewhat longer than with carbonate, but you may find
the grain finer.

If you can get sodium hydroxide and borax but not the metaborate, mix 23
grams sodium hydroxide and 108 grams of borax in water to make 1 liter.

In my opinion, the concentration of neither ascorbic acid nor borax in
the working solution will be sufficient for reuse, but as of now that is
a matter of conjecture. I could only do a rough test with some film ends. When my shipment of film arrives, I'll know more.

I am able to report that the Copex Rapid (a microfilm somewhat like TechPan) and the straight borax formula worked very well.
Traditionally the phenidone developers used on such films (eg POTA) use a lot of phenidone and the idea that regenerating the phenidone with ascorbate at a low pH to prevent any super additivity was appealing as a cost saver. I have some difficulty getting stuff rather like Patrick who also dislikes NaSO3 as it isn't available locally.
The contrasty nature of the microfilm I tried to lessen by using a stand time of 60 mins. Ordinary times and aggitation with this film just result in 'soot and whitewash' pictures.
I have to repeat the tests with another camera as maybe the old shutter is slow but it looks like an EI of 100 is acheivable.
I am only doing all this because, altho I have the Bluefire HR developer to make gallons, one day I won't and I'll maybe have something to fall back on.
The developer came out of the tank looking horrible. I thought I'd 'deep sixed' the film, but no, it was fine. The base of this film is crystal clear and there is no sign of fog - altho I admit adding 10mgm of BTA to my 250 ml for the tank.
On scanning at 2400 ppi I ran into pixels before grain. Strangely, using microfilm doesn't always guarantee this, I find.
I remember the formula for 250ml (my tank) as the '666' one. 0.06g of phenidone, 0.6g of ascorbate (or AA?) and 6.0 g of borax. I didn't try to get the BTA as a six .
Thanks for the suggestion Patrick - I will try another camera for a repeat of the test but it's looking good from where I stand.
Oh - the Rodinal 1:250 was, under the same conditions way more contrasty altho some folk seem happy with such results if I read the threads correctly.
I added the NaOH since the dilution was so high and Agfa recommend no less than 10ml whatever dilution one uses, but it occurred that altho I wanted the p-aminophenol dilute I didn't want the developer to run out of alkali. I have no KOH so used NaOH. A pinch. I have 16 pinches to the gram w borax. Very scientific.
If anything turns up to gainsay my results today I will post.
Murray

Perhaps the developer came out looking awful because it removed but did not bleach the antihalation dye. The fact that the base was perfectly clear points to this cause. Most 35 mm film has a slight base density to prevent light piping through the leader.

I make a mixture of sodium ascorbate and borax that I use for diluting this developer. It is like the developer without the Phenidone. It allows changing the concentration of the phenidone without changing the concentrations of C and borax. I think this might be a better way to extend development time than diluting with plain water. The theory is that the ascorbate regenerates the phenidone, so any concentration of phenidone you put in should stay the same as development progresses. The ascorbic acid gradually becomes dehydroascorbic acid but the concentration of borax is such that pH changes very little. Frankly, I'm not sure there is any advantage to stand development under these conditions . With high borax concentration, the time constant of pH change ought to be very small. The high concentration of the ascorbate provides a short time constant for the regeneration of the phenidone, so it may be that the difference between characteristic curves due to method and amount of agitation will not be as pronounced as one might expect. My film should arrive tomorrow.

gainer said:

I have calculated that the effect of the phenidone-ascorbic acid-borax
developer can better be simulated by using sodium metaborate as the alkali for PC-Glycol in the amount of 157/D grams/liter of working solution, where D
is the dilution ratio. Thus, a sodium metaborate solution of 157
grams/liter can be used as the alkali with PC-Glycol in the ratio 1:1:24
or 1:1:49, etc. These ratios will make the ascorbic acid into sodium
ascorbate while leaving borax as the alkali. The development for a given
dilution will take somewhat longer than with carbonate, but you may find
the grain finer.

If you can get sodium hydroxide and borax but not the metaborate, mix 23
grams sodium hydroxide and 108 grams of borax in water to make 1 liter.

In my opinion, the concentration of neither ascorbic acid nor borax in
the working solution will be sufficient for reuse, but as of now that is
a matter of conjecture. I could only do a rough test with some film ends. When my shipment of film arrives, I'll know more.

Click to expand...

Is this right:
(1)PC-Glycol is defined here:
http://www.unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Preserv/preserv.html
(2)Dilution ratio is the volume of(PC-Glycol + water) divided by the volume of PC-Glycol
(3)The working solution should have the pH of Borax, about 9.2
That right?Thanks.

Patrick, the colour was pretty terrible for a 6 frame strip. But I'm sure you're correct - there isn't much in there to bleach it.

Your thinking re diluting the agent but not the buffer was the tack I took with the Rodinal. Never seen any mention before of what the pH of very dilute rodinal might be after a few minutes in the tank with the film. Hence I topped it up with NaOH.

As for reducing the phenidone in the borax-only brew, I will try that next.

When I scan the negatives the results with a different camera are similar to the first so I can say that even at an EI of 250 the Copex Rapid looks pretty dark but a tweak of the gamma curve before scanning and it looks better than 125 or 60 (especially the latter). 60 is way over exposed. I'll try the reduced phenidone then probably give it a rest. I have an alternative to the boughten developer and am happy in that knowledge.
Thanks for the ideas.
Murray

Alan Johnson said:

Is this right:
(1)PC-Glycol is defined here:
http://www.unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Preserv/preserv.html
(2)Dilution ratio is the volume of(PC-Glycol + water) divided by the volume of PC-Glycol
(3)The working solution should have the pH of Borax, about 9.2
That right?Thanks.

Click to expand...

(1) Yes.
(2) Yes, but at high dilutions the difference between 1 + x and 1:x is negligible, especially when you have to establish your own developing times.
(3) It pretty well has to. That is the nature of borax, for which I am duly grateful to the Maker.

For testing,I made up the solutions for the 1:100 dilution without propylene glycol.
A. Ascorbic acid 10g, Phenidone 0.25g, water to 100ml
B. Sodium Metaborate 1.57g, water to 1L (ph about 9 in my tap water)
Add 10ml A to 1L B to make 1:100 dilution (ph about 8.5)
Developed Delta 100 21min 68F (this is 1.6x Xtol 1+2 time)

I did not make prints but under the microscope the grain appears similar to that using Xtol 1+1.The 1:100 might have higher acutance,could not see with microscope.
For film speed sun/shade I obtained Xtol 1:1 EI 80,developer tested here EI 100
In conclusion the 1:100 is quite a seriously good developer(for those with patience).