Long scale film developers

So one thing I don't see talked about in film developers much is "scale", ie, how far away shadows are from highlights. This is often confused as contrast, but I mean in more raw density terms. ie, a standard developer (for example) might have shadows at 0.1 and highlights at 1.0, while high contrast in this context means that there is less stuff in the range between 0.4 and 0.8. I'm talking rather about a developer that isn't necessarily higher contrast, but rather occupies more density range in normal use, like shadows at 0.1 and highlights at 3.0. Basically what I'm looking for is not a developer where if you over expose things the highlights turn into a low contrast mess at a density that is still relatively grey on the actual negative. I'm talking rather about where if you over expose things, the highlights go to the theoretical dmax of the film and appear a straight black. This has a lot in common with paper developers actually, but often paper developers include other compromises such as reduced shadow speed etc.

What are some developers of this extremely non-compensating type that are suitable for film? I've accidentally made one and printed some test shots and found the results rather unique and resemble some unique process films such as ortho litho film, but of course being able to use this at much higher speeds than with a process film. Specifically, the results I've printed have very high contrast highlights yet low contrast and detail rich shadows, and a rich range of somewhat contrasty midtones leading into the highlights. They can be difficult to print though, including use of grade 0 and 00 with a lot of exposure (3-4 stops more compared to a typical print) for some especially contrasty scenes. Regardless, it seems this style of processing is very uncommon today. It definitely is more difficult with a lot less exposure latitude, but the results are not easily replicated using a typical short scale and normal (or even high) contrast film development process. Does anyone use this style of processing with the goal of printing it? What developers are designed around this style of long scale processing? (also excluding the reversal type developers with thiocyanate etc, I don't necessarily want highlights to clip, but rather to not be constrained into a small scale)

The old 'Universal' type of developers tend to do this sort of thing - Foma Retro Special, PQ Universal are two that immediately come to mind - have used both, with results I liked. The unrelenting straight line & biting midtones are very useful in the right circumstances.

This is useful to me in general because I often struggle getting highlight and shadow contrast to be in that weird flipped state that adds a surreal vibe that I really dig... but also relevant for a single roll of film I need to process. Specifically, bright sunny day of blowing sand at some sand dunes. Once in a lifetime kind of experience actually, but due to being sandblasted at the time my exposure may be less than perfect though I did a few brackets as well. The film used (in hindsight not a good match) was well preserved 1960s expiration Plus-X in 120 with a typically very small amount of base fog. I'm fine to sacrifice shadow detail even as long as I get the highlight contrast needed to make the blowing sand (ie, similar to fog) actually show up and be easily printed without looking like a weird grey mess. I've been struggling to figure out which developer to use. If I want to play it safe and not go into more experimental formulas, HC-110 at the N+ or N++ dilution might be the ticket, but I've never used this before and don't really want to sacrifice a roll of this film to figure out how it'll turn out in it

edit: Also I used an orange filter, which should help things I hope, but this is definitely not the kind of thing I can just go retake

D76 tends to give a bit of an upswept curve, if memory serves. You might look into that.
Of course the film itself has a big influence as well, especially in how pronounced it's shoulder is. A film like foma 400 will do the exact opposite from what you're looking for, while eg tmax400 would be appropriate (these are just 2 examples of course).

earlz said:

So one thing I don't see talked about in film developers much is "scale", ie, how far away shadows are from highlights.

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In general, avoid speaking about "scale" because it's a technically ambiguous "commercial" term. Instead you should speak about Contrast Index or Compensation effect.

"Scale", more than a characteristic of the developer, it is a characteristic of the processing. In Large Format as we develop individual sheets we can make a custom development with a particular "scale" for each shot. For rolls development applies to all frames in the roll.

Most important factor is development time, the lower the time the lower the contrast and the higher the film latitude, so the scene recorded dynamic range. See sensitometric curves in the film datasheet.

When you make (say) N-1 N-3 or N+2 developments you extend or shrink film latitude and how far or close are densities of the highlights and shadows.


Compensation is mostly about selectively decreasing development in the highlights.

With low agitation you get some compensation, some developers are more compensating in the highlights, for example D-76 is slightly compensating. Diafine compensates a lot...



If you are interested in all that get these books:

Beyond The Zone System
The Negative
Darkroom Cookbook
Film Development Cookbook
Way Beyond Monochrome


A ultra long scale developer is POTA, it was used to photograph Nuclear explosions.

I think I read in the web site Covington Innovations

http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/index.html

offers the opinion that HC-110 can give an upswept curve, apparently not much moderated by dilution.

Please let us know how it turns out.

138S said:

In general, avoid speaking about "scale" because it's a technically ambiguous "commercial" term. Instead you should speak about Contrast Index or Compensation effect.

"Scale", more than a characteristic of the developer, it is a characteristic of the processing. In Large Format as we develop individual sheets we can make a custom development with a particular "scale" for each shot. For rolls development applies to all frames in the roll.

Most important factor is development time, the lower the time the lower the contrast and the higher the film latitude, so the scene recorded dynamic range. See sensitometric curves in the film datasheet.

When you make (say) N-1 N-3 or N+2 developments you extend or shrink film latitude and how far or close are densities of the highlights and shadows.


Compensation is mostly about selectively decreasing development in the highlights.

With low agitation you get some compensation, some developers are more compensating in the highlights, for example D-76 is slightly compensating. Diafine compensates a lot...



If you are interested in all that get these books:

Beyond The Zone System
The Negative
Darkroom Cookbook
Film Development Cookbook
Way Beyond Monochrome


A ultra long scale developer is POTA, it was used to photograph Nuclear explosions.

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I've read darkroom and film development cookbooks front to back already! Way beyond monochrome is a bit more than a weekend read, but I bought it more for the darkroom techniques (masking) than for this type of stuff. Might need to dig into it further. And just today I received a copy of The Negative and The Print which I think will give me a lot more info. I feel like I'm basically just reinventing the zone system with my thinking here and I should learn it, even if not actively applying it in every situation (I don't have time to do 20 meter readings and figuring out which zone to place everything in the middle of a sand storm for instance). My point in making this thread wasn't to challenge Ansel and his decades of expertise, but rather to challenge what is seen as "normal" in the modern day. ie, the mantra of always aiming for low contrast film development because "you can always add more contrast later". My point is that sure, you can add more contrast later, but only in the shadows and a little bit in the midtones, assuming you want to get the majority of the detail on the negative to the print without it looking like a flat low contrast mess with greys instead of blacks. I'm looking to go back in time a bit by using less conventional (and honestly less general purpose) film developers for getting the highlight contrast the way I want it on the negative while keeping in mind what that means for shadow contrast on the print.

john_s said:

I think I read in the web site Covington Innovations

http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/index.html

offers the opinion that HC-110 can give an upswept curve, apparently not much moderated by dilution.

Click to expand...

This is why I'll go with something more proven for these pictures that I know will likely give the results I'm looking for. I've seen the density charts of everything actually comparing my exact film (1960s plus-x) so it's a pretty sure bet that I'll get what I think from using HC-110 with this dilution contrast control

@earlz Richard J Henry's 'Controls in Black and White Photography' is more useful than many of the more popular technical texts, largely because he carries out thorough scientific testing of many of the claims of those self-same texts at an analytical level way beyond most of the writers themselves - not many people have the knowledge and ability to build and operate a microdensitometer. Though (spoiler alert!) the conclusions he reaches are essentially: the manufacturers are generally doing a better job of telling you accurate data about the materials than most of the prolific/ popular darkroom technique books (some of whose techniques only work because of the latitude engineered into the materials to compensate for misuse by the end user...) - and D-76 at least equals or outperforms Rodinal in most metrics apart from how much visible granularity is produced. Oh, and fiddling around with agitation patterns is pretty irrelevant, all it seems to do is adjust the overall contrast - the same effects can be achieved by curtailing development time and using regular agitation.

Lachlan Young said:

@earlz Richard J Henry's 'Controls in Black and White Photography' is more useful than many of the more popular technical texts, largely because he carries out thorough scientific testing of many of the claims of those self-same texts at an analytical level way beyond most of the writers themselves - not many people have the knowledge and ability to build and operate a microdensitometer. Though (spoiler alert!) the conclusions he reaches are essentially: the manufacturers are generally doing a better job of telling you accurate data about the materials than most of the prolific/ popular darkroom technique books (some of whose techniques only work because of the latitude engineered into the materials to compensate for misuse by the end user...) - and D-76 at least equals or outperforms Rodinal in most metrics apart from how much visible granularity is produced. Oh, and fiddling around with agitation patterns is pretty irrelevant, all it seems to do is adjust the overall contrast - the same effects can be achieved by curtailing development time and using regular agitation.

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I have actually been looking for a reasonably priced densitometer to do some of these objective measurements myself. Of course this would only be for measuring density like from a step wedge, not sharpness and such.

I don't doubt with modern materials that the difference between sharp and fine grain is far less apart than it was in the day. ie, D-76 and Rodinal looking similar in terms of sharpness and edge effects despite grain being very different. Honestly with this kind of resolution on modern materials you're fighting against a lot of different factors before the developer is the fault. It'd be interesting to do resolution tests (ie, using a NASF target) but doing a proper resolution test is really difficult to get perfect consistency with. Resolution is less important than perceived sharpness anyway, and sometimes grain can make a sharp and high resolution image actually look less sharp than a fine grain image with a small resolution compromise. I know in my tests in search of "unique" developers I've found certain films are much more response to these changes and still can respond surprisingly strong. Stuff like FP4+ and HP5+ typically look pretty similar, but I recall some site posting identical pictures some time ago but processed in different developers. The changes in overall appearance of were quite minor, but a 100% zoom revealed significantly different characteristics.

I highly doubt agitation patterns is "irrelevant". I've done A-B tests with weird films (ortho litho and microfilms) and the difference in shadow vs highlight density is obvious.. This probably depends on the developer as well (I don't doubt some developers are so strongly regenerating that stand development has minimal effect) but I've seen very obvious differences in my tests, especially with the more weird developers such as sulfite-free ones, POTA, very dilute ones, and staining developers.

earlz said:

It'd be interesting to do resolution tests (ie, using a NASF target) but doing a proper resolution test is really difficult to get perfect consistency with. Resolution is less important than perceived sharpness anyway, and sometimes grain can make a sharp and high resolution image actually look less sharp than a fine grain image with a small resolution compromise. I know in my tests in search of "unique" developers I've found certain films are much more response to these changes and still can respond surprisingly strong.

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I'd suggest that the general interest in the academic papers I've found from about 1952-53 onwards moves very strongly away from resolving power tests because they were pretty poor (and open to results that seemingly contradicted the visual evidence) for understanding 'normal' photographic situations. Instead by the time people like Mike Kriss was publishing his paper that suggests an 'image content' type of approach in the early 1970's, film analysis had shifted to working out relationships between MTF, RMS Grain, latitude etc. Aim seemingly being to look at how well films imaged detail in tonally important areas (ie the midtones where the grain is most visually prevalent).

One of the other big research findings seem to have been a discovery that a small rise in acutance (via developer formulation) was often accompanied by a significant rise in apparent granularity - which along with knowledge about the interaction of iodide placement in the grain & subsequent reaction with more solvent developers seems to have been influential in shifting research away from 'high definition' development to engineering the emulsions to deliver a better sharpness: granularity ratio.

earlz said:

I recall some site posting identical pictures some time ago but processed in different developers. The changes in overall appearance of were quite minor, but a 100% zoom revealed significantly different characteristics.

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The Fotoimport site? Done with an Imacon - I've done similar tests on a Hasselblad X5 - purely for my own amusement - and failed to disprove Henry's claim that Rodinal has higher visible granularity (masking fine detail) than D-76 - which is overall finer grained and with sharper fine detail with less granularity caused masking of that fine detail. The two problems with the Fotoimport tests are that on one or two, the film is clearly out of focus in the scanner (one of the T-Max 400's I recall) and that not all the films were developed to the same CI etc.

earlz said:

I highly doubt agitation patterns is "irrelevant". I've done A-B tests with weird films (ortho litho and microfilms) and the difference in shadow vs highlight density is obvious.. This probably depends on the developer as well (I don't doubt some developers are so strongly regenerating that stand development has minimal effect) but I've seen very obvious differences in my tests, especially with the more weird developers such as sulfite-free ones, POTA, very dilute ones, and staining developers.

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At least within the bounds of 'normal' photographic materials used in relatively standard processing, the supposed sharpness differences between continuous and intermittent agitation are essentially nil once gross contrast differences from agitation differences are controlled for & corrected - and stand development is found (and has been found by others on numerous occasions) to produce unacceptable unevenness for a small rise in acutance. Infectious development and tanning developers are different - though even within the latter there's going to be a considerable difference between one formulated to oxidise rapidly, producing a very strong tanning effect (dye transfer developer) and one producing less tanning and more stain (dye, effectively) for more 'normal' processing.

earlz said:

Way beyond monochrome is a bit more than a weekend read, but I bought it more for the darkroom techniques (masking) than for this type of stuff.

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Way Beyond Monochrome is an impressive book, top notch comprehensive wisdom for every step. It also introduces to color contrast masking for BW. A way to locally adjusting contrast is making a color mask in this way:

https://www.largeformatphotography....-a-powerful-method-for-advanced-curve-control


This is mostly what explained by Alan Ross, but making the mask in a more convenient way.

earlz said:

My point is that sure, you can add more contrast later, but only in the shadows and a little bit in the midtones, assuming you want to get the majority of the detail on the negative to the print without it looking like a flat low contrast mess with greys instead of blacks. I'm looking to go back in time a bit by using less conventional (and honestly less general purpose) film developers for getting the highlight contrast the way I want it on the negative while keeping in mind what that means for shadow contrast on the print.

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There are no magic bullets. What works is mastering your tools. If you make an sculpture then a good hammer is important, but the most important thing is how you hit. The sculpture is inside, you remove the stone on it. Your sculpture is your visualization, your technique puts your vision on the print.

We can get this in two ways. One is experimenting with the many factors. The other one is learning practical sensitometry and taking advantage from it to control your process. Both ways are good, we may use both at the same time, and it's a personal decision the way we use.

Anyway, as you target advanced control, let me recommend to read Beyond The Zone System by Phil Davis as many times is necessary to understand perfecty every word, specially the first half. One has to learn to use logarithms in practice to have total control.

Of course developer is a factor, but it's more important how you use developer than the developer itself, and in particular you depart from a film that has a certain natural curve shape trend from it's grain formulatuion. An emulsion has grains of different sizes/shapes, the proportion/nature of the large grains component determines how toe is, and the proportion and nature of ultra small grains determines how shoulder is.

For example, if you use linear T-Max don't complain about non shouldered too high highlights densities that are dificult to print... developer can be a solution in an unsuspected way, if you use pyro then the denser yellow stain in the highlights will block more the blue there, and if using a Variable contrast paper then you are printing highlights with a lower contrast grade than the rest, which has a similar effect than using a shouldered film or using a Long Toe chloride paper like Lupex, Lodima or old AZO.

So it's good to experiment with developers, only let me say that if you want to control the curve for optic printing then you may want to combine several factors, developer, processing, film, print manipulation...

IMO, when well understanding well Phil Davis' book you have a criterion to know what a recipe does or not, what is hype and what is real. At least, personally, I feel it was a mind openner for me.

While you’re reading, get Minor White’s New Zone System Manual - the 1976 edition. He discusses exposure for the midtones, development for the shadows and agitation for the highlights. It might give you some ideas.

FWIW, my most perfectly developed roll of film end to end in a very mixed lighting situation was with the Farber version of divided D76. If I shot enough roll film to justify mixing the developer, I’d consider it for my main developer.

As for Universal developers, @jnantz and I have been on an unsuccessful search for a formula for Ansco/GAF Universal developer for many years. We both used it in the 60s and 70s.

juan said:

While you’re reading, get Minor White’s New Zone System Manual - the 1976 edition. He discusses exposure for the midtones, development for the shadows and agitation for the highlights. It might give you some ideas.

FWIW, my most perfectly developed roll of film end to end in a very mixed lighting situation was with the Farber version of divided D76. If I shot enough roll film to justify mixing the developer, I’d consider it for my main developer.

As for Universal developers, @jnantz and I have been on an unsuccessful search for a formula for Ansco/GAF Universal developer for many years. We both used it in the 60s and 70s.

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I thought that the universal developer was thought to be Ansco 130? Definitely unconventional but I've heard very good things about using it for film development

Photospheres Formulary sells a long scale developer developed by Phil Davis as part of the BTZY for Tmax 100. I've never used, but might fit what your looking for.

Just for a related update on my theory on contrast grades. This thread is very instructive: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/comparing-paper-characteristic-curves.158598/ and also the latest data for Ilford MGV: https://www.ilfordphoto.com/amfile/file/download/file/1954/product/745/ (I did all my testing with contrast grades using MGV). It's definitely not universal that contrast grades only has an effect on shadows. Foma in particular appears to have a much larger effect on highlights. Specifically grades 1-3 are quite similar, but grades 0 and 4-5 give very significant modifications in highlight detail. MGV specifically has fairly high highlight contrast using all grades, where as MGIV had slightly more modification on highlight contrast with a very non-linear curve with grading. Adox is also fairly high contrast in highlights, but more responsive to grading than MGV

earlz said:

I have actually been looking for a reasonably priced densitometer to do some of these objective measurements myself. Of course this would only be for measuring density like from a step wedge, not sharpness and such.

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there’s a number of x-rite densitometers available on eBay for black and white material that are generally less than $200 and work really well. It’s worth the investment if that’s something that you want.

I’ve put my density meter on the shelf and now use my scanner and Vuescan. That might be an alternative for you.

earlz said:

I thought that the universal developer was thought to be Ansco 130? Definitely unconventional but I've heard very good things about using it for film development

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it was definately thought to be ansco130 by me, when jc welch ( equinoxphotographic in oregon ) made the suggestion and i have been using a130 to develop film one way or another for almost 20 years. it will definatly give you long scale film negative, as they used to say in the spaghetti sauce ad in the 70s. " try it, you like it" ...

juan said:

As for Universal developers, @jnantz and I have been on an unsuccessful search for a formula for Ansco/GAF Universal developer for many years. We both used it in the 60s and 70s.

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slight correction though juan, i used it in the 90s when i found a can from the 70s propping a window open where i lived. i was money poor ( broke ) but i had all this film to develop and paper to print on so i threw caution to the wind and mixed it up and used it. that developer was .. perfect !


john