My PC-512 Borax Developer

grain elevator · Mar 1, 2023

Hast anyone tried the variant that someone mentioned, with metaborate instead of borax, yet? I, too, have metaborate but no borax (not a drugstore item here) and would be ok with a bit more grain, which is the main difference I'd expect.
I'm fairly happy with PC-TEA, which I've been using for a while now, but would welcome the consistency this approach offers (as TEA is said to vary in pH depending on DEA impurities and also in the other sense of the word, TEA is a bit viscous).

svetoklik · Mar 1, 2023

relistan said:
Anyway it’s rather irrelevant to the thread

I think that is relevant for the thread because maybe I will use your formula.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/attachments/322102/

Please look again at it and pay attention to that stone behind the third part of the house. It looks like beside similar tonality and flat texture that it is from the same material as the sea.
That is not matter of the taste and we can also see on the window under middle roof of the house dark tonality that is not covered by the reflections, but is somehow on the tinny side. So I am here in doubt is that characteristic of developer for the difficult bright scenes?

relistan · Mar 1, 2023

That’s just a matter of exposure and contrast. You want darker shadows, give it less exposure. You want more contrast, develop longer, print at a higher grade, adjust in scan, whatever you like.

In a high contrast scene like that, I have worked hard to get a metering and exposure technique that captures highlights without blowing them out and enough shadow detail to print it however I like. It’s not making me feel good that you keep insisting that there is something wrong with this image that I happen to like, but I will say one more time, that choice was made in camera and has nothing to do with the developer. What you don’t like is my exposure or my scan.

relistan · Mar 1, 2023

aparat said:
Evaluating the performance of a film and developer pairing is tricky, especially given the various types of workflow people use these days. It's great that @relistan has chosen a very measured approach, combining quantitative and qualitative descriptions, responding to comments with substantive arguments, and keeping an open mind. His photographs ain't too shabby, either

Thanks a lot!

grain elevator said:
Hast anyone tried the variant that someone mentioned, with metaborate instead of borax, yet? I, too, have metaborate but no borax (not a drugstore item here) and would be ok with a bit more grain, which is the main difference I'd expect.

It should be possible to match the pH with less metaborate than borax and get a similar ish result. I don’t have much metaborate and borax is easier and cheaper to get even here in Ireland. If you have a pH meter you could just add a little metaborate at a time until you get near 8.3. Because metaborate will buffer at a higher pH though, I am not sure it will work exactly the same.

Since you are in Europe and may have trouble getting borax, it seems you can get it from welding suppliers. Don’t get the mixed flux, just get sodium tetraborate. Also available on eBay.

svetoklik · Mar 2, 2023

relistan said:
It’s not making me feel good that you keep insisting that there is something wrong with this image that I happen to like, but I will say one more time, that choice was made in camera and has nothing to do with the developer. What you don’t like is my exposure or my scan.

Again this is not matter of liking or feeling good. It is matter of complex processes that require multidisciplinary approach, education, practical knowledge, wide experience, strong focus, determination and resources, what sometimes challenge our creativity, because we need relaxed souls and minds to walk around with the camera and make this world richer and better.
I am strongly supporting your efforts, but my contribution is more like boring hunting dog which sniff the photos in order to find out where is the bunny or fox what may push you away from me.
Lets get on it again and point out at that stone.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/attachments/322102/

We cant judge what is it and where is it in the space, it looks like it was not there and it is smell I mean smell bad like A/D conversion from the scanner that ruins our efforts and classic photography. More close, it may be digital interpretation of already missing details and tonality.
Quite opposite, on the right side of the photo we can see texture and details but parts of tonality is just not there and despite saved highlights we have just black whole under the shade o the roof next o the ground.
It is not easy.
You have to know exactly what part of process is eating information or combinations of failures of them that gives final result in order to have enough control of them and have idea what are you doing as solid ground under the feet for predicting further results.

relistan · Mar 2, 2023

svetoklik said:
Again this is not matter of liking or feeling good. It is matter of complex processes that require multidisciplinary approach, education, practical knowledge, wide experience, strong focus, determination and resources, what sometimes challenge our creativity, because we need relaxed souls and minds to walk around with the camera and make this world richer and better.

Please free to pursue your own investigation. I think you’ll learn lot more that way. I don’t think you understand the basic science of photographic exposure and development and I can’t debate with you on this basis.

svetoklik said:
I am strongly supporting your efforts, but my contribution is more like boring hunting dog which sniff the photos in order to find out where is the bunny or fox what may push you away from me.

Honestly if you don’t want to try it that’s fine with me.

svetoklik said:
Lets get on it again and point out at that stone.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/attachments/322102/

We cant judge what is it and where is it in the space, it looks like it was not there and it is smell I mean smell bad like A/D conversion from the scanner that ruins our efforts and classic photography. More close, it may be digital interpretation of already missing details and tonality.
Quite opposite, on the right side of the photo we can see texture and details but parts of tonality is just not there and despite saved highlights we have just black whole under the shade o the roof next o the ground.
It is not easy.
You have to know exactly what part of process is eating information or combinations of failures of them that gives final result in order to have enough control of them and have idea what are you doing and predict next results.

If you have some feedback about the developer from actual use then I’d love to hear it. I think it’s great if people use it, have some fun, get some images they like, maybe do some experiments of their own, maybe figure out improvements. That’s why we share these things. Some other folks here like @Andrew O'Neill and @grahamp and aparat have done that. But I don’t have the inclination or interest to spend my time on this particular conversation.

grain elevator · Mar 2, 2023

relistan said:
Thanks a lot!

It should be possible to match the pH with less metaborate than borax and get a similar ish result. I don’t have much metaborate and borax is easier and cheaper to get even here in Ireland. If you have a pH meter you could just add a little metaborate at a time until you get near 8.3. Because metaborate will buffer at a higher pH though, I am not sure it will work exactly the same.

Since you are in Europe and may have trouble getting borax, it seems you can get it from welding suppliers. Don’t get the mixed flux, just get sodium tetraborate. Also available on eBay.

Thanks, I might eventually try it, but one can hope someone else does first , as you have already with borax. Thank you, it's a lot of work for something I really appreciate: a simple, relatively long-lived, eco-friendly home brew developer. We still have too few that tick all the boxes.
My amateurish understand is that adjusting pH far away from buffering pH by using just a minimum amount of a alkali is not ideal because it's easily thrown off.

relistan · Mar 2, 2023

grain elevator said:
Thanks, I might eventually try it, but one can hope someone else does first , as you have already with borax. Thank you, it's a lot of work for something I really appreciate: a simple, relatively long-lived, eco-friendly home brew developer. We still have too few that tick all the boxes.
My amateurish understand is that adjusting pH far away from buffering pH by using just a minimum amount of a alkali is not ideal because it's easily thrown off.

Yeah, no worries. I may eventually mess with it, but probably will try to work on the single concentrate version first—when I get some more time! If you do end up messing with it, please post your results!

svetoklik · Mar 2, 2023

relistan said:
If you have some feedback about the developer from actual use then I’d love to hear it. I think it’s great if people use it, have some fun, get some images they like, maybe do some experiments of their own, maybe figure out improvements. That’s why we share these things. Some other folks here like @Andrew O'Neill and @grahamp and aparat have done that. But I don’t have the inclination or interest to spend my time on this particular conversation.

I will not use it til you investigate abnormality that I have point out and that not belongs to the processes of classic photography.
Especially I will not either continue this conversation without your explanation how did you get final look of the straight BW film photo that you have posted here.
Yes, I really do not understand how do you get mentioned parts of it if you have do it as you have describe it.

relistan · Mar 2, 2023

svetoklik said:
I will not use it til you investigate abnormality that I have point out and that not belongs to the processes of classic photography.
Especially I will not either continue this conversation without your explanation how did you get final look of the straight BW film photo that you have posted here.
Yes, I really do not understand how do you get mentioned parts of it if you have do it as you have describe it.

Sorry but I don't owe you anything. I've contributed my work to the community and you can use this developer or not as you like. I want to improve what I've done and have shared it on that basis and the basis that it may be good for someone else. I already explained that photo. Unfortunately I'm now going to put you on ignore so that I won't see any further posts from you. I'd like to make this thread constructive.

svetoklik · Mar 2, 2023

That is to much.
Ignoring instead of explanation how we can see that stone looks like frozen sea.
And all that in the name of constructive dialog, so I will not this member put on the ignore list in order to point out on further abnormalities that not belongs to the processes of classic photography

koraks · Mar 2, 2023

Moderator note: @svetoklik there comes a point after which an exchange of views no longer serves a clear purpose. It's clear that that point was passed a couple of posts ago. Kindly drop the subject.

John Wiegerink · Mar 2, 2023

koraks said:
Moderator note: @svetoklik there comes a point after which an exchange of views no longer serves a clear purpose. It's clear that that point was passed a couple of posts ago. Kindly drop the subject.

+2

John Wiegerink · Mar 2, 2023

I will certainly be trying this formula in two forms, one with borax and one with my supply of Kodalk (sodium metaborate). I have to wait until I go back up to my cottage since my chemicals and PH meter are there. Not only that, but I like developers with long shelve lives, and PC-512 seems right up my alley. I also thought Karl's two-bath developer work looked excellent too, but I haven't tried that yet either. Keep up the good work!

relistan · Mar 2, 2023

John Wiegerink said:
I will certainly be trying this formula in two forms, one with borax and one with my supply of Kodalk (sodium metaborate). I have to wait until I go back up to my cottage since my chemicals and PH meter are there. Not only that, but I like developers with long shelve lives, and PC-512 seems right up my alley. I also thought Karl's two-bath developer work looked excellent too, but I haven't tried that yet either. Keep up the good work!

I appreciate the kind words, John!

albada · Mar 3, 2023

Karl, here's a surprise. @Scott Wainer, who is still active in Photrio, created a developer with the same structure as yours: Part A is ascorbic acid and phenidone dissolved in propylene glycol, and Part B is a borax solution. Here's the link.
Here's what the working solution contains:

Phenidone ........... 0.05 g

Ascorbic acid ....... 2 g

Borax ................... 1 g

There's a huge difference in borax between your dev and his, which makes me suspect a typo.

I'm not trying to find prior inventors of your soup. Rather, I'm reading many postings as part of learning more about developers, and I keep encountering these soups from the past. The comparisons are what interests me.

Mark

removedacct3 · Mar 3, 2023

John Wiegerink said:
I will certainly be trying this formula in two forms, one with borax and one with my supply of Kodalk (sodium metaborate).

John, I for one am looking forward to your sodium metaborate findings. Eversince I started to keep a close eye on this thread I wondered what would happen if one used Kodalk over Borax. Please keep us informed!

John Wiegerink · Mar 3, 2023

MrclSchprs said:
John, I for one am looking forward to your sodium metaborate findings. Eversince I started to keep a close eye on this thread I wondered what would happen if one used Kodalk over Borax. Please keep us informed!

I won't be able to try it until I get back to my cottage, since my chems and PH meter are there. If one wants to try sodium metaborate in place of borax then you should use 1/3 less sodium metaborate. For PC-512 borax is 21.7g then the amount of sodium metaborate should be 1/3 less than borax or 14.2g. That would be a good starting point.

relistan · Mar 3, 2023

albada said:
Karl, here's a surprise. @Scott Wainer, who is still active in Photrio, created a developer with the same structure as yours: Part A is ascorbic acid and phenidone dissolved in propylene glycol, and Part B is a borax solution. Here's the link.
Here's what the working solution contains:

Phenidone ........... 0.05 g
Ascorbic acid ....... 2 g
Borax ................... 1 g

There's a huge difference in borax between your dev and his, which makes me suspect a typo.

I'm not trying to find prior inventors of your soup. Rather, I'm reading many postings as part of learning more about developers, and I keep encountering these soups from the past. The comparisons are what interests me.

Mark

Hi Mark, well most developers are a remix of a very small number of ingredients (see all the MQ/Sulfite/Borax remixes). I guess a lot of people have messed with this PC+alkali arrangement over time. I can say that in previous testing I had used Gainer's PC-Glycol a lot and wanted something better. PC-512 Borax, which was an outgrowth of my two bath testing, turned out to be that developer. It was the concentrate I was using for making new ascorbic acid bath A (plus other stuff), with just borax as the B, mixed as one developer instead. I had already spent a lot of time on the ratio of agents in the two bath part A. Then when I used it straight with borax, that turned out to be surprisingly good. So then I tested amounts of borax and concentrate and refined until I liked the results.

Looking at this particular formula, it's quite a bit different from PC-512 Borax in amounts and ratios. More like the Dignan formula you posted. Times and pH will be quite different as well. I would be interested to see results if there are any posted. But I agree, that in the posted formula, something looks very off with either the amount of borax or the amount of ascorbic acid. That will be quite acidic as posted and I would doubt that it would develop film well. Phenidone will develop down to about pH 6, but I wouldn't think that ascorbic acid would regenerate it much (at all?) and would expect it to be useless for practical purposes.

relistan · Mar 3, 2023

@MrclSchprs @John Wiegerink question for you out of interest: what is driving your interest in metaborate vs borax? Is it availability where you live, or something else?

In the meantime, here is another shot on Fotoimpex CHM 100 (Kentmere 100) from my Zorki 4 and Voigtlander Color-Skopar 2.5/35mm. Same fishing harbor at Skerries, Ireland, but shot from further back. PC-512 Borax 1+50 for 7 mins @ 20C.

Donald Qualls · Mar 3, 2023

albada said:
Here's what the working solution contains:

Phenidone ........... 0.05 gAscorbic acid ....... 2 gBorax ................... 1 gThere's a huge difference in borax between your dev and his, which makes me suspect a typo.

Very possible that they work about the same. That much borax should be enough to establish a solution pH, any more just adds buffering capacity. For a one-shot, I'm not sure much buffering is needed.

John Wiegerink · Mar 3, 2023

relistan said:
@MrclSchprs @John Wiegerink question for you out of interest: what is driving your interest in metaborate vs borax? Is it availability where you live, or something else?

In the meantime, here is another shot on Fotoimpex CHM 100 (Kentmere 100) from my Zorki 4 and Voigtlander Color-Skopar 2.5/35mm. Same fishing harbor at Skerries, Ireland, but shot from further back. PC-512 Borax 1+50 for 7 mins @ 20C.

Karl,
I have both borax and Kodalk (sodium metaborate), so I can try both out. If the Kodalk, which came directly from Kodak works the same, I'll be using that instead of borax. Why? Well I have more than 20lbs. of Kodalk in the original Kodak cardboard drum and have to try and use it up.

relistan · Mar 3, 2023

Donald Qualls said:
Very possible that they work about the same. That much borax should be enough to establish a solution pH, any more just adds buffering capacity. For a one-shot, I'm not sure much buffering is needed.

They won't work about the same. I am sure that's a good developer but I doubt that formula is right, like @albada said. That much ascorbic acid will definitely overwhelm 1g of borax. The amount of borax in my formula is not random: it's providing a little buffering, but most of it is necessary to get to the target pH. And pH has a noticeable effect on grain and obviously on dev time. Buffering impacts how it works as well because it means you get more even behavior across the development time (after ramp-up), rather than shifting, like PC-TEA does. And the ratio of dev agents make a noticeable difference as well, just like with any other developer.

John Wiegerink said:
Karl,
I have both borax and Kodalk (sodium metaborate), so I can try both out. If the Kodalk, which came directly from Kodak works the same, I'll be using that instead of borax. Why? Well I have more than 20lbs. of Kodalk in the original Kodak cardboard drum and have to try and use it up.

That makes a lot of sense. If I had 20 lbs of metaborate I would probably use that, too

removedacct3 · Mar 4, 2023

relistan said:
@MrclSchprs @John Wiegerink question for you out of interest: what is driving your interest in metaborate vs borax? Is it availability where you live, or something else?

Borax availability is not a problem for me either. It is just that I do not like to weigh out and mix solids just before developing film. Toying around with home brew developers is jolly good fun, but when developing film I prefer stock solutions over just-in-time mixing of solids.

albada · Mar 4, 2023

MrclSchprs said:
Borax availability is not a problem for me either. It is just that I do not like to weigh out and mix solids just before developing film. Toying around with home brew developers is jolly good fun, but when developing film I prefer stock solutions over just-in-time mixing of solids.

I'm curious about how much inconvenience people are willing to tolerate. So here are a couple of questions:

1. Would you be willing to measure out some liquid concentrate to be added to water, like HC-110?

2. Would you be willing to measure out some liquid concentrate to be added to borax-water (that you previously mixed), like PC-512 Borax?

Eight years ago, I created the Mocon developer which was long lasting and gave Xtol-quality, but it required you to (1) measure out some liquid concentrate, and (2) also measure out some sulfite powder, or add the concentrate to sulfite-water (that you previously mixed). That, plus creating the concentrate using HOT glycol was too much effort for folks, so nobody's using this developer. That experience got me wondering what people's threshold of inconvenience is.

Mark

My PC-512 Borax Developer

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