Neofin Blau - my first experience. A secret ingredient? :)

Today I tried to make Beutler-formula Neofin Blau (10 g metol, 50 g Na sulfite and Na carbonate per liter). I tried to develop Ilford Delta 100 (7 min) and Fomapan 100 (9 min) in it - surprise, these films in 4x5 size gave me exactly the same density and contrast, tonality, sharpness and grain size! The acutance effect is there, but I didn't notice any pronounced Mackie lines - maybe I shouldn't have stirred the film each minute during development, as I'm used to?

Neofin apparently drops contrast and maybe takes off some speed. What do you think about Neofin and slow-medium speed films, and this mystical secret component by Tetenal that should tame somehow the Mackie lines? Maybe my 30-year old Soviet Metol has it already included, because I have no problems with these

And yes, the still-life I was shooting contained an unnoticed long specular reflection on the side of glass flask - needless to say, with 16s exposure at f/32 I got huge haloes around it with both films, but Neofin managed to make it less evil-looking. Is it due to its compensation effect?

I am really pleased with Neofin Blau negatives, but Ilfotec-HC makes me puzzled. I did expose the films with all the factors counted (bellows extension and reciprocity error using the data from Ilford and Foma datasheets) - and the negatives are seriously too dense. Maybe HC demands for less reciprocity compensation? Eh. Would see it soon on the films shot with short exposure times, but maybe someone can tell me something about it?

Cheers from Moscow, and sorry for jumping ideas - it's too late here, and my day was awfully busy, so I doubt that I'm still able to formulate anything clear - Zhenya

Zhenya,

Glad that you found Beutler works for you; I have to make a note of that, even though I process all my 4X5 sheets in a Jobo machine anyway.

I thought Tetenal stopped making the Neofin Blue some time ago; and I cannot really be positive that it is indeed the Beutler formula. While there have been many variations on the Beutler recipe I think yours's pretty much on the ball as the original; the 50g sodium carbonate is monohydrate, but the one I get here is anhydrous so has to be cut down to 42.7g to compensate. Of course the Metol and sulphite is in one litre, carbonate in another litre, and then before use ad one part of each and top up wth 10 parts water.

Tetenal made both Blue and Red versions, for slower and faster films respectively, so there must be some tweaking involved. I used 7 min manual and 4 min rotary for Delta 100 and the results are fine too; I shall base my processing time on these figures for Foma 100 too.

The compensating effect certainly helped to keep that specular highlight in control; years ago I even went as far as using catechol-caustic developers to tame the highlights. But I suppose you have already hit a good combination here; just enjoy!

Tetenal stopped making Neofin Red some years ago, but Blue is still in production. It took them nearly 50 years to follow Beutler's advice...

Neofin Blue is related to "Beutler's", but is not claimed to be the same (by Tetenal, or Beutler himself).

Seele,

it works well for me - though I took 50 g of anhydrous sodium carbonate, not 42.7 g to compensate for crystalline water. That's what our old Russian photo recipe books from 60s suggest, directly under the name of Neofin Blau. I didn't take the formula from the net.

The 9 min for Fomapan 100 and 7 min for Delta are giving perfect results with tray processing, and I don't have Jobo anyway The combination is fine, so I would be using it later, and would try this Beutler recipe with other films, e. g. Fortepan and some Russian stuff like Svema and Tasma. I assume that 100 ml of working-strength solution safely develops two or three 4x5 film sheets.

Cheers, and good luck - Zhenya

Seele said:

Zhenya,

Glad that you found Beutler works for you; I have to make a note of that, even though I process all my 4X5 sheets in a Jobo machine anyway.

I thought Tetenal stopped making the Neofin Blue some time ago; and I cannot really be positive that it is indeed the Beutler formula. While there have been many variations on the Beutler recipe I think yours's pretty much on the ball as the original; the 50g sodium carbonate is monohydrate, but the one I get here is anhydrous so has to be cut down to 42.7g to compensate. Of course the Metol and sulphite is in one litre, carbonate in another litre, and then before use ad one part of each and top up wth 10 parts water.

Tetenal made both Blue and Red versions, for slower and faster films respectively, so there must be some tweaking involved. I used 7 min manual and 4 min rotary for Delta 100 and the results are fine too; I shall base my processing time on these figures for Foma 100 too.

The compensating effect certainly helped to keep that specular highlight in control; years ago I even went as far as using catechol-caustic developers to tame the highlights. But I suppose you have already hit a good combination here; just enjoy!

Click to expand...

The Beutler formula calls for 50 g of anhydrous sodium carbonate or 58.5 g of the monohydrate. The Tetenal MSDS says that Neofin Blue also contains hydroquinone. I found this interesting since I always considered it to be close to the Beutler formula.

The dilution recommended by Beutler is 1:1:8 although some people dilute it 1:1:10 for modern films.

eumenius said:

Today I tried to make Beutler-formula Neofin Blau (10 g metol, 50 g Na sulfite and Na carbonate per liter).
Neofin apparently drops contrast and maybe takes off some speed. What do you think about Neofin and slow-medium speed films, and this mystical secret component by Tetenal that should tame somehow the Mackie lines? Maybe my 30-year old Soviet Metol has it already included, because I have no problems with these

Click to expand...

Tetenal Neofin Blue is a proprietory formula and not disclosed for public domain.
I looked for the MSDS for Neofin on the Tetenal website but could only find these for Ultrafin liquid, Ultrafin Plus and Emofin. None for Neofin or the discontinued Ultrafin SF and Negafin developers although the latter I beleive was an MQ developer and perhaps similar to the Adox and Agfa/Ansco formulas.

Your experience is similar to mine. As I understand it, the Mackie line is very dependent on agitation in the Beutler developer. Less frequent agitation brings it out more. I haven't really experimented with it enough to confirm this.

Yes, perhaps that was the Beutler's formula that was known in the USSR in, say, 1965 as a "Neofin Blau" - and as far as I can remember, my book says 1:1:10 for "duennschichte" films, so it's really for almost all modern-style films. I used the version with 1+1+8? it works fine for me.

A hydroquinone in Neofin Blue by Tetenal? Strange enough for me, because it's so unusual in low-contrast acutance developers, devised to give the thinnest negatives still printable on normal grade paper. Its covering activity should be too much fo the purpose in hi-alkaline developer, and its superadditive action with metol would be even more. Well, maybe there's just some traces of it there?

Mackie lines are not really visible in my negs, but I think it's really a matter of temperature/agitation/developer viscosity. If I only needed them, I think they can be easily brought out by standing development, and maybe by adding some high molecular weight compounds like carboxymethylcellulose to developer (to limit diffusion). But I like better how the developer works now

Interesting enough, looks like all Neofin published times are valid for Beutler formula... hydroquinone, you say, Tetenal?

Cheers, Zhenya

Gerald Koch said:

The Beutler formula calls for 50 g of anhydrous sodium carbonate or 58.5 g of the monohydrate. The Tetenal MSDS says that Neofin Blue also contains hydroquinone. I found this interesting since I always considered it to be close to the Beutler formula.

The dilution recommended by Beutler is 1:1:8 although some people dilute it 1:1:10 for modern films.

Click to expand...

Zhenya, you'll only see Mackie lines (with any developer) if you have local exhaustion coupled with diffusion across a high contrast edge -- in my (very limited) experience, those conditions only obtain with stand or near-stand development (I've seen Mackie lines once, to my dismay, in 16 mm negatives).

Compensation is also enhanced by minimal agitation, BTW; local exhaustion is at work here, too, and too much agitation prevents the exhausted developer from restraining the highlights while the not-yet-exhausted developer continues to work on the shadow areas.

For Ilfotec HC, it's been my experience that Ilford's recommended development times are about twice what's actually needed -- try cutting your development before you change your reciprocity correction. Reciprocity failure (the low intensity variety we usually see) is a feature of the emulsion itself, the way the silver halide crystals react to very low intensity light; different developers have very little if any effect on it, even though they may affect the film speed.

I got Mackie lines with Pyrocat with 1:1:150 - 4 aggitations over one hour development time on TRI-X at ASA400. Yes - the film speed goes up. I am going to try this on my next pinhole project to see if it makes the images sharper - I have seen the work of a mad Norseman that is likely doing this to get his lens like sharp - lensless photos. The effect on already sharp images was undesirable. It was much better at 35 minutes with 4 aggitations at ASA360 for TRI-X.

eumenius said:

A hydroquinone in Neofin Blue by Tetenal? Strange enough for me, because it's so unusual in low-contrast acutance developers, devised to give the thinnest negatives still printable on normal grade paper. Its covering activity should be too much fo the purpose in hi-alkaline developer, and its superadditive action with metol would be even more. Well, maybe there's just some traces of it there?
Interesting enough, looks like all Neofin published times are valid for Beutler formula... hydroquinone, you say, Tetenal?

Cheers, Zhenya

Click to expand...

Hydroquinone is used in many low contrast developers. I have Kodak Publication J-717(H) which is for their `Technidol Liquid film developer` which is used for continuous-tone results with Technical Pan films.
Page 2 of this shows the developer to contain DIETHYLENE GLYCOL and HYDROQUINONE. It is also in Speedibrews Celar Stellar which is also a specially formulated low contrast developer.
I beleive Neofin Doku also contained Hydroquinone but I can`t find the MSDS for it.

The Neofin Blue MSDS lists

Metol ........................... < 1%
Hydroquinone ................ < 1%
Potassium carbonate ...... 5 - 10%

Gerald Koch said:

The Neofin Blue MSDS lists

Metol ........................... < 1%
Hydroquinone ................ < 1%
Potassium carbonate ...... 5 - 10%

Click to expand...

Thanks Gerald,
Do you have a link to the MSDS for both Neofin Blue & Doku or a PDF?
Cheers.

The MSDS that I quoted is dated 7/4/2003. I just googled for Neofin Blue and Tetenal.