Old ORWO developers

relistan · Dec 5, 2020

I'm not really looking for any specific answers here, but trying to learn. I recently picked up a 1971 copy of the "ORWO Rezepts" book in German. Many of the developer formulas seem pretty interesting to me. They are quite different than older Kodak formulas I have read. I find them interesting for a few reasons:

They nearly all seem to use sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate as the alkali.
As a result the pH of most of them is pretty high: most over 10
They also nearly all then add potassium bromide to offset the activity and pH
Suggested development times seem very short: some are 1-3 mins for certain applications, average about 4-5 mins
One developer has a pH listed at 5.9, another 6.5 by using boric acid and no carbonate (I don't think I've seen one that low before?)

I'm have been learning a bunch of this stuff to the extent I can. Has anyone used any of these older ORWO developers? I wonder about the short development times. By 1971 I would have thought we'd have modern enough films that this isn't due to film speed being super low. Or maybe ORWO themselves only had slower films and that's why.

I would expect the following characteristics from my understanding:

Reasonably grainy due to the high pH for most of them (at least with modern film?)
Those short times must mean the hydroquinone is pretty active (pH is high enough)
As a result fairly constrasty?

Here's an example formula, listed as a "Tank developer" (ORWO 46) for 1L at pH 10:

Water softener agent 2g
Metol 1.1g
Hydroquinone 1.6g
Potassium bisulfite 0.4g
Sodium sulfite 21.5g
Sodium carbonate 6g
Potassium bromide 0.4g

Not really looking for *answers* just trying to learn from what I'm looking at. Any knowledge or experience would help!

Do my assumptions seem correct above? Has anyone tried any old ORWO developers?

Thanks!

gorbas · Dec 5, 2020

Interesting observation relistan! I grow up in country that was part of ORWO market, Yugoslavia. I have the same book but from 1986 (not sure how much they are different??). ORWO had very good selection of packaged developers, like: for negatives R09 (Rodinal), A49 (Atomal) and for paper B104 and N120. I was always interested to find original formulas for those two positive developers. As for recipes from the book, they are most likely identical or very, very similar to pre war Agfa recipes. As far as I can remember, I only made their BW reversal formula and worked very well with EFKE KB17 film. Back in the day I was also looking to make some of their hight contrast, graphic or lith developers for their MA-8 and DK-3 films and some of warmer tone positive developers. Will follow this thread for sure. Good luck in your endeavour!

Ian Grant · Dec 5, 2020

Some of them were sold in the US made by Agfa Ansco which became GAF.

Agfa 44 is Agfa Asco/GAF 17 for instance this is the Agfa Buffered Borax MQ developer, it was available commercially in the US, it's very close to Adox Borax MQ (EFKE FR-2_ which I have used in the past. As mentioned Orwo were the original Agfa company I have two earlier Agfa Rezeptes before they changed their name to Orwo. Their toners are very good.

Ian

relistan · Dec 5, 2020

gorbas said:
Interesting observation relistan! I grow up in country that was part of ORWO market, Yugoslavia. I have the same book but from 1986 (not sure how much they are different??).

Thank you!

Interesting, yes, I wonder how different that version would be. The preface in this book says that VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen - Fotochemisches Kombinat formed in 1970 from from 5 other East German companies. Looks like the ORWO brand predates that from about 1964, as Ian says, trading as Agfa before that. I would guess there is any number of books with most of the same recipes, some branded Agfa, some ORWO! I would be interested to know if there are any differences by 1986. This one has a flexible plastic cover that makes it nicely suited for use near the chemistry.

gorbas said:
ORWO had very good selection of packaged developers, like: for negatives R09 (Rodinal), A49 (Atomal) and for paper B104 and N120. I was always interested to find original formulas for those two positive developers. As for recipes from the book, they are most likely identical or very, very similar to pre war Agfa recipes. As far as I can remember, I only made their BW reversal formula and worked very well with EFKE KB17 film. Back in the day I was also looking to make some of their hight contrast, graphic or lith developers for their MA-8 and DK-3 films and some of warmer tone positive developers. Will follow this thread for sure. Good luck in your endeavour!

I used the Calbe (ex-ORWO) R09 sold by Foma at the time as the first developer I ever developed my own film with. Adox still sell a version of Atomal http://www.adox.de/Photo/adox-film-developer/atomal-49/ . I don't know about B104 and N120 but I will keep an eye out. I liked EFKE KB17. I shot a couple of rolls before Fotokemika dissolved.

Ian Grant said:
Some of them were sold in the US made by Agfa Ansco which became GAF.
Agfa 44 is Agfa Asco/GAF 17 for instance this is the Agfa Buffered Borax MQ developer, it was available commercially in the US, it's very close to Adox Borax MQ (EFKE FR-2_ which I have used in the past. As mentioned Orwo were the original Agfa company I have two earlier Agfa Rezeptes before they changed their name to Orwo. Their toners are very good.

I saw some interesting paper developer recipes that claim various tones on different kinds of paper. If I get ambitious I may try one or two on modern paper and see if they still have much effect with newer chemsitry. ORWO 44 is maybe Agfa 44 then? It's a fair bit different from other formulas in this book. It's listed in this book as a "Fine grain tank developer" with times from 15-18 minutes and a pH of 8.7 with sodium metaborate as the main alkali.

relistan · Dec 5, 2020

An interesting, I _assume_ very high contrast developer, ORWO 22 is listed as a "cinema title developer", presumably to make lettering stand out. The main agent appears to be hydroquinone:

ORWO 22, to make 1L:

Water softening agent 2g
Metol 0.8g
Sodium sulfite 40g
Hydroquinone 8g
Potatssium carbonate 50g
Potassium bromide 5g

Times 4-5 minutes, pH 10.3

If you've ever wanted a developer with times around 30-45 seconds, there is one of those, too! Labeled "Fast developer". Seems rather uncontrollable if you ask me.

Anon Ymous · Dec 5, 2020

@relistan Sub pH 7 developers? Can you confirm it? Is there perhaps another solution that is added to this developer, containing an alkali?

AgX · Dec 5, 2020

relistan said:
Or maybe ORWO themselves only had slower films and that's why.

ORWO was one of the largest manufacturers in the world (15,000 employees) and got one of the largest ranges of films, from amateur, commercial, industrial up to scientific use.
Their fastest films from the amateur/commercial range was the NP 30 (30 DIN / 800 ASA)

AgX · Dec 5, 2020

relistan said:
Thank you!

The preface in this book says that VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen - Fotochemisches Kombinat formed in 1970 from from 5 other East German companies. Looks like the ORWO brand predates that from about 1964, as Ian says, trading as Agfa before that.

-) The Agfa brand predated the Orwo brand just as the firm was indeed the firm Agfa before
-) VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen was the legal name of the firm after the nationalizing
-) VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen - Fotochemisches Kombinat was the legal name of the greater entitity that that was formed by adding some smaller manufacturers. The directorate was at the plant in Wolfen. It meant in first instance a legal upgrade.

AgX · Dec 5, 2020

gorbas said:
ORWO had very good selection of packaged developers, like: for negatives R09 (Rodinal), A49 (Atomal) and for paper B104 and N120. I was always interested to find original formulas for those two positive developers.

Keep in mind that the puplished formulae not neccessary are those of packaged products. In a major publication related to Orwo it was hinted at differences. And Agfa Leverkusen once explicitely hinted at this for their own published formulae too.

gorbas · Dec 5, 2020

Maybe, over upcoming holidays I will have a chance to scan recipe part of the book? Can you scan yours and we can exchange it?
Yes, ADOX is very fond of Atomal-A49. I liked it in original ORWO version but it never become my main developer.
Looking thru all different products mention in the ORWO book I'm aware that many of them never reached our market, for example ORWO BW papers.
I think almost all of trade between socialist countries was in barter form so that played roll too.
Movie processing labs have long tradition of mixing their own chemistry from scratch. For titles they should use high contrast sound track developer they already have in the print films processing machine. I did spend some time as cinematography student in movie lab but it was 30+ years ago

Ian Grant · Dec 5, 2020

relistan said:
An interesting, I _assume_ very high contrast developer, ORWO 22 is listed as a "cinema title developer", presumably to make lettering stand out. The main agent appears to be hydroquinone:

ORWO 22, to make 1L:

Water softening agent 2g

Metol 0.8g

Sodium sulfite 40g

Hydroquinone 8g

Potatssium carbonate 50g

Potassium bromide 5g

Times 4-5 minutes, pH 10.3

If you've ever wanted a developer with times around 30-45 seconds, there is one of those, too! Labeled "Fast developer". Seems rather uncontrollable if you ask me.

You have to realise that Agfa/Orwo developers are largely mirroring Kodak, Ilford, Geveart, Dupont and many other companies sure there's very slight differences but hey loads of companies made developers like Rodinal, Ilford Certinal (1907/8) , Kodak Kodinol (UK and Europe only) but many others.

Ian

relistan · Dec 5, 2020

Anon Ymous said:
@relistan Sub pH 7 developers? Can you confirm it? Is there perhaps another solution that is added to this developer, containing an alkali?

I posted that after just having scanned through the list of pH and developer description. It didn't seem right to me, either. Looking closely at the two "developers", though classified as such by ORWO, they are not actually a developer. I looks to me like it is some kind of activator for something called "K-plates" which must already contain some other part of the developer. There is no developing agent present. Sorry for the false alarm

relistan · Dec 5, 2020

Ian Grant said:
You have to realise that Agfa/Orwo developers are largely mirroring Kodak, Ilford, Geveart, Dupont and many other companies sure there's very slight differences but hey loads of companies made developers like Rodinal, Ilford Certinal (1907/8) , Kodak Kodinol (UK and Europe only) but many others.

Thanks, yeah, I do realize that there is lots of overlap between the manufacturers (and all the smaller brands now gone, also). But I posted this because I got this book, I have not seen much discussion previously, and I actually don't see that much overlap with the old Kodak publications that I have. There appears to be, in general, a different approach at work in these developers vs those from Kodak, as I said. I know none of it is revolutionary in any way, but it was an opportunity to learn and to discuss it from an angle I had not seen covered here.

AgX · Dec 5, 2020

relistan said:
for something called "K-plates"

Those are photographic plates for nuclear science. I already hinted at Orwo's scientific range.
These plates need special developing. Thus one cannot compare such with processing of classic emusions.

relistan · Dec 5, 2020

gorbas said:
Maybe, over upcoming holidays I will have a chance to scan recipe part of the book? Can you scan yours and we can exchange it?

Definitely! Let me know when you get there. I can grab some scans of the formulas pages.

relistan · Dec 5, 2020

AgX said:
Those are photographic plates for nuclear science. I already hinted at Orwo's scientific range.
These plates need special developing. Thus one cannot compare such with processing of classic emusions.

Ah, that explains it Thanks

AgX said:
ORWO was one of the largest manufacturers in the world (15,000 employees) and got one of the largest ranges of films, from amateur, commercial, industrial up to scientific use.
Their fastest films from the amateur/commercial range was the NP 30 (30 DIN / 800 ASA)

I knew they were quite large, but that is bigger than I thought. Did you ever use any of their developers that were not widely available from other brands?

AgX · Dec 5, 2020

I am from West-Germany and back then I never ever came across any of their products. Though their films had been marketed here.

relistan · Dec 5, 2020

AgX said:
I am from West-Germany and back then I never ever came across any of their products. Though their films had been marketed here.

Yeah, I can imagine that was not a welcoming market for products from the east. We had almost nothing from eastern bloc available in the US that I remember either. I imagine that the Agfa trademark dispute must also have been a deterrent until after they rebranded as ORWO.

mohmad khatab · Dec 5, 2020

This is a wonderful discussion, I thank you all. I really am enjoying this great debate.
I am Egyptian and a fan of (ORWO) - this brand means a lot to us. Also (forte) Yugoslav or Bulgarian, as far as I can remember.
I crave to know anything about (ORWO)
God bless you

Old ORWO developers

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