eumenius
Member
Hello friends,
I got a story to tell. Well, my standart B/W material is Fomapan 100 in 120 format, and I used R09 Foma Rodinal with it - 1:60, 11 min. I decided to give a try to phenidone-ascorbate developer to see if the result will be more pleasing (I won't say I was unhappy with my Rodinal, on the contrary - I am just looking for new feelings
). The formula I chose was perhaps one from the simplest - 2g ascorbic acid, 2 ml 1% Phenidone in 100% isopropanol, 5g sodium carbonate in 1 liter of deionized water. pH of a ready developer was about 10.65 at 20 C. The first look on the film pleased me - the grain is very fine, and the gradation was okay.
My first trials with pieces of 35mm Fomapan 100 exposed as 20 DIN with tungsten lamps showed the optimum time about 5 minutes... but on my first 120 roll I got a heavy underdevelopment (almost no footage numbers visible). When I increased the time to 7:30 min, it was better, though still too weak. Next time I will try 10 min.
The concentration of ascorbate seems to be the limiting factor, but the initial development speed is, on my opinion, a bit much too high - I used my old two-spiral Soviet standart tank (300 ml), and the sky on my negs showed strong non-uniformity and banding due to rising level of developer... maybe the film requires some presoaking in water before development? Next time I just prefilled the tank and put the loaded reel right in, so there were no bands.
Did anyone else try to develop FOMA films in Gainer type developers - I would be very interested to hear about their results?
Zhenya
I got a story to tell. Well, my standart B/W material is Fomapan 100 in 120 format, and I used R09 Foma Rodinal with it - 1:60, 11 min. I decided to give a try to phenidone-ascorbate developer to see if the result will be more pleasing (I won't say I was unhappy with my Rodinal, on the contrary - I am just looking for new feelings

My first trials with pieces of 35mm Fomapan 100 exposed as 20 DIN with tungsten lamps showed the optimum time about 5 minutes... but on my first 120 roll I got a heavy underdevelopment (almost no footage numbers visible). When I increased the time to 7:30 min, it was better, though still too weak. Next time I will try 10 min.
The concentration of ascorbate seems to be the limiting factor, but the initial development speed is, on my opinion, a bit much too high - I used my old two-spiral Soviet standart tank (300 ml), and the sky on my negs showed strong non-uniformity and banding due to rising level of developer... maybe the film requires some presoaking in water before development? Next time I just prefilled the tank and put the loaded reel right in, so there were no bands.
Did anyone else try to develop FOMA films in Gainer type developers - I would be very interested to hear about their results?
Zhenya