Please Recommend a Developer

Ian Grant said:

Variations in temperature during the process cycle, they can cause a large effect on apparent graininess. That's why some get poor results and others get superb results.

In Germany many workers use Rodinal at 15-16ºC to get the finest grain and all steps are at that temperature. The problem is Rodinal contains free Hydroxide which softens emulsions and shifts in temperature cause surface artifacts on the gelatin layer of the film. There's no need to use low temperature you just need to be very consitent at all stages of the process +/- 1ºC including washing and you get superb results. It's that simple, deviate and you'll lose everything to excessive apparent graininess and very poor quality, no edge sharpness lower micro contrast etc.

Ian

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I would never, ever use a developer that required such strict control of washing temperature. My wash water is often 5 degrees C different from processing temperature and I never find any problems with my film at all. +/- 1 degree C seems ridiculous to the extreme.

Shanghai tap water temperature changes radically depending on the season. I see almost 10 degrees C of variation.

RattyMouse said:

I would never, ever use a developer that required such strict control of washing temperature. My wash water is often 5 degrees C different from processing temperature and I never find any problems with my film at all. +/- 1 degree C seems ridiculous to the extreme.

Shanghai tap water temperature changes radically depending on the season. I see almost 10 degrees C of variation.

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Surely the tolerance of temperature changes in wash water is more to do with the film than with the developer used?

RR

RattyMouse said:

I would never, ever use a developer that required such strict control of washing temperature. My wash water is often 5 degrees C different from processing temperature and I never find any problems with my film at all. +/- 1 degree C seems ridiculous to the extreme.

Shanghai tap water temperature changes radically depending on the season. I see almost 10 degrees C of variation.

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I have that problem processing in Turkey and in the Summer just process at the ambient temperature of the water that way with no effort I can actually keep the whole process cycle including washing within +/- 0.2ºC of the chosen temperature. If you'd read the whole thread you'd see I said this earlier. I don't aim for such tight control that's easily achievable though by working at or close to the waters ambient temperature in my case 26 or 27ºC, the other factor is the room temperature which will be around the same.

While trying to keep to +/- 1ºC might seem ridiculous it's so easy and can be the difference between consistent excellence and mediocrity in negative quality.

Ian

Regular Rod said:

Surely the tolerance of temperature changes in wash water is more to do with the film than with the developer used?

RR

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It's both. Of course it's mainly down to how well the film's hardened but some developers have effects on the hardening of the film. One group the staining developers like Pyrocat HD, PMK etc harden the film during development due the tanning effects of Pyrogallol and Pyrocatchin. Most developers like ID-11/D76, X-tol, HC-110, DD-X etc will have little effect as they are low pH, then there's the extremes like Rodinal which since Agfa merged with Gevaert and they reformulated it (just over 50 years ago) now contains free Hydroxide which will soften gelatin.

With Rodinal some films with inherently softer emulsions are the ones likely to cause the mots problems, the old TMY, Neopan 400, all EFKE and Foma films etc, but with tight temperature controls you get no issues. Neopan 400 is know to reticulate and even frill and lift from the base if abused when processed in Rodinal yet is also capable of high quality results when used carefully.

Ian

cliveh said:

What can you get wrong? The simple maths of dilution ratio?

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Agitation and temperature. Look at some of the beginner videos on youtube - the agitation styles and standard of labwork are hilarious.

Ian Grant said:

I have that problem processing in Turkey and in the Summer just process at the ambient temperature of the water that way with no effort I can actually keep the whole process cycle including washing within +/- 0.2ºC of the chosen temperature. If you'd read the whole thread you'd see I said this earlier. I don't aim for such tight control that's easily achievable though by working at or close to the waters ambient temperature in my case 26 or 27ºC, the other factor is the room temperature which will be around the same.

While trying to keep to +/- 1ºC might seem ridiculous it's so easy and can be the difference between consistent excellence and mediocrity in negative quality.

Ian

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In the winter time, I process at 20 C and my tap water temperature is around 14-15 C. I wash with that colder water without any noticeable effect at all.

The only developers I have used so far are DD-X, HC-110, and D-76.

Ian Grant said:

I have that problem processing in Turkey and in the Summer just process at the ambient temperature of the water that way with no effort I can actually keep the whole process cycle including washing within +/- 0.2ºC of the chosen temperature. If you'd read the whole thread you'd see I said this earlier. I don't aim for such tight control that's easily achievable though by working at or close to the waters ambient temperature in my case 26 or 27ºC, the other factor is the room temperature which will be around the same.

While trying to keep to +/- 1ºC might seem ridiculous it's so easy and can be the difference between consistent excellence and mediocrity in negative quality.

Ian

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What developer does not run at pH > 8.0? Almost all developers (I thought) run in alkaline conditions, which means that they have free hydroxide ions.

RattyMouse said:

What developer does not run at pH > 8.0? Almost all developers (I thought) run in alkaline conditions, which means that they have free hydroxide ions.

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Most developers are in the pH 8-9 range, Rodinal is pH14 undilute, typically pH11.55 in working solution (according to an Agfa MSDS sheet), as each pH step (8-9 etc) is a factor of 10 then the concentration of free hydroxide in Rodinal is well in excess of 100 time greater what it would be in a developer of pH9.

As the working pH of D76 is given by Kodak as pH8.5 then we have a 1000x greater level of Hyroxide and it's there as Potassium Hydroxide.

Ian

My tap runs from 16-22C depending on time of year. In coldest days of winter I'll add a little hot to the flow to bring up the washing temp a tad but otherwise am not overly concerned with tap water wash temp...and my developer temps range from 19-23C (though I try to get to 20C when I can) and I adjust development times using a standard time/temp chart on the Massive Development Chart page....

It's a bit off the thread topic, but I'm surprised anyone is using a freeflowing tap as a source of wash water for film. Here (in NL) water is expensive and I just use a bucket mixed up to match the processing temperature. Standing on a couple of newspapers and covered by an old towel the bucket is a source of steady temperature water-changes for manual washing. I can see that this would be tricky in room temperatures over 30C or so, but we don't have that problem very often here, only for a week or so every few years.

MartinP said:

It's a bit off the thread topic, but I'm surprised anyone is using a freeflowing tap as a source of wash water for film. Here (in NL) water is expensive and I just use a bucket mixed up to match the processing temperature. Standing on a couple of newspapers and covered by an old towel the bucket is a source of steady temperature water-changes for manual washing. I can see that this would be tricky in room temperatures over 30C or so, but we don't have that problem very often here, only for a week or so every few years.

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I don't use a free-flowing tap, I use essentially Ilford's recommend wash cycle except with more steps and for longer, I use a 5 litre laboratory jug and adjust if needed to the correct temperature, Any processing step at 20ºC is difficult when the room temperature is 30ºC or higher, in Turkey water and electricity are expensive so that's another reason for using a higher temperature for the entire process cycle. During the hottest few weeks temperatures can be in the low 40ºC'sby mid morning, so I process early and use the air-conditioning.

Ian

MartinP said:

It's a bit off the thread topic, but I'm surprised anyone is using a freeflowing tap as a source of wash water for film. Here (in NL) water is expensive and I just use a bucket mixed up to match the processing temperature. Standing on a couple of newspapers and covered by an old towel the bucket is a source of steady temperature water-changes for manual washing. I can see that this would be tricky in room temperatures over 30C or so, but we don't have that problem very often here, only for a week or so every few years.

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Tap water is about $2 per 1,000 gallons here. Not very expensive.

MartinP said:

It's a bit off the thread topic, but I'm surprised anyone is using a freeflowing tap as a source of wash water for film. Here (in NL) water is expensive and I just use a bucket mixed up to match the processing temperature. Standing on a couple of newspapers and covered by an old towel the bucket is a source of steady temperature water-changes for manual washing. I can see that this would be tricky in room temperatures over 30C or so, but we don't have that problem very often here, only for a week or so every few years.

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Water conservation is important in California, especially southern California.

MartinP said:

It's a bit off the thread topic, but I'm surprised anyone is using a freeflowing tap as a source of wash water for film. Here (in NL) water is expensive and I just use a bucket mixed up to match the processing temperature. Standing on a couple of newspapers and covered by an old towel the bucket is a source of steady temperature water-changes for manual washing. I can see that this would be tricky in room temperatures over 30C or so, but we don't have that problem very often here, only for a week or so every few years.

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Do you take a shower every day? Do you have a dishwasher in your house, or a laundry machine? All of those things take more water than washing film. My water bill is about $50 a month, for a house with two people (my 18 year old son and I) using water. Film processing accounts for maybe $5 of it.

This sounds surprising, so I just went to look at the breakdown of my water bill. Three-quarters of the cost on the water-bill is actually a flat-rate service-fee ($51,24 annually at today's EUR/USD rate), paid even if I used no water at all, plus the tax per unit consumption. The actual cost of the water per 1000 litres is seventy-five eurocents which is about $0,82. That makes about $3,14 per thousand US-gallons, plus tax, plus the service-fee. Per unit, this is less than I thought so I happily withdraw my shock at people pouring water down the drain!

When I think about photographic use, I probably use more water to wash prints than I do film - but still not thousands of litres of course. I'll stay with the bucket for film-washing though, as it leaves the tap free for other use and keeps the temperature more stable.