OP
OP
Did another test run. This time tried adding TEA to the D-23LC. Exact recipe:
(500ml)
* Metol, 0.75g
* Sulfite 2g (figured less to compensate for additional accelerator)
* Bromide 1g
* TEA 3ml
I did this stand style for 35m. Speed aim was 12 ISO. However, it seemed completely ineffective. No base fog (clear film base), and highlights got out of control and went straight black with even 1 stop of over exposure from an ideal exposure of 6 ISO (despite steep shadow fall off). Didn't see the same shadow boost with 12 or 6 ISO as I did with the previous runs, and 3 ISO looks over exposed.
I'm unsure why, but I think the TEA latensification must be a separate bath and will not work at all in the developer. In theory the significant bromide addition (0.25g -> 1g for 500ml) could've also prevented shadows and TEA fog from developing though, so might need two separate test runs to determine this. Despite the rather significant amount of bromide though, unsure why highlights still developed so thick.
Next experiment aim is to go back a bit to what almost worked. Fairly high amount of bromide (6g/500ml?) and TEA as a prebath, and no restrainer in the D-23LC. Upon closer review and thought, being capable of controlling highlights with the prebath in some magical way is very appealing, especially if a speed of 6-12 ISO is achievable at the same time. The big question is just how to get the fogging to be even. I can live with a relatively high base level fog, but when it's only in the middle of the film it makes the images unusable. I'm not really seeing a clear reason why it would "stain" in the middle while the top/bottom are unstained.. Potentially agitation related. I think the only thing that makes sense agitation wise though is that the edges have more "fresh" bath available and agitation is not sufficient to actually move the bath from middle of film to the edge. But then this would seem to imply that the benefits from the bath are actually from it "exhausting" onto the film and causing some emulsion change... In which case, no agitation would be ideal? Or potentially very aggressive constant agitation if the exhaustion isn't what causes this?
edit:
Another set of experiments tonight, this time with 4-image strips of brackets, and all with extreme consistency (My camera can do 1s intervals up to 8s and has an f/2.8 lens, allowing me to test this with room lights). Results were interesting. It is definitely the case that the bromide in the pre-bath does something to tame development. Overall results were still full range, meaning there's tons of both highlight and shadow detail, but they're at such opposite ends of density that it would be near impossible to print. Literally looks like a negative slide.
Anyway, so I mixed up 1L water, 10ml TEA, and 40g of bromide. I decided to see what would happen with a "normal" developer, so I used DD-X 1+9 and 1+19. All in trays so I could develop by inspection
The 1+9 was for 3 minutes, with 30s of agitation initially and once at 2m. The image came up fast, at around the 1 minute mark, and when I pulled it at 3m I was afraid it'd be over developed. For over-exposure latitude it is, but there was quite a bit more detail in the shadows that could've been easier to scan with a minute longer with no agitation. Result came out somewhat warm toned, especially with a backlight, but without a backlight looks fairly normal tone with dark density. An image at 1.5 ISO had highlights get pretty compressed, but were still capable of being differentiated. Would be a real pain to scan though. The 12 ISO shot would be usable with careful scanning and would actually be the easiest to print of them all, but 3 ISO looks to have the best overall detail.
The 1+19 was for 6 minutes, with 30s of agitation initially and once per 2m. The image came up much slower, with the lower speed exposures coming apparent at around the 2m mark. Once it came up it really seemed to go fast though. This image was incredibly warm and when held in the right light with a dark background would make beautiful tintype-style images. For the tintype style, 3 ISO is superior. But for general negatives, 6 looked to have somewhat the best contrast and less compressed highlights. 12 ISO had most of the detail as 1+9, but clearly was not as developed and the shadow details were extremely faint. The 1.5 ISO should had a pretty large decrease in contrast and compression of highlights and middle tones. There was some base fog. It appeared to be fairly even, but clearly had a less clean base than the 1+9 despite having less developed shadows. I think attempting something like stand development with this would be a foggy mess.
I also tried making 1+14, but the TEA prebath seems to have become less effective by this run (indicating it needs to be twice the strength probably for a full strip of 120?). It seemed overall less speed despite more development time than 1+19.
The important discovery here is that TEA alone will increase speed, but to properly use that speed it also requires a fairly normal developer, or else fog becomes a problem. Something about having bromide in the TEA bath modifies how the emulsion will later react to developer, restraining it some without the speed decrease you'd get by simply adding a lot of bromide to the developer to prevent blown highlights and fog. Previous tests with 1+9 were extremely high contrast, with absolute black highlights. TEA alone would increase shadows but not fix the highlights. So, this TEA+bromide prebath is a suitable way to develop this film and get closer to proper development and density, while also giving significantly more shadow detail and usable speed.
I have 2 rolls I've been saving until I figure this out that were shot at 3 - 12 ISO. Plan tomorrow is to develop one with the TEA prebath formula, with double the TEA, and DD-X 1+9 for 4 minutes.
(500ml)
* Metol, 0.75g
* Sulfite 2g (figured less to compensate for additional accelerator)
* Bromide 1g
* TEA 3ml
I did this stand style for 35m. Speed aim was 12 ISO. However, it seemed completely ineffective. No base fog (clear film base), and highlights got out of control and went straight black with even 1 stop of over exposure from an ideal exposure of 6 ISO (despite steep shadow fall off). Didn't see the same shadow boost with 12 or 6 ISO as I did with the previous runs, and 3 ISO looks over exposed.
I'm unsure why, but I think the TEA latensification must be a separate bath and will not work at all in the developer. In theory the significant bromide addition (0.25g -> 1g for 500ml) could've also prevented shadows and TEA fog from developing though, so might need two separate test runs to determine this. Despite the rather significant amount of bromide though, unsure why highlights still developed so thick.
Next experiment aim is to go back a bit to what almost worked. Fairly high amount of bromide (6g/500ml?) and TEA as a prebath, and no restrainer in the D-23LC. Upon closer review and thought, being capable of controlling highlights with the prebath in some magical way is very appealing, especially if a speed of 6-12 ISO is achievable at the same time. The big question is just how to get the fogging to be even. I can live with a relatively high base level fog, but when it's only in the middle of the film it makes the images unusable. I'm not really seeing a clear reason why it would "stain" in the middle while the top/bottom are unstained.. Potentially agitation related. I think the only thing that makes sense agitation wise though is that the edges have more "fresh" bath available and agitation is not sufficient to actually move the bath from middle of film to the edge. But then this would seem to imply that the benefits from the bath are actually from it "exhausting" onto the film and causing some emulsion change... In which case, no agitation would be ideal? Or potentially very aggressive constant agitation if the exhaustion isn't what causes this?
edit:
Another set of experiments tonight, this time with 4-image strips of brackets, and all with extreme consistency (My camera can do 1s intervals up to 8s and has an f/2.8 lens, allowing me to test this with room lights). Results were interesting. It is definitely the case that the bromide in the pre-bath does something to tame development. Overall results were still full range, meaning there's tons of both highlight and shadow detail, but they're at such opposite ends of density that it would be near impossible to print. Literally looks like a negative slide.
Anyway, so I mixed up 1L water, 10ml TEA, and 40g of bromide. I decided to see what would happen with a "normal" developer, so I used DD-X 1+9 and 1+19. All in trays so I could develop by inspection
The 1+9 was for 3 minutes, with 30s of agitation initially and once at 2m. The image came up fast, at around the 1 minute mark, and when I pulled it at 3m I was afraid it'd be over developed. For over-exposure latitude it is, but there was quite a bit more detail in the shadows that could've been easier to scan with a minute longer with no agitation. Result came out somewhat warm toned, especially with a backlight, but without a backlight looks fairly normal tone with dark density. An image at 1.5 ISO had highlights get pretty compressed, but were still capable of being differentiated. Would be a real pain to scan though. The 12 ISO shot would be usable with careful scanning and would actually be the easiest to print of them all, but 3 ISO looks to have the best overall detail.
The 1+19 was for 6 minutes, with 30s of agitation initially and once per 2m. The image came up much slower, with the lower speed exposures coming apparent at around the 2m mark. Once it came up it really seemed to go fast though. This image was incredibly warm and when held in the right light with a dark background would make beautiful tintype-style images. For the tintype style, 3 ISO is superior. But for general negatives, 6 looked to have somewhat the best contrast and less compressed highlights. 12 ISO had most of the detail as 1+9, but clearly was not as developed and the shadow details were extremely faint. The 1.5 ISO should had a pretty large decrease in contrast and compression of highlights and middle tones. There was some base fog. It appeared to be fairly even, but clearly had a less clean base than the 1+9 despite having less developed shadows. I think attempting something like stand development with this would be a foggy mess.
I also tried making 1+14, but the TEA prebath seems to have become less effective by this run (indicating it needs to be twice the strength probably for a full strip of 120?). It seemed overall less speed despite more development time than 1+19.
The important discovery here is that TEA alone will increase speed, but to properly use that speed it also requires a fairly normal developer, or else fog becomes a problem. Something about having bromide in the TEA bath modifies how the emulsion will later react to developer, restraining it some without the speed decrease you'd get by simply adding a lot of bromide to the developer to prevent blown highlights and fog. Previous tests with 1+9 were extremely high contrast, with absolute black highlights. TEA alone would increase shadows but not fix the highlights. So, this TEA+bromide prebath is a suitable way to develop this film and get closer to proper development and density, while also giving significantly more shadow detail and usable speed.
I have 2 rolls I've been saving until I figure this out that were shot at 3 - 12 ISO. Plan tomorrow is to develop one with the TEA prebath formula, with double the TEA, and DD-X 1+9 for 4 minutes.
Last edited:
