Refrigerator stand development.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 24, 2017

The following is from one of the Kodak publications the very good J series.

This formula is D-23 with sodium bisulfite added to lower the pH of the developer. This supresses the action of the Metol thereby increasing the time necessary to produce the same gamma as D-23. This modification produces finer grain since the sulfite has a longer time to work. Kodak in Publication J-1 describes D-25 as producing grain comparable to paraphenylenediamine developers. See page 35.

http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/files/Kodak j-1.pdf

At one time Kodak sold benzotriazole as small tablets. The bottle described adding one or two tablets per quart to high sulfite developers like D-23 or D-76 to produce finer grain. Same principle the antifog suppressed the developer allowing the sulfite to dissolve more silver halide.

juan · Feb 24, 2017

Wayne said:
There is frequently confusion on the spelling of glycin vs glycine and I'm sure you mean the former. Glycine and other amino acids will probably prove disappointing in fridge development, but glycin stands a chance.

Yes, Glycin. This damned iPad autocorrects everything.

chrisaisenbrey · Feb 24, 2017

Cold temperature development might be interesting for historic reasons.

Anchells’ darkroom cookbook mention some cold developer. One of them is Kodak D-8 which is Hydroquinone only, but at quite basic conditions. It seems even possible to go below 0°C with some anti-freezing agent. (Not with D-8 though)

zanxion72 · Feb 24, 2017

Basically, with cold once degrades the chemical reaction speed of the developer. I am not sure if there is any real benefit from a cold stand development, colder than 19 degC, but it could help in cases where there is suspicion of the emulsion coming off the base due to leaving it for too long in the solution.

removed account4 · Feb 24, 2017

irivlin said:
Just out of interest, I developed some Tri-X, T-Max 400 and FP4 in D76, at 6 centigrade (ie refrigerator temperature). I agitated for one minute, then left the tank in the 'fridge for 2 hours. The results were excellent. By excellent, I mean very fine grain, excellent separation of tones and no blown out highlights. All good.........
Then I ran out of D76 and used Fomadon P - which is, as I understand, Foma's version of ID11/D76.
Same experiment but the results gave ZERO - ie nothing discernable on the film. The exposed leader was barely developed. I repeated the test with heavily bracketed exposures and agitation at the one hour mark - still nothing on the film.
I'm not criticising Fomadon P (I suspect it's a very good quality product) but it's interesting how it responds completely differently from D76 at very low temperatures. Of course, these temperatures are not recommended by anyone - and I'm not recommending it either but some might wish to try this development with D76 and see if it's of use to them for special circumstances.
I intend to repeat the test with Fomadon but next time, I'm going to leave the tank in the fridge overnight - about 8 hours.

hi irivlin

can't comment on fomadon, or d76, i've never used them.
have you tried doing this with caffenol c with a shake of print developer added in?
i've done that for years but at room temp ( tween 50-68F ) not fridge temps, it takes about 30-35 mins.
good to see you are having fun. that's what its all about sometimes ..

john

ps. not sure where you are located, but if you can get ahold of some glycin ( the photographer's formulary still makes it )
you might look into some of the developers mortenson used for his 7D approach
one is his glycin variant

its sodium sulfite, glycin, water and sodium carbonate
he suggested stand developing for 2 hours with it.

Harry Stevens · Feb 24, 2017

Is 20c so hard to achieve in a development tank nowdays.....

faberryman · Feb 24, 2017

You have to make a decision when choosing a developer: do you want to use a solvent developer where you obtain the appearance of fine grain at the expense of sharpness, or a high acutance developer where you obtain sharpness at the expense of fine grain. Fine grain is a bit of a misnomer when describing a developer; you don't actually get finer grain, instead the solvent action dissolves away the edges of the grain making them appear finer. The only way to get actual finer grain is to use a lower ISO film.

removed account4 · Feb 24, 2017

or ...
you can not worry about it and just process your film
without falling into the " gotta be grainless, gotta be fine grained ... bla bla bea" hole
there is much more to photography than getting fine grain/grainless images
... unless that is the only thing one is interested in.

to me at least --- a boring image that is fine grained would look even better with grain
because there might be something to look at ( the grain ) as a distraction from the boring image ..
the grainless thing is like lipstick on a pig, its still a pig ..

Gerald C Koch · Feb 24, 2017

The very nature of the photographic process dictates that you will have grain. You can make it less obvious but not totally eliminate it. Even digital photographs have grain. If grain is objectionable then there are always slower, less grainy films. Instead of resorting to weird methods like cold temperature or toxic developers why not embrace it and make it part of your statement. BTW grain actually creates the illusion of better resolution rather than the other way around.

RauschenOderKorn · Feb 24, 2017

juan said:
Mortensen wrote that he sometimes stand developed in the fridge. I believe he used glycine.

Glycin is very sensitive to low temperatures reducing / loosing its developing capacity. Are you sure about the Glycin?

juan · Feb 24, 2017

RauschenOderKorn said:
Glycin is very sensitive to low temperatures reducing / loosing its developing capacity. Are you sure about the Glycin?

No. Mortensen did famously put his developing film in the refrigerator at times. He also frequently used Glycin developers. I'm not able, at this time, to find any firm statement as to what developer he used in the refrigerator.
I developed a sheet of 8x10 Efke PL-100 in a Glycin only developer for several hours in the refrigerator. It came out easily printable, but I saw no advantage to this method -even in Florida where I was developing at 95F (35C).

Refrigerator stand development.

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