Revisiting Microphen

[Juan Valdenebro]

I just ran into a frame I did in 2018: an old and well known local photographer with his wooden view camera in the central park here in my hometown. He exposes directly on paper and then he makes a contact positive -in that moment- for the usual lovers passing by... That's why -his public use of chemicals- decades ago he's known as "little water photo". I have not seen him since then, and I've been to that park several times lately. I hope he's fine... So today I looked for the negative, to check it with my loupe.

Grain is very very small, and it surprised me because I use ISO400 most of the time. I can't really see grain with my 22x loupe, but I feel it's there, very small and sharp: more than grain, a velveteen texture. When I checked negative's borders I said whaaaat? It's Tri-X!

I found a permanent marker writing on a blank frame and I said whaaaaaaaaaaaaat ??? It was Microphen !!!

EI640 Microphen 1+1 22C 8m, 2 slow inversions in the beginning, 1 slow inversion at minute 2, and 1 slow inversion at minute 5. Amazing !

The roll was done with my 35 Summaron at f/11. That made me remember Erik Van Straten says some lenses produce less grain than others...

I just started tests for such reduced agitation, but for Microphen stock at 21C.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

"If you can get Ilford product, I would recommend Microphen for tight grain."
Thomas Bertilsson, 2005. (A Pothrio thread on minimizing grain with 35mm Tri-X)

I used to consider Microphen a developer that produces distinct grain always.
I see it can produce minimal grain too, with reduced agitation, while tone remains convincing: it's a very strong developer.
I always thought its box "Fine grain, speed enhancing developer" description wasn't accurate, but it is.
Even at 1+1.
Stock is better for 2-3 stops pushing, but I don't do that.

 

[Paul Howell]

With Tmax 100 gain is not an issue at all with Microphen, I shot a few rolls of Tmax 100 but found contrast to be a bit high for my taste, might add Microphen to list of develops to give retry.

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

Interesting; I had a phase in the 1980's with Microphen but it was harsh flash club zine stuff so contrast was the point. I also had a decent run when I did newspaper shooting and I was finding the limits of the new Tmax's especially the TMZ P3200. Microphen stock could hit some fairly substantial ISO/E.I. numbers if you shot it well. I was printing with an Omega D2 with condensers and a fairly strong bulb (hey we had deadlines!) so YMMV but I'd say keep the agitation and temp to a relaxed minimum. I might have to try some more; I recall I may have a box around....

 

[pentaxuser]

Juan and RidingWaves: In specific terms what does "reduced agitation and "keep agitation to a relaxed minimum mean and does this have an adverse effect on developing fast films such as D3200 at say 1600 or HP5+ pushed 2 stops?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Hello pentaxuser,
The reduced agitation that worked very well in my case (Tri-X) was 2 slow inversions in the beginning, and 1 slow inversion at minutes 2 and 5. Total 4 inversions.
That was TX@640, 1+1 22C 8m. (Soft light scene, condenser enlarger, negative a little contrasty yet with nearly no grain: I think the same at 21C would be more precise).
Now I'm testing stock, again for TX@640.
Microphen is very strong, so reduced agitation gives good contrast.
For HP5+ to 1600, and for the bigger D3200 grain, stock is better no doubt.
For 500-640-800, 1+1 works very well.
An Ilford technician once said he would use Microphen stock exclusively.
I bet that type of reduced agitation is great for HP5+ and D3200.
I can't get D3200, but as soon as I get my next HP5+ order I'll test that too, precisely for 1600.
Good luck!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Yesterday I wrote what I'll do when I get HP5+:
@1600 Microphen Stock 21C 14m. 2 slow inversions in the beginning, 1 slow inversion at minutes 2, 5, 8 and 11. Total 6 inversions.
I think that will give me the best HP5+ @1600 I've ever got. We´ll see.
Have a good day!

 

[pentaxuser]

Yesterday I wrote what I'll do when I get HP5+:
@1600 Microphen Stock 21C 14m. 2 slow inversions in the beginning, 1 slow inversion at minutes 2, 5, 8 and 11. Total 6 inversions.
I think that will give me the best HP5+ @1600 I've ever got. We´ll see.
Have a good day!

Thanks Juan. The Ilford development time for HP5+ at stock is only 11 mins at 20C whereas I see that your time at 21C is 14 mins so if we assume at 20C the 11 mins given by Ilford becomes 10mins then the difference between the Ilford time and you time is 4 mins more so quite a lot. I assume that less agitation needs longer times to get to the correct development contrast. This makes sense so can I ask, do you have a formula for the time that you require for less agitation than the standard Ilford one which is 10 secs each minute

pentaxuser

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

No formula but yes, it's because the difference in agitation is huge.
While Ilford's time implies 44 normal inversions, mine implies 6 slow ones...
You'll have to check for your equipment and procedures.
Not a formula, but:
My times for stock with this reduced agitation at 21, are close to the middle point between stock and 1+1 by Ilford at 20C, but for a third more speed in my case...
So I do a little math on paper and that's good enough for my first test with any film.
Hope this helps.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

At Ilford they're kind enough as to offer (not too much but at least) some data on non-ilford films too...
I guess you have this PDF: these are the times I use as my base. My Kaiser MF condenser enlarger requires 10% less development time.
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/amfile/file/download/file/1829/product/550/

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Nothing new under the sun... I just found this, googling microphen reduced agitation... Looks like Lex did it more than 12 years ago!

"While stock solution will deliver the best results it'll work fine at 1+1 if you need extra development time.
My trick is to agitate normally for the first few minutes - at either 30 second or one minute intervals, whichever you prefer - then after the first 3 to 5 minutes switch to a modified technique with longer intervals between agitations. For example, you might try normal development and agitation for the first 5 minutes. Then switch to agitating every 2, 3 or even every 5 minutes."
Lex Jenkins, photo.net, 2010.

I prefer no normal agitation in the beginning, though: his way, contrast is controlled, but my way controls grain better, because grain starts growing normally if normal agitation is used during the first minutes of development.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

For those interested in Microphen:
Lex Jenkins often wrote (photo.net), in several of his posts about this developer, he considered Microphen was kind of insensitive to temperature and development time. I can't imagine how he reached that conclusion, but the whole idea is totally wrong. I remember he even compared Microphen to Diafine back then... Microphen is as sensitive to temperature and development time as most developers are. Perhaps he was once developing frames from very low artificial light, so he might have found extending development time or raising temperature were no good at all for getting more out of the film, I imagine... He even states in some of his posts Microphen can't produce overdevelopment, and that's of course far from real. I've seen several different films overdeveloped in Microphen during the last 20 years. Lex -a great person and also a technically informed photographer IMO- was a public Microphen enthusiast in photo.net during the early 2000's, when internet became part of life.

 

[pentaxuser]

Juan, he may have been a great guy as a person but from what you say of his statements his actual knowledge of the chemistry and physics of photography makes me doubt if he can be trusted in the sphere of Microphen's properties

pentaxuser

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Yes, it's strange he wrote that.
Precisely because he was right about most other matters, and right about most other Microphen properties too.
For very low light levels, he recommended using Microphen for 20 minutes with reduced agitation: I guess that may work, more or less, most of the times... But that doesn't mean there's no possible overdevelopment with Microphen.
His favourite films in Microphen were TMY@1600 and TMX@100.

 

[koraks]

That made me remember Erik Van Straten says some lenses produce less grain than others...

Is it possible that your memory has omitted a very crucial bit of contextual information, perhaps? Maybe something that boils down to 'with some lenses I notice the grain in certain images a bit more than with others'. Of course as such a lens will not have any influence on grain itself.

 

[pentaxuser]

What counts for those of us not using Tri-X at 640 which Juan can testify as working is: will his "formula of using Microphen stock at close to the Ilford time for 1+1 be useful for all films which are underexposed at 2 or 3 stops such as HP5+?. The latter film is of particular interest to me at 1600 but Ilford does not even give a time at 1+1 with normal agitation

One day Juan may be able to get HP5 but until then the actual experience of using Microphen with other than Tri-X with minimal agitation with success in terms of reducing grain would appear to be confined to Juan

So can others confirm that a minimalist agitation with Microphen and using compensating longer development achieves the goal of less grain but equally good negatives? If so, has anyone got the comparison negs and prints from those negs to demonstrate this

On the surface it does appear to be a kind of "Holy Grail" method of producing negs that match what Ilford's agitation regime will produce in terms of quality but with reduced grain

pentaxuser

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Is it possible that your memory has omitted a very crucial bit of contextual information, perhaps? Maybe something that boils down to 'with some lenses I notice the grain in certain images a bit more than with others'. Of course as such a lens will not have any influence on grain itself.

Hi,
No, he really thinks it that way... Yes, it's surprising, of course.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

What counts for those of us not using Tri-X at 640 which Juan can testify as working is will his "formula of using Microphen stock at close to the Ilford time for 1+1 be useful for all films which are underexposed at 2 or 3 stops such as HP5+. The latter film is of particular interest to me at 1600 but Ilford does not even give a time at 1+1 with normal agitation

One day Juan may be able to get HP5 but until then the actual experience of using Microphen with other than Tri-X with minimal agitation with success in terms of reducing grain would appear to be confined to Juan

So can others confirm that a minimalist agitation with Microphen and compensating longer development achieves the goal of less grain but equally good negatives? If so, has anyone got the comparison negs and prints from those negs to demonstrate this

On the surface it does appear to be a kind of "Holy Grail" method of producing negs that match what Ilford's agitation regime will produce in terms of quality but with reduced grain

pentaxuser

Hi pentax,
No holy grail, just Microphen.
Confined to... the world !
You can test it and see.
Perhaps I did it with HP5+ too when I was testing reduced agitation, but I'd have to do a (physical) search.
Easier and funnier to photograph and develop again, anyway.
Demonstration? That's exactly what Microphen did to my Tri-X when I reduced agitation.
Not new at all. The old boxes of Microphen used to recommend reduced agitation too, for better acutance and grain if I remember well..

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

What a coincidence! I've got a couple packages on order to try with Pan F! I'm planning to compare it with D-23 1+3.

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

Hey all,

First off, what Juan said!

My next two boxes of Microphen are on the way, it is funny that this conversation started when it did; I just did a count of "To Be Processed" rolls in the refrigerator and it has reached "pretty soon" status. I was pondering what to use, many of the rolls are from this seasons North Shore surfing, and this discussion of Microphen has reminded me I've not used it for a few years. Lately I've been favoring D-23 for this type of images but I wanted and needed some slight pushes.

Reduced or 'Tapered' Agitation technique where you essentially start the development with regular agitation scheme and taper it back with an adjusted time works well for very active developer and pushing. A 'lighter' version was my personal technique for shooting the dearly departed Fuji Neopan (Presto) 400, which was my main wedding photography film for an easy 10 years (regular readers will recall my fables of short and post dated 18.95$ half-price 100ft bulk rolls from Freestyle that I would buy in case quantities, recall I was shooting between 25 to 60 rolls per wedding in those days). The Tapered agitation would soften the contrast as the film hit the higher zones, allowing much easier printing of the bright bridal gowns shot on the beach in the strong and contrasty Hawaii light. If you stuck with the standard or sloppy agitation then those beach shots would gain just a bit of extra density that would require some contrast tweaking in the printing, and for visual, production and efficiency reasons I tended to want to print everything within a 1/2 grade.

There was a time where I had all of the local high school sports shooting locations listed with development times for P3200. Some football fields had actually different type of lights placed all over the place, leading to huge holes in some areas and 3+stops hot spots in others, creating an additional challenge. I seem to recall that my standard development for P3200 in Tmax 1;4 was 14-18 min at 72F, and I could start the first five to eight minutes, go get a cup of coffee in the break room, return and the film was just about right. I also learned the trick of not turning on the darkroom lights before loading P3200, the continued glow from the overhead florescence bulbs would fog the sensitive film. I did like Microphen for doing all that night sports but the newspaper's photo source wasn't an Ilford dealer and the paper had an endless supply of T-Max developer, and along with the drag of weekly 1 liter powder mixing I phased into just doing those pushed rolls in Tmax. Tmax could get to an ultimate higher EI, but the Microphen has a crispy grain that I felt added to the look of grainy, low light sports images.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Same here, I find crisp grain lovely no matter its size.

 

[koraks]

Hi,
No, he really thinks it that way... Yes, it's surprising, of course.

Okay, well, that's very odd and not something easily explained through physics or chemistry. Let's keep it at that.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Hi koraks,
If you keep everything equal, and just swap lenses, you can get slightly different amounts of grain if one lens is low contrast and the other one is higher contrast. Let's keep it at that for a while: I wouldn't think so quickly Erik is wrong.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

UPDATE
I just developed TX@640 for the first time in stock Microphen with reduced agitation.
Overdeveloped, possibly two thirds or a stop.
I decided my development based upon the previous one, but that one was for the old Tri-X, while this one was for the current version.
I guess two things: possibly, the new version requires a little less development, and/or, stock Microphen is much wilder than 1+1, especially for such a low speed that's basically the film's native speed in this developer.
I'll try again with 25% less development time.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

One more thing:
I don't see the same very small grain I got with the previous Tri-X... It looks like normal Tri-X grain: even after overdevelopment, grain should be smaller, I think. Even more because this was stock instead of 1+1.
For this test I used a modern lens. I'll do a new test using the same lens I used for the older 1+1 development, a Summaron. Mine is from the original batch of 1000 Summarons made for the first time in 1949 (#706895), screwmount f/3.5, zero haze, CLA by Youxin-Ye a few years ago. It has lower contrast than modern lenses. I like it because it's the smallest 35 with zero linear distortion ever made, and at f/11 (only f-stop I use) it's indistinguishable from a Summicron. The perfect street lens, although it's silver, and was not made in black. Tom Abrahamsson had his painted black. I wish I could!