Stand development failure

Wrb · Oct 23, 2023

For the first time I tried stand developing a roll of 120 HP5+ in Rodinal 1:100 fo 60 minutes. I agitated for 30 secs at the beginning and again after 30 minutes. The film has an uneven line down its entire length with slightly more development one side than the other. All I can think of is that the developer and water did not properly mix and the developer 'sank' to the bottom of the tank in some way. Any thoughts, please?

koraks · Oct 23, 2023

Welcome to Photrio, @Wrb!

Wrb said:
All I can think of is that the developer and water did not properly mix and the developer 'sank' to the bottom of the tank in some way.

Well, yes, that's possible, sort of. It's more likely to be 'bromide drag' though, with halides released from the emulsion during development migrating downward (due to gravity) along the film, reducing development speed in the process. This can create a kind of gradient. With 35mm film you'd generally see trailers of the sprocket holes, but a more even gradient is indeed possible with 120 and sheet film formats.

The easiest solution is to agitate more frequently. Try agitating at least every three minutes.

The benefits of stand development continue to be debated, often heatedly so. My own tests have never convinced me of any noticeable benefit, but there's nothing wrong with experimenting. Just realize that with stand and semi-stand development, you're skirting these kinds of unevenness effects, so you'll have to find an agitation scheme and overall process that minimizes these problems. It may take a couple of tries to figure something out that works for you.

juan · Oct 23, 2023

The only time I had pure stand, as opposed to minimal agitation, development work evenly was when I tried something Mortensen recommended. I mixed a glycine only developer and used it in a tube standing upright in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. I used to use extreme minimal agitation, 90 seconds initial then 10-seconds at one third and two thirds, but have found that agitation every five minutes works better for me at controlling contrast and bromide drag.

koraks · Oct 23, 2023

juan said:
I mixed a glycine only developer

Not to nitpick, but just to prevent disappointment with people trying to follow your lead: a glycin developer, not "glycine"! Photographic glycin is CAS 122-87-2.

Wrb · Oct 23, 2023

Thanks, all. I had mistakenly thought bromide drag was only an issue for 35mm. I think I'll go back to more traditional methods.

koraks · Oct 23, 2023

Wrb said:
I had mistakenly thought bromide drag was only an issue for 35mm.

Ah, I see. Well, it can look very problematic on 35mm for sure. But in an absolute sense, 120 film has much more potential for bromide drag since it's bigger.

chuckroast · Oct 23, 2023

Wrb said:
Thanks, all. I had mistakenly thought bromide drag was only an issue for 35mm. I think I'll go back to more traditional methods.

I have found semistand and EMA work well provided you agitate properly at the beginning - you need more than 30 seconds. I've also found this approach is best done with a larger open tank and keeping the reel off the bottom fo the tank. This is independent of format - I've had good success with everything from 35mm to 4x5.

It does, however, matter what film and developer you use. I've gotten very good results with HP5+ in Pyrocat-HD. I have gotten very bad results from TMX (still testing this) and very old Plus-X 2x3 sheet film which hates Pyrocat-HD but stands nicely in D-23.

See this:

tundra/Stand-Development

gitbucket.tundraware.com

chuckroast · Oct 23, 2023

koraks said:
Welcome to Photrio, @Wrb!

Well, yes, that's possible, sort of. It's more likely to be 'bromide drag' though, with halides released from the emulsion during development migrating downward (due to gravity) along the film, reducing development speed in the process. This can create a kind of gradient. With 35mm film you'd generally see trailers of the sprocket holes, but a more even gradient is indeed possible with 120 and sheet film formats.

The easiest solution is to agitate more frequently. Try agitating at least every three minutes.

The benefits of stand development continue to be debated, often heatedly so. My own tests have never convinced me of any noticeable benefit, but there's nothing wrong with experimenting. Just realize that with stand and semi-stand development, you're skirting these kinds of unevenness effects, so you'll have to find an agitation scheme and overall process that minimizes these problems. It may take a couple of tries to figure something out that works for you.

I have been experimenting with low agitation/high dilution for about 3 years now and getting very good results, but I am not in the slightest inclined to say it's the only way or the best way for everyone to work. That said ...

You cannot get stand to work reliably in a normal tank/reel setup. You need a larger amount of developer like a 2 liter tank and a suspension system that gets the film off the bottom. How the film is held in place is critical and too much support or letting it sit at the bottom of the tank almost guarantees bromide drag.
Agitating every 3 min is no longer semi/stand. It will likely blow out the highlights if this is done for 60min.
I am fully comfortable with the idea that different people get different results from this, and it's not for everyone. But, in my experience, the people who enter into the most "heated debates" are almost inevitably people who've never taken the time to actually calibrate and try the process. There is no substitute for patient experimentation.

koraks · Oct 23, 2023

chuckroast said:
You cannot get stand to work reliably in a normal tank/reel setup.

My experience is different, but it's tricky and remains a risky business. I've done quite a bit of testing with a DIY-style BTZS setup and that worked quite well, with a few hundred ml volume for a single 4x5 sheet and 1 liter for an 8x10: https://tinker.koraks.nl/photography/pvc-development-tubes-for-sheet-film/
The volumes were determined by tank geometry; a flat tank would have allowed a smaller volume, but would have brought mechanical challenges. I didn't use actual stand or semi-stand much apart from testing, because there was absolutely no benefit to it whatsoever for my intended purpose. It worked, but continuous agitation works just as well for me. In fact, for the purpose I set up that project for, I ended up settling on plain old tray development in a concentrated developer for just a few minutes and with 30 second agitation intervals.

chuckroast said:
Agitating every 3 min is no longer semi/stand.

Yeah. That's why I recommended it. It'll avoid the problems associated with semi-stand.

retina_restoration · Oct 23, 2023

Wrb said:
Thanks, all. I had mistakenly thought bromide drag was only an issue for 35mm. I think I'll go back to more traditional methods.

The few times I tried this misguided technique (ten years ago) with 120 roll film, I got a wide band of excess density on the bottom 1/4 of the roll, rendering the film useless. This is a common observation with stand development. I do not advocate for the technique. It has little to offer that other tried-and-true compensating techniques don't do better. (Thornton 2-Bath, for example)

chuckroast · Oct 23, 2023

retina_restoration said:
The few times I tried this misguided technique (ten years ago) with 120 roll film, I got a wide band of excess density on the bottom 1/4 of the roll, rendering the film useless. This is a common observation with stand development. I do not advocate for the technique. It has little to offer that other tried-and-true compensating techniques don't do better. (Thornton 2-Bath, for example)

All techniques are misguided if one does not take the time to master them. It took me the better part of a year to find and control for the things that drive bromide drag. Today, across at least 4 developers (HC-110, Pyrocat-HD, D-23, and DK-50), I get drag free stand developed negatives from almost every film I have tried. I say almost because at least two films have given me bromide fits, both in Pyrocat-HD: very old 6x9 Plus-X sheet film and TMX. The TMX is still under investigation.

I tried divided Pycrocat and got meh results. Again, I didn't spend enough time with it to master the technique so I have no conclusions about it. I want to try divided D-23 and SLIMT but have not yet gotten to it.

I would mention that there is way more going in with low agitation/high dilution than just highlight compensation. There are edge sharpness effects to be found, expanded mid-tone local contrast, and so forth.

As always, there are many ways to approach technique and no one of them "wins". If you've found something that suits you better, by all means, proceed.

juan · Oct 23, 2023

koraks said:
Not to nitpick, but just to prevent disappointment with people trying to follow your lead: a glycin developer, not "glycine"! Photographic glycin is CAS 122-87-2.

Damned auto correct.

Andrew O'Neill · Oct 23, 2023

Can you provide a photo of the negative, please? I've done a lot of stand work with HP5. I have found it to be finicky in full on stand development. Semi-stand is better/safer, with pretty much the same increase in edge effects, without the extreme tonal compressions...

pentaxuser · Oct 23, 2023

Andrew O'Neill said:
Can you provide a photo of the negative, please? I've done a lot of stand work with HP5. I have found it to be finicky in full on stand development. Semi-stand is better/safer, with pretty much the same increase in edge effects, without the extreme tonal compressions...

Hurrah, Andy. Surely we need to see the effect the OP is referring to before we can state that it definitely is bromide drag. Yes it's the first thing ascribed to stand development but it may not be the only thing

pentaxuser

Doremus Scudder · Oct 23, 2023

Wrb said:
Thanks, all. I had mistakenly thought bromide drag was only an issue for 35mm. I think I'll go back to more traditional methods.

Good idea!

Alan Johnson · Oct 23, 2023

Here is Roger on stand development in Rodinal, I follow him on Youtube.

john_s · Oct 23, 2023

pentaxuser said:
Hurrah, Andy. Surely we need to see the effect the OP is referring to before we can state that it definitely is bromide drag. Yes it's the first thing ascribed to stand development but it may not be the only thing

pentaxuser

It seems that the unevenness can be bromide drag and also uneven distribution of developer byproducts.

cliveh · Oct 23, 2023

Why do you want to stand development? Will this improve your pictures?

pentaxuser · Oct 23, 2023

Alan Johnson said:
Here is Roger on stand development in Rodinal, I follow him on Youtube.

Yes I usually do as well. He is the typical enthusiastic man-in-the-street analogue shooter. His knowledge of analogue photography does not extend to "expert" level but his videos are honest and what he does, warts and all, is what you see

Worth a watch for those interested in the correlation between bromide drag and stand development. He uses 120 film and gets no drag that I can see in this case and this was "real" stand development for an hour at 1+100 of 1 inversion only at the start and one more at 30 mins

Has he ever seen some bromide drag and shown it? Yes but that was in 35mm and what he had was clearly bromide drag. What the OP describes does not seem the same but until we see it we wont know

What makes me scratch my head about stand and even semi-stand is that it does not seem inevitable. If I use a 100 film and shoot it at 400 mistakenly or use a wrong development time then inevitably a problem arises with the negatives and this will occur each time I use the wrong process. In my example the reason why my negatives are wrong is clear and occurs every time I do the same "wrong " thing. It is not arbitary i.e occurring only occasionally So what is it about stand development that makes bromide drag happen on what seems like a random basis

Indeed some say it never occurs for them. perhaps because it never has? It's a real puzzle for me

pentaxuser

Andrew O'Neill · Oct 23, 2023

Years ago I did a stand development comparison test between Pyrocat-HD and Rodinal. Rodinal was no match for Pyrocat-HD. BUT... one must be extremely careful with this technique. It is better to stick with semi-stand.

chuckroast · Oct 24, 2023

Andrew O'Neill said:
Years ago I did a stand development comparison test between Pyrocat-HD and Rodinal. Rodinal was no match for Pyrocat-HD. BUT... one must be extremely careful with this technique. It is better to stick with semi-stand.

True Stand - One long agitation, and then then standing until done - cannot reliably avoid bromide drag in my experience.

Semistand - One long agitation, and then another 15 sec agitation at the halfway point, works reliably if you...

Make sure the tank is large enough to suspend the film/reel off the bottom tank
Use minimal contact film hangers for sheet film or ...
Use stainless steel reels for rollfilm
Use a suitably high dilution for the developer.

Extreme Minimal Agitation - One long agitation, and 2-3 more 15 second agitations evenly spaced for the total time, works reliably with the same caveats as Semistand.

I use 1/2 gal Kodak rubber tanks for everything. Sheet film is suspended horizontally with Kodak No. 6 hangers to minimize anything around the film that could trap developer. I use Nikor stainless steel reels only for 120/220/35mm. After the prewet and initial agitation, the reels is placed over an inverted funnel at the bottom of the tank (to get the reel off the bottom).

Things I have seen induce bromide drag:

Hanging sheet film vertically in the tank
Using frame type film hangers
Using Yankee sheet film processing tank
Using adjustable plastic reels to hold roll film
Resting a film real on the bottom of the tank while standing

chuckroast · Oct 24, 2023

cliveh said:
Why do you want to stand development? Will this improve your pictures?

Semistand (not stand - see my note in post #21) and EMA require two things to work: Highly dilute developer and long development times with minimal agitation. When done properly, this achieves four things at once:

It "compensates" the highlights to keep them from blowing out to textureless white. Why? Because the developer around the highlights exhausts quickly without agitation.
It expands and improves local contrast and tonal separation in the mid tones. Why? Because the long development time continues to act on the mid tones and is effectilvely developing them as N+.
It improves apparent edge sharpness. Why? The edge transitions from light to dark go through developmeny exhaustion in the highlight area. The few agitations kick this development-exhaust cycle back on periodically and this manifests itself an apparently sharper edge. (Most noticeable with EMA.)
It develops the shadows areas fully, thereby granting full box ASA. Why? Leaving the film in developer for a very long time allows the shadows to develop fully,

Once you get this figured out, it works well, but "getting it right" is fiddly and very error prone. I would not recommend this for beginners or for people who don't want to spend the time to "dial it in".

Here's an example of an image (that has all four of the benefits above courtesy of long/low agitation development, Shot on an absolutely flat, grey, featuress day. GW690II Acros II 6x9 negative - scan of silver print.:

Here's another, but in this case 35mm shot on a Nikon F with a 35mm f/1.4 lens. Shot late afternoon into a featureless gray rock wall:

koraks · Oct 24, 2023

john_s said:
It seems that the unevenness can be bromide drag and also uneven distribution of developer byproducts.

Bromide is one of the development byproducts.
I don't think the oxidized developer (which is a tiny amount) will have much of an influence itself.

pentaxuser · Oct 24, 2023

chuckroast said:
True Stand - One long agitation, and then then standing until done - cannot reliably avoid bromide drag in my experience.

Semistand - One long agitation, and then another 15 sec agitation at the halfway point, works reliably if you...

Make sure the tank is large enough to suspend the film/reel off the bottom tank

Use minimal contact film hangers for sheet film or ...

Use stainless steel reels for rollfilm

Use a suitably high dilution for the developer.

Extreme Minimal Agitation - One long agitation, and 2-3 more 15 second agitations evenly spaced for the total time, works reliably with the same caveats as Semistand.

I use 1/2 gal Kodak rubber tanks for everything. Sheet film is suspended horizontally with Kodak No. 6 hangers to minimize anything around the film that could trap developer. I use Nikor stainless steel reels only for 120/220/35mm. After the prewet and initial agitation, the reels is placed over an inverted funnel at the bottom of the tank (to get the reel off the bottom).

Things I have seen induce bromide drag:

Hanging sheet film vertically in the tank

Using frame type film hangers

Using Yankee sheet film processing tank

Using adjustable plastic reels to hold roll film

Resting a film real on the bottom of the tank while standing

Can I ask: what is it about stainless steel that makes it OK for avoiding bromide drag that does not apply to plastic reels and what is the effect of the reel being adjustable, i.e. if you have a non adjustable plastic reel does this change things or is the secret solely in the stainless steel?

Is the secret of your success the height of the reel above the bottom of the tank, if so then presumably an empty reel below the reel with film would work? If it doesn't work then what is it about a lower reel that differentiates it from the success of the inverted cone

Just as an interesting aside The ShootFilmLikeABoss(SFLAB) presenter appears to have made a success of what appears to be almost non existent agitation i.e. 2x one inversion agitations in an hour ( one at the beginning and one at 30 mins)

Is this pure luck? I don't suppose we'll ever know unless someone were to do this at least several dozen times to see what the success rate was?

That's what causes my puzzlement as I said We just don't seem to know what determines success or failure I admit that I'd be nervous about only 2 inversions in an hour and maybe that's why the negatives look a bit flat but as SFLAB says it might be fixed in the darkroom. He doesn't say how but I assume he thinks that a higher grade of paper would work.

He is the sort of person who may well make prints from D23 and Rodinal negatives in a future video

Thanks

pentaxuser

pentaxuser · Oct 24, 2023

Andrew O'Neill said:
Years ago I did a stand development comparison test between Pyrocat-HD and Rodinal. Rodinal was no match for Pyrocat-HD. BUT... one must be extremely careful with this technique. It is better to stick with semi-stand.

Andrew, can I ask: In what ways was Rodinal no match for Pyrocat HD

Thanks

pentaxuser

Stand development failure

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