Stand development failure

Rolleiflexible said:

I don't mean to sound difficult, but a lot of what you write hardly sounds credible. I am not a scientist, but your suggestions of how molecules flow across immersed surfaces do not sound right. Since you are a newcomer writing under a screen name, it would be easier to give your observations credence if you would be kind enough to offer citations to supporting texts so we can put them into a logical construct, instead of the ipse dixits of your current posts.

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Try Jacobsen and Jacobsen.

chuckroast said:

Again, I have empirical experience to the contrary. Not that you're wrong (because I have no idea), but that you can absolutely have film in suspension in a tank for an hour, agitate only once at the beginning and once at the midpoint, and not experience streaking.

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Perhaps you can, but the odds are not as good for the reasons I have given.

The technique was first used with glass plates, and it can work well given the conditions that occur when used that way.

Augustus Caesar said:

Try Jacobsen and Jacobsen.

Developing: The Negative Technique (The Manual of photo-technique) - C. I. Jacobson; Ralph Eric Jacobson: 9780240447704 - AbeBooks

Focal Press - 1976 - Low prices on new and used copies of books. 30 days return policy

www.abebooks.com

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Oh come on: That's lazy. I am not going to go track down a 1976 Focal Point reprint of a 1948 treatise by someone ("C.I. Jacobson") writing under a pseudonym and read through all 412 pages to see if his work is still creditable in 2023, and whether your remarks are supported by it.

Give us a reason to credit your remarks.

Augustus Caesar said:

The differences in the emulsions are not a factor. The fact that the bromide can't move when the glass plate is perfectly horizontal prevents the streaks. I'm sure that some agitation was used even in these cases. I use gentle agitation, two inversions once per minute.

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One question: If it is the fact that the bromide cannot move that prevents the streaks then why risk this with any agitation at all?
One statement: Two inversions a minute is certainly not used by any standard of stand development, semi-stand development or extreme minimal agitation i.e. those agitations used under the umbrella of variations of stand development that I have heard of. If you are using 2 inversions a minute then this resembles normal agitation and I wouldn't expect to see bromide drag anyway under this agitation regime. Indeed a leaflet I have from a bottle of the original Leverkusen Rodinal says: "Tilt every 30 secs"

This comes very close to your 2 gentle inversions a minute, doesn't it?

So just for clarity, are you inverting in a tank with a reel and the film held vertically and do you use the 2 gentle inversions a minute at the stand development dilution of 1+100 or is this for "normal" dilutions of 1+25 and 1+50 and the normal times recommended for those dilutions?

Thanks

pentaxuser

I don't know much about this, and I'm not here to push a particular opinion; just to post something I found that looks relevant.
I have used stand a few times; then I copied a limited-agitation recipe I saw on the web, and stuck with that. I do normal processing as well.

'Early Photography' shows a couple of examples of the Watkins Time Tank, a British plate developing tank in which the plates are held in a horizontal rack.


Watkins encouraged the use of timed (as opposed to inspection) developing. The use of the tank is described in this guide, 'The Watkins Manual of Exposure and Development'. The relevant pages are 87-89 as numbered on the pages, but 105-107 of the electronic document because of front matter.


They tell you to put the plates face up in the rack. Holding the plates horizontal allows you to use less solution for a small number of plates. However, the tank isn't designed to be tipped far; certainly can't be inverted. Nevertheless, they say that some agitation is needed, and with a full tank, they recommend pouring the solution out and back in to do this. This on its own says 'don't buy this tank', to me.

Earlier, in the section on developers, they recommend that you avoid including bromide in your recipe. This seems an odd thing to do: bromide is a restrainer; it slows the development process, because it's one of the products of the reaction. It's included in developers because (for one reason at least) if some bromide's already there, the bromide released from the film is less significant. I daresay they knew what they were doing better than I do. Maybe we need to read their customer forum.


FWIW, Ralph Jacobson was the editor of the Manual of Photography, commonly called the Ilford Manual, 7th Edition, 1976. I understand he was a lecturer in Photographic Sciences at the Polytechnic of Central London, which is now the University of Westminster.

C.I. was originally Kurt; to call that a pseudonym is a little harsh. He just anglicised his name when he came to England in 1939. He was Ralph's dad.

Here he is again:

A little meta, but ...

Since the day I started exploring this some three years ago, I have noted a lot of strong opinions on the matter of low agitation/high dilution/high duration development. These sometimes rise to the level of heated disputes, and I don't why.

The easiest thing to do here is to ... try it. I will take examples over theory any day (and presumably learn from them). Throughout these threads, I've tried to provide notes and photographic examples of my own experience. I would love to see others do the same. If nothing else, it will get you out shooting.

In any case, I don't think the topic rises to the level of theological debate (or shouldn't, anyway). I see people doing good work with any number of techniques and benefit from them all.

chuckroast said:

The easiest thing to do here is to ... try it.

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Well, I did, years ago, with 400TX in Rodinal 1+100. One hour development with generous 1' agitation at the beginning and the 30' mark. I got bromide drag, the kind of thing you can't unsee. I don't know if things would be better if I used something other than Jobo reels, or a larger tank, or if it wasn't at the bottom of the tank. But considering the result and the possibility of a problematic outcome, I'm not too keen on trying it again. I don't really care about the look either, so it's regular agitation for me. If I ever try again something similar, it will be reduced agitation, like 3-5' intervals and certainly much less than an hour of development.

But anyway, if you like it and it works for you, then more power to you.

Dustin McAmera said:

they recommend pouring the solution out and back in to do this. This on its own says 'don't buy this tank', to me.

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I wouldn't go so far. If you think about it, it's not so different from how a JOBO expert tank works for developing 4x5 or 5x7 sheets. The solution pours into and out of each sheet compartment as the drum rotates. It works because some developer remains on the emulsion for the portion of the rotation when it is not immersed. Perhaps the same applies to draining and refilling the tank he describes.

Dustin McAmera said:

C.I. was originally Kurt; to call that a pseudonym is a little harsh. He just anglicised his name when he came to England in 1939. He was Ralph's dad.

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His name was Kurt Jacobsohn, publishing under the name C.I. Jacobson. It was the Getty Library which called the published name a pseudonym. No harshness was intended.


If I seemed harsh, it is because the Internet has become a sewer with trolls publishing misinformation under pseudonyms. Augustus Caesar shows up, posts unsupported and at times counterintuitive remarks as facts that fly in the face of many photographers' experiences; and when asked to support his remarks, he cites a 75-year-old book without any effort to explain the basis of his remarks. Mr. Caesar might be Saint Ansel Ouiji-ing in from the beyond and perhaps we should all be grateful to him for sharing his wisdom posthumously. But his cavalier approach to it just clutters up a website that should be devoted, at least in part, to preserving trustworthy information about analog processes for future generations.

Anon Ymous said:

But considering the result and the possibility of a problematic outcome, I'm not too keen on trying it again.

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If I had your experience, I would reach the same conclusion. Why risk a bad outcome?

Film photography has so many variables that it is hard to generalize about equipment, materials and processes. We become better photographers by avoiding the things that didn't work for us in our idiosyncratic workflows. Stand processing works well in my workflow; it doesn't work in yours; we each reach sound conclusions based on our differing experiences. But we should not generalize from them.

For a bit more on Mr. Jacobson's treatise, an Ansco employee wrote a review in the Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (Vol 51, Issue 1, July 1948, at 105) that found the work "oversimplified" and incorrect in places, but concluded that it was useful as an unscientific overview of developing processes:

Anon Ymous said:

Well, I did, years ago, with 400TX in Rodinal 1+100. One hour development with generous 1' agitation at the beginning and the 30' mark. I got bromide drag, the kind of thing you can't unsee. I don't know if things would be better if I used something other than Jobo reels, or a larger tank, or if it wasn't at the bottom of the tank. But considering the result and the possibility of a problematic outcome, I'm not too keen on trying it again. I don't really care about the look either, so it's regular agitation for me. If I ever try again something similar, it will be reduced agitation, like 3-5' intervals and certainly much less than an hour of development.

But anyway, if you like it and it works for you, then more power to you.

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I would gently suggest that a single trial isn't much of a baseline to learn anything.

It took me dozens of shots to really grasp zone system exposure and development discipline.

It took me many months and failures to get a sense of how to use view camera movements.

I burned a lot of sheets of paper learning to split VC print.

Low agitation/High dilution extended development took me a year of trial and error. I certainly don't think everyone needs to use it everywhere (I certainly don't), but I reject the idea that it's some fringe technique that should be rejected on its face after one failure.

Oh, I remember - vividly - my first attempts five decades ago to spool a roll of film onto a reel for development. It was ... um ... not great Had I given up after a single failure, I'd never have become the photographer I am today (whatever that is) ...

I like learning new and better ways to do things, but learning is always preceded by frustration and failure.

chuckroast said:

I would gently suggest that a single trial isn't much of a baseline to learn anything.

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It's not, but in the case of stand development I didn't do something wrong. At least nothing that according to common knowledge was wrong. If anything, it was the very long agitation interval that was the culprit.

chuckroast said:

Low agitation/High dilution extended development took me a year of trial and error.

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You certainly are more patient than I am when it comes to trying different variables that may make it work. And far more willing to sacrifice films and perhaps valuable shots to make it work. But I have also burned film and paper for other causes, I'm just not keen on this. I don't see it as a solution to something.

As for cautioning newbies that stand development can result in bromide drag, I think it's fair to point out that there's a non trivial chance that things can go wrong, but others have been lucky. In the end it's their film and their time and effort.

Anon Ymous said:

It's not, but in the case of stand development I didn't do something wrong. At least nothing that according to common knowledge was wrong. If anything, it was the very long agitation interval that was the culprit.

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No it's not "wrong", it's "incomplete" and thus not a real basis for drawing a general conclusion. It's analogous to declaring a developer doesn't work as claimed when you've never bothered to check your light meter or thermometer.

I in no way think you are "wrong" about not pursuing this, since you clearly don't think it's worth the effort. Cool. I just think that making sweeping judgments that are an extrapolation of single data point isn't legit.

(I see this a lot in the wider culture. Everyone wants instant results and jumps to conclusions based on really small data sets or analysis. Clearly, the sun sets because the street lights turn on.)

Anon Ymous said:

You certainly are more patient than I am when it comes to trying different variables that may make it work.

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Because that's the only way I know to learn new, complex things: Lot's of patience and experimentation.

Anon Ymous said:

And far more willing to sacrifice films and perhaps valuable shots to make it work. But I have also burned film and paper for other causes, I'm just not keen on this. I don't see it as a solution to something.

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It absolutely solves a problem for which I have never found a better solution. In fact, this exact scenario is what got me down the rabbit hole:

You are shooting a scene with an overall long SBR. However, the principal subject of the scene (the dominant geometry) is, say, in a flat lit shade - the mid-tones are all muddy. Mid-tone contrast is essential to make a print "sing" in a great many, dare I say most, situations.

If you use contracted development to hold both the highlights and shadows, you clobber mid-tone local contrast. (This is the #1 sin committed by strict Zone System use.)

If you use expanded development to build mid-tone local contrast, you blow out the highlights.

If you use a strict compensating development scheme, you'll hold the highlights but you won't expand the mid-tones (see the first case above - exact same problem.)

There are only two ways I know to attack this problem:

1. Use SLIMT to calm the highlights down and then do expanded development.
2. Use semistand/EMA to hold down the highlights and simultaneous expand the mid-tones

So much of a print's vibrancy depends on those middle-tones, I find myself using this more and more and my prints are the better for it.

Here's a scan of a print by way of example . Huge SBR but the interesting stuff was in the mid tones:

Anon Ymous said:

As for cautioning newbies that stand development can result in bromide drag, I think it's fair to point out that there's a non trivial chance that things can go wrong, but others have been lucky. In the end it's their film and their time and effort.

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It's only "luck" if you are not systematic about it. I saw early results that were really encouraging even though they had development artefacts, so I set about the remove and vary variables until I had it more-or-less dialed in. At this point, I know exactly how to process the film to make it work, and the (few) films for which this does not work reliably. For scenes that benefit from this style of development, I just avoid those films.


P.S. I 100% agree this is not for beginners. I've said so repeatedly and also in my written notes. Someone has to have conventional development under control before they go down this road, and then only if their subjects merit and they are able to see and meter appropriately. Personally, I waited over 45 years to get started on this

@chuckroast Yes, I see why you like your technique, it gives you adequate midtone contrast, while keeping highlights at reasonable density. But by doing so, you also sacrifice highlight contrast, you drive the highlights to the shoulder of the characteristic curve, right? That's not wrong, it's a matter of taste. Others might value highlight contrast as well. And in my experience, "blown highlights" is something that very rarely happens. The detail is there, but perhaps hard to show on the print without burning in. Finally, the whole thing is irrelevant if you have a hybrid workflow where you can shape the curve any way you wish.

Anon Ymous said:

@chuckroast Yes, I see why you like your technique, it gives you adequate midtone contrast, while keeping highlights at reasonable density. But by doing so, you also sacrifice highlight contrast, you drive the highlights to the shoulder of the characteristic curve, right? That's not wrong, it's a matter of taste. Others might value highlight contrast as well. And in my experience, "blown highlights" is something that very rarely happens. The detail is there, but perhaps hard to show on the print without burning in. Finally, the whole thing is irrelevant if you have a hybrid workflow where you can shape the curve any way you wish.

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Points to ponder (just for conversational purposes, no agenda):

1. In a sufficiently large SBR, if you want to hold shadows, you absolutely will block the highlights if you also want to preserve midtone local contrast using conventional agitation.
   
   
2. A lot is written about just burning through the highlights, but this can be really tough to do in an analog workflow. For complex burn geometries it approaches being impossible. Try burning a complicated horizon profile between trees and clouds without getting a burn like ... it''s difficult.
   
   
3. No workflow, hybrid or otherwise, can preserve what is not there. Sure, you can fiddle the curves somewhat, but if the shadows are empty or the highlights completely featureless, no digital manipulation will save other, perhaps, than painting it in by hand.

As to the loss of highlight contrast, this was actually somewhat of a choice in the printing process. I actually burned the highlights down a little bit as I recall. In this case the burn geometry is relatively easy and I could have split VC printed the highlights "up" a bit.

Notice that however the highlights ended up though, there is really good tonal separation in the mid to dark tones as seen in the shadow areas in the upper third of the image.

My two cents...

For almost two years now I have been doing only semi-stand development with rodinal 1:100, always processing two 35 mm Fomapan 200 ASA rolls at a time (and some 40-year-old expired FP4 rolls) as specified in the following recipe:

Paterson PTP 115.
500 ml Rodinal 1:100 for two 35mm films a time.
Semi Standing. Starting, 10 inversions in 30" (3 sec inversion). Then 1 inversion after 30 '

I have never found any bromide drags or other artifacts (except fog in expired FP4 rolls), at whatever temperature (18° - 25°) I have processed the films: at higher temperatures I have only reduced the 60' required by 10-20%, roughly calculating.

The advantage is that the whole procedure becomes simpler: I set the timer to 30', do an inversion, and that's it. In the meantime I am free to work on anything I like. I no longer worry about temperature, time calculation, etc.

PS: I processed also three 6x6 Fomapan 200 rolls. No bromide drags at all.

Thanks to all

chuckroast said:

In a sufficiently large SBR, if you want to hold shadows, you absolutely will block the highlights if you also want to preserve midtone local contrast using conventional agitation.

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Honestly, I've never had a case where I got blocked highlights with general purpose film, regardless of developer. The only time I did have was with aerial reconnaissance film (Rollei Retro 80S), where I got a very pronounced shoulder and very narrow dynamic range when trying it with Pyrocat HD. Mind you, I am not talking about featureless highlights. This combination might have worked if I had persisted and tried shorter development times and a different exposure index, but I didn't see the point in trying.

chuckroast said:

A lot is written about just burning through the highlights, but this can be really tough to do in an analog workflow. For complex burn geometries it approaches being impossible. Try burning a complicated horizon profile between trees and clouds without getting a burn like ... it''s difficult

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No disagreement here, dodging and burning can be very hard. And it can be very obvious that some parts were burned, looking ugly.

chuckroast said:

No workflow, hybrid or otherwise, can preserve what is not there. Sure, you can fiddle the curves somewhat, but if the shadows are empty or the highlights completely featureless, no digital manipulation will save other, perhaps, than painting it in by hand.

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Yes, adequate exposure is required even in a hybrid workflow. And again, I haven't seen completely featureless highlights yet. I try to avoid overdevelopment and overall I'm careful when it comes to film development. But the flexibility of the hybrid workflow is unmatched and curve shape is much less important.

Anon Ymous said:

But the flexibility of the hybrid workflow is unmatched and curve shape is much less important.

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But it suffers one terrible drawback - there is no easy/convenient way to get a silver gelatin, platinum, or carbon print as the output without a lot of fiddling with digital internegatives. I have never considered the aggravation worth it. Moreover, I don't practice meticulous exposure control, maximize the dynamic range in my prints and all the rest of it, only to have it downconverted to sRGB on a $49 screen

pentaxuser said:

One question: If it is the fact that the bromide cannot move that prevents the streaks then why risk this with any agitation at all?
One statement: Two inversions a minute is certainly not used by any standard of stand development, semi-stand development or extreme minimal agitation i.e. those agitations used under the umbrella of variations of stand development that I have heard of. If you are using 2 inversions a minute then this resembles normal agitation and I wouldn't expect to see bromide drag anyway under this agitation regime. Indeed a leaflet I have from a bottle of the original Leverkusen Rodinal says: "Tilt every 30 secs"

This comes very close to your 2 gentle inversions a minute, doesn't it?

So just for clarity, are you inverting in a tank with a reel and the film held vertically and do you use the 2 gentle inversions a minute at the stand development dilution of 1+100 or is this for "normal" dilutions of 1+25 and 1+50 and the normal times recommended for those dilutions?

Thanks

pentaxuser

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I'm not following you. Agitation breaks up and disperses the bromide. That's why you agitate. I do not use Rodinal, but I have used it in the distant past. I use FX-39 now.

chuckroast said:

A little meta, but ...

Since the day I started exploring this some three years ago, I have noted a lot of strong opinions on the matter of low agitation/high dilution/high duration development. These sometimes rise to the level of heated disputes, and I don't why.

The easiest thing to do here is to ... try it. I will take examples over theory any day (and presumably learn from them). Throughout these threads, I've tried to provide notes and photographic examples of my own experience. I would love to see others do the same. If nothing else, it will get you out shooting.

In any case, I don't think the topic rises to the level of theological debate (or shouldn't, anyway). I see people doing good work with any number of techniques and benefit from them all.

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The streaking may not occur on negatives that are of areas of uniform brightness or vague shapes (clear sky, even with clouds, etc.). Look at the bromide drag on this film of the United Artists logo:

Augustus Caesar said:

Agitation breaks up and disperses the bromide.

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There's nothing about bromide ions in solution to be "broken up".

Also, I don't think the visual effect in the video you posted has anything to do with bromide drag. There are other causes that may result in this kind of streaking.

koraks said:

There's nothing about bromide ions in solution to be "broken up".

Also, I don't think the visual effect in the video you posted has anything to do with bromide drag. There are other causes that may result in this kind of streaking.

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You understand my meaning. The bromide is dispersed, preventing the formation of streaks. After processing many films, though, this bromide builds up, and that is why developers must be replenished or discarded (or developing times extended).

It is clear that the logo is showing bromide effects. Watch as the brackets change from black to white. The areas above and below the brackets change from light to dark. It's plain as day! There is nothing else that can cause that specific effect.

Bromide is a reaction product, and local accumulation of it can cause local slowing of development; bromide dissolving out of the film into the solution makes the solution locally denser.
But in that title, there is lightening both above and below the bracket shapes. Bromide would 'drag' downward; but up?

There is also the simpler adjacency effect, where an area of the film not consuming much developer leads to a locally high concentration of it, which can diffuse across to a neighbouring area where the demand for developer is higher (that is, driven simply by concentration difference, not gravity). Correspondingly, the presence of that high-demand area would rob the low-demand area of some of its developer, and the result, by diffusion alone, would be acutance. If it were driven by diffusion alone, that shouldn't be directional, but it clearly is vertical, so I wonder if there has been slow circulation moving the developer from the bracket pattern, driven by the gravity-flow of solution due to differences in bromide density.

I have a couple of photos with slight pale streaks upward from dark chimneys on a bright sky. In the negative, that dark chimney is a clear area, consuming little developer and releasing little bromide; maybe there's upward 'drag', as the low-bromide solution becomes buoyant relative to the liquid around it, which is getting denser. I'm just thinking aloud.

Dustin McAmera said:

Bromide is a reaction product, and local accumulation of it can cause local slowing of development; bromide dissolving out of the film into the solution makes the solution locally denser.
But in that title, there is lightening both above and below the bracket shapes. Bromide would 'drag' downward; but up?

There is also the simpler adjacency effect, where an area of the film not consuming much developer leads to a locally high concentration of it, which can diffuse across to a neighbouring area where the demand for developer is higher (that is, driven simply by concentration difference, not gravity). Correspondingly, the presence of that high-demand area would rob the low-demand area of some of its developer, and the result, by diffusion alone, would be acutance. If it were driven by diffusion alone, that shouldn't be directional, but it clearly is vertical, so I wonder if there has been slow circulation moving the developer from the bracket pattern, driven by the gravity-flow of solution due to differences in bromide density.

I have a couple of photos with slight pale streaks upward from dark chimneys on a bright sky. In the negative, that dark chimney is a clear area, consuming little developer and releasing little bromide; maybe there's upward 'drag', as the low-bromide solution becomes buoyant relative to the liquid around it, which is getting denser. I'm just thinking aloud.

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Consider the fact that this strip of logo has been copied over and over, processed many times, in both negative and positive form, and likely fed through processing tanks in both directions. The repeated copying would tend to accentuate any density differences. I remember reading that the intro to Gunsmoke had to be re-shot at least once because the film had worn out.