"Stand Development" when is it called for.......if ever?

I photograph mostly in the woods, swamps and marshes along the Georgia-Florida line where there are extremes of contrast - SBR 10, 11, or more. Using extreme minus development to bring the highlights into the paper’s range gives unsatisfactory prints. I’ve found extreme minimal agitation with dilute Pyrocat (HD or PC) gives sharp negatives with shadow detail, mid tone contrast, and tamed highlights.

As was said earlier, minimal agitation is a tool to be used if needed.

markbarendt said:

Your use of stand is a good use of stand. You have real reasons and it's easy to prove that stand solves your problem. There is nothing wrong with your logic or even suggesting others try it for that reason.

Where I get sideways with people promoting stand is when they claim that there is compensation in the highlights and more shadow detail and it still has snappy mid-tones and it prints easier. On that point, until somebody actually shows us their math from a proper test proving that it works that way, I'm calling BS.

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I was going to offer a rebuttal, but then decided why bother. Stand and semi-stand work for me. After 50 years of b&w darkroom experience I don't feel the need to justify anything to anyone.

Did anyone look at the two examples I provided a link to?? I would like to think they would have promoted some constructive dialog, but no such luck. I guess once we make up our minds about something, that's the end of the story. Ahh, human nature.

Eric Rose said:

I was going to offer a rebuttal, but then decided why bother. Stand and semi-stand work for me. After 50 years of b&w darkroom experience I don't feel the need to justify anything to anyone.

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If it works for you, that’s great, again, my gripe is with the myth.

markbarendt said:

If it works for you, that’s great, again, my gripe is with the myth.

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Why do you find it necessary to take such a strong and imho devisive stance? It's just a development technique not an attack on your religion or country.

paulbarden said:

My experiments using "Stand" development for 120 roll film formats produced unsatisfactory results every time, and were quickly abandoned. However.....

See: https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbarden/37084266351/in/dateposted/

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paulbarden said:

Did anyone look at the two examples I provided a link to?? I would like to think they would have promoted some constructive dialog, but no such luck. I guess once we make up our minds about something, that's the end of the story. Ahh, human nature.

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Well actually, yes i did.

1) No math was provided regarding the film curve.
Given that you don’t know if you got compensation in the higher tones or if stand just gave you a bit of a pull.

2) No math was provided regarding the digital corrections.

Until you measure and show the math, your guessing about what’s really happening.

Eric Rose said:

Why do you find it necessary to take such a strong and imho devisive stance? It's just a development technique not an attack on your religion or country.

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Why does the entire stand community seem so reluctant to show their math?

I think that people who have taken objection to my comments are missing the point. I personally do not care what methodology people choose to use so long as they get the results that they want. Our negatives hold the results of considerable time and effort finding images that we wish to present. Prints (or scans) can always be repeated but if a roll of film is ruined nothing more can be done.

The principal point is that the title of this thread is “Stand Development" when is it called for.......if ever? and I made my personal point that I do not see why anyone would need to use it and, more importantly, have seen too many people who have tried the technique and ended up with ruined films - even more annoyingly they had only tried stand development because they had read on forums that it was the magic solution to everything.

“David, have you even tried stand or semi-stand with Pyrocat-HD with large format film?” No Andrew I have not because the last time that I used large format was over 30 years ago. However, I never had the feeling that these large format negatives lacked sharpness and I never encountered a scene that couldn’t be beautifully rendered through precise exposure and development.

“Did anyone look at the two examples I provided a link to?? I would like to think they would have promoted some constructive dialog, but no such luck”. Yes Paul I did look but could see very little difference of any significance (at least on a computer monitor) between the two images. What do you feel that the two images demonstrate.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/rodinal-minimal-agitation-and-stand-development.39206/
Here is my rough experiment from 9 years ago illustrating enhanced edge effects with Rodinal.
Actually I never use Rodinal for stand development as I found that occasional unevenness could be obtained agitating less frequently than every 3 min.
As mentioned in the Film Developing Cookbook, Glycin in Crawley's FX-2 developer is probably less prone to giving uneven results, But that was before the formulation of Pyrocat.

Edge effects ARE enhanced significantly with stand/semi-stand in the right developer. That is why I stand/semi-stand in Pyrocat-HD. Other developers such as Rodinol, fall short in my opinion. What objective evidence would you like? Side by side comparisons?

markbarendt said:

Why does the entire stand community seem so reluctant to show their math?

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Why are you so stuck on seeing it? Let it go, be happy, live and let live.

My mother always had a great way to deal with things people said that she felt was questionable at best. She would just smile and tell them whatever they said sounded fantastic.

Any less than the obtuse would recognize they had just been told they were full of it. The conversation could move on to other things without out an argument.

If the subject was something of REAL importance, something that might affect your life in 5 years, then an intelligent, respectful discussion could ensue.

As far as the subject at hand, I'm not a "math" guy. I have a spectrometer but have never used it. What I have done is years of working towards producing rich expressive b&w prints.

I have used subjective rigor to find the processes and materials that allow me to realize my stated goals. People who enjoy and buy my art do so because it speaks to them. Not because it follows some math principle.

This will be my last post in this thread. Gearheads and scientists will in most cases never see eye to eye with artists. Each work on their own plain and each produce what is satisfying to them. It's not about being right or wrong it's about being different and accepting that.

Right on, Eric!

Whether a developer produces edge effects depends on the bromide potential of the developing agents used in the developer. The bromide potential measures just how sensitive a particular agent is to bromide. Obviously the more sensitive the greater the edge effect produced. Typically an acutance developer uses metol at a ph of ~10. An example would be the Beutler formula. It also is a measure of how probable bromide will be.

David Allen said:

“Did anyone look at the two examples I provided a link to?? I would like to think they would have promoted some constructive dialog, but no such luck”. Yes Paul I did look but could see very little difference of any significance (at least on a computer monitor) between the two images. What do you feel that the two images demonstrate.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

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David,
I can’t help but think that if you didn’t see any difference between the two, then you didn’t really examine the images. Read the “info” page to see what I said about the two negatives, please. I stated quite clearly what I feel the images demonstrate.
All I am saying is that “stand”development might offer some creative controls that might not be as easily had by other methods, and only sometimes is it “useful”: by no means is it the Unicorn Of Film Processing.

michael_r said:

Nice try, but there is no such dichotomy. I can be every bit the artist you are while still understanding sensitometry. Some knowledge of the science of photography does not preclude the making of great art.

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Understanding what’s really happening allows us to make changes without guessing.

michael_r said:

Nice try, but there is no such dichotomy. I can be every bit the artist you are while still understanding sensitometry. Some knowledge of the science of photography does not preclude the making of great art.

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Utilizing sensitometry in ones work is not requisite for the making of great art.

markbarendt said:

Understanding what’s really happening allows us to make changes without guessing.

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I do hope you’re not suggesting that photographers who do not employ sophisticated measuring tools and the math involved are simply “guessing” when making creative choices they make.

Avoiding sensitometry in some form, is pretty unavoidable in photography. I agree with markbarendt. A densitometre can quickly pinpoint what is going on, etc.

paulbarden said:

I do hope you’re not suggesting that photographers who do not employ sophisticated measuring tools and the math involved are simply “guessing” when making creative choices they make.

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What I’m saying is that it is reasonable to ask people who suggest and promote a technical reason for why stand works to ‘show their math’.

IMO It’s ok to say ‘I don’t know why, but this works for me’.

Andrew’s link to Steve Sherman’s thought shows stand creating a low contrast neg and regular development creating normal contrast. What it doesn’t show is what a pull would do.

The other thing is that either of Steve’s would need some adjustment during printing or scanning. That is simply the nature of every process needing a second exposure to get to a positive.

some folks do stand or semi stand some folks don't .. some folks get bad results, some folks don't...
i wonder if the folks who get less-good results have done the film/developer tests they people typically do for other film and developer used ..
or modified how they put their film in the developer or if/when they slosh it around at some point, or figured out their own sweet spot for dilution &c
i always wonder when people say " this stinks, this doesn't work " &c if they have done their homework and used it (whatever IT might be ) before coming to that opinion...
i usually stick to something for a while before i decide its not for me ...

markbarendt said:

Where I get sideways with people promoting stand is when they claim that there is compensation in the highlights and more shadow detail and it still has snappy mid-tones and it prints easier.

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I suspect there's a bit of woo-woo going on there.

For me stand developed negs print well because there's only one variable (rodinal per roll) and thus it's fairly easy to dial in the target.

David Allen said:

have seen too many people who have tried the technique and ended up with ruined films

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I've come across this plenty of time, and it annoys me too. In my experience it's because people get told the wrong advice, e.g. they get told to use 5ml Rodinal (with the author neglecting to explain he/she processes TWO rolls in that), or to use 1:100 (without being told that's for one roll of 135 in 290ml total quantity).

Unfortunately the mind sees what it wants to see. Sensitometry has no built in bias.

Andrew O'Neill said:

http://www.powerofprocesstips.com/2017/06/07/response-to-transparent-article/

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I managed to compare the two negatives without knowing which was normal and which was minimal agitation and frankly in terms of looks, apparent detail, sharpness etc the minimal agitation one wins "hands down". However and this is purely "by eye", I had difficulty believing that the highlight densities were as different as the measurements stated by Steve Sherman show they are. I note that the two negatives were not developed in the same developer. The less attractive one( in my book) was ABC Pyro with constant agitation and the more attractive was Pyrocat HD with minimal agitation. So there were two variables in the form of 2 developers and two different methods. It begs the question, in my mind, what would have been the results had it been 4 identical scenes with 4 negatives , each negative having been both constant and minimal agitation. A pity that Steve Sherman doesn't at least acknowledge this.

For those relatively inexperienced at translating what they see in a negative into a finished print it is a pity that prints of each were not exhibited so that a comparison could be made by those trying to learn what minimal agitation can achieve

I note one further thing from trying to digest this whole thread. 1. The developer cited in the article as successful is Pyrocat HD which others have mentioned. It may be that this particular developer lends itself to minimal agitation and that from this the caveat that all developers do not lend themselves to minimal agitation needs greater emphasis. Not to stress such caveats in fact might lead to the "euphoria to despair" phenomenon that the seekers of magic bullets are often subject to.

In other words the subject under debate is not whether stand development is better as per the thread's title but whether certain developers, one being Pyrocat HD produce a negative that other developers with normal agitation cannot achieve thus making the subsequent prints better or at least as good as those with normal agitation negatives but without a great deal more darkroom manipulation required of the prints from those normal agitation negatives

pentaxuser