Stand edge effects with 3 developers

Alan Johnson · Nov 2, 2007

Earlier I identified some films that produce edge effects with Rodinal stand development,see post 7 here:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
Films are Adox/Efke 25 and 100,Plus-X,Tri-X and HP5.
Now I tested FX-2 (stand),Rodinal and Pyrocat HD (semi-stand) for edge effects with Plus-X 120 printed 11x14.Pictures were of buildings along a river bank taken from a bridge, sun/shade. All 3 developers gave slight haloes (edge effects) round dark buildings,My impressions:
FX-2 half strength -ISO 100, halo slightly obscured by grain.
Rodinal 1:200 -ISO 64,very sharp edges, not much halo.
Pyrocat HD 1:1:200 -ISO 100,quite sharp,probably the most halo(edge effect)
For Plus-X I used Pyrocat HD 1:1:200 agitate 1min,stand till 25 min then agitate 10 sec then stand till 50min 68F, prints on grade 2.

Any observations on stand/semi stand effects?

Alan Johnson · Nov 2, 2007

Forgot to mention that in the case of the semi-stand developed negs the 1/4 inch of negative nearest the top of the plastic reel was overdeveloped (due to some flow effect?) and was not printed. For the stand developed negs the top 3/4 inch was overdeveloped.

gainer · Nov 2, 2007

I presume you checked these halo effects with a magnifier to see how much was due to the eye's treatment of sharp images. When you got the most halo, was the effect pleasing or a spectacle in itself? I have seen some that made me think I should have agitated more.

Alan Johnson · Nov 2, 2007

I have stood the pyrocat semi stand developed print alongside one that was developed with normal agitation and comparing the two from a couple of feet away can see that the semi stand one has a slight halo and the other does not.
There is no doubt the effect is real, my experiments photographing gray card on black card show light lines that are easily visible in 10x enlargements and under the microscope.
Is it pleasing?Well I like to think it is a way of providing apparent sharpness so yes.

sanking · Nov 2, 2007

Alan Johnson said:
Forgot to mention that in the case of the semi-stand developed negs the 1/4 inch of negative nearest the top of the plastic reel was overdeveloped (due to some flow effect?) and was not printed. For the stand developed negs the top 3/4 inch was overdeveloped.

I like the extra sharpness one can get with semi-stand developed film, but the uneven development you describe would be a big concern. How did you develop the negatives? In a tray, tube, slosher?

Sandy

Alan Johnson · Nov 2, 2007

My initial test with pyrocat semi stand was just to look at edge effects and not the best technique. 120 film was loaded onto a Paterson plastic reel and developed in a Paterson plastic tank using 550ml developer instead of the recommended 500ml.
The Rodinal negs all had 1/4 inch at the top of the reel overdeveloped and some apparent airbells.The pyrocat negs look more uniformly developed but still had airbells and to avoid these I did not print the top 1/4 inch of negative.
It is possible that if the airbells can be avoided with a presoak and possibly with a stainless reel and tank there may be no uniformity problem with Pyrocat semi stand,I have not tried this yet.

Steve Sherman · Nov 2, 2007

Agitation

It is my experience that the particular method of agitation is extremely critical with any reduced agitation form of development.

I might suggest that with roll film the agitation process must take place in a rolling manner thereby reducing the amount of chemistry build up and runoff from the edge of each reel and then returning to an upright position to "stand".

Maybe someday there will be discussion on the creative possibilities the technique affords the photographer rather than just a reference to increased sharpness.

Cheers!

Uhner · Nov 2, 2007

"Maybe someday there will be discussion on the creative possibilities the technique affords the photographer rather than just a reference to increased sharpness."

I’d like to read that. However, I must confess that I occasionally find myself struggling with the basics so I’m not one to participate…

All best
Claes

sanking · Nov 2, 2007

Steve Sherman said:
It is my experience that the particular method of agitation is extremely critical with any reduced agitation form of development.

I might suggest that with roll film the agitation process must take place in a rolling manner thereby reducing the amount of chemistry build up and runoff from the edge of each reel and then returning to an upright position to "stand".

Maybe someday there will be discussion on the creative possibilities the technique affords the photographer rather than just a reference to increased sharpness.

Cheers!

Steve,

Although I am aware of many of the creative possibilities of stand and semi-stand development I normally mention only the issue of sharpness because that is primary reason why I would practice this type of agitation.

However, don't be modest. Readers should know that you published two excellent articles on the use of stand and semi-stand development in View Camera. May I suggest that you consider sending these article to Ed Buffaloe at unblinkingeye.com, who I think would be very interested in placing them on his site. That way should someone ask about this technique in the future we can direct the interested party to the web site with your articles. Just for the record, a number of articles that were first published in View Camera can be seen at www.unblinkingeye.com.

Check it out if interested by contacting Ed directly.

Sandy

noseoil · Nov 3, 2007

Efke 100 & Pyrocat

Alan, here's a crop from a 35mm shot done with Efke 100, pyrocat-hd and minimal agitation. The crop is from a 5x7 print, which was actually only about 1/2 of the film's area in the enlargement. The edge effects can be clearly seen at areas of higher contrast. This was done with a dilution of 1:1:150 and a rest of 3 minutes between agitation cycles. It seems to be the most edge I have in a print, which shows the effects of slow development on this film. In a larger format, this edge would not be so pronounced, due to the smaller enlargement factor. The sharpness is still quite evident when using minimal agitation or stand development in larger formats. Shadows are much better detailed and sharper than those in a normal agitation scheme and overall tonality is better than anything else I have developed. Thanks again Sandy. Best, tim

Alan Johnson · Nov 3, 2007

It looks rather 3-dimensional to me tim.
More info on the creative possibilities would be welcome to me too.

gainer · Nov 3, 2007

Excuse me for acting the Devil's advocate, but I would like to see the other side of the sailor. It looks somewhat like rim lighting to me, partly because the width of the line varies more with position than with density difference. It certianly adds to the 3-D effect whichever it is. A better test, I think, would be a dark-light boundary on a flat surface where light cannot come from behind the test surface. In other words, are you sure you would NOT see the same visual effect looking directly at the original scene?

noseoil · Nov 4, 2007

Oh ye of little faith!

" In other words, are you sure you would NOT see the same visual effect looking directly at the original scene?" pat

A fair question pat, but here is another copy. I looked for the same print, but only found a warm tone version, so hopefully it will suffice for the sake of argument. The only way to "see" this image as it was taken and then printed, would be to use a pair of 3-D glasses or perhaps a few micrograms of LSD (not sure about magic mushrooms, but the jury is still out on that one). A rim lighting effect could have contributed to the edge effects here, but since the light is from the front / right, I don't think it is the light but film and developer combination which is showing an edge. Take a look at the lower portions of both arms against the wall, the edge effect is still there on both sides. The trade off, in this case, seems to be with enlarged grain (clumping, as it were) due to protracted development.

Second image was a TX400 shot with semi-stand development and pyrocat. Twice the time with very little edge effect, but it is a 6x6 shot, so enlargement isn't really a fair comparison. Best, tim

P.S. The kid in the pictures is my son in his "Sea cadets" uniform last fall. He has since joined the Army and will ship out to Iraq in March. Second shot was of him on leave last month. There are still some decent kids out there.

George Collier · Nov 4, 2007

Regarding the surge effects doing 120 (semi) stand development. I spent quite a bit of time with Trix and Tmax400 120, with Rodinal and Pyrocat HC trying to find some combination of intitial agitation, and interim agitation, from 1-2 min initial, and 1,2,or 3 interim periods of 15-20 sec over a 18 - 30 minute development time. Some a 2minute presoak, some none. All were done with a SS nikkor type reel and tank. Some filled the tank with developer, some just enough to cover the reel. Most of the interim agitations were rolling the tank side to side, as was suggested above. I even put a reel in a small 4x5 development tank (made for hangers) and just lifted it in and out for agitation. I had serveral PM's with Don Cardwell about it, who has a personal interest in Rodinal. In the end, not one roll was totally free of surge problems (and not repeatable either), even the PyroHD, so I abandoned the idea, and just did my Trix in HC110, no edge magic, but no surge either.
Then recently I tried a roll of FP4 with Pyro HD -
2.4:1.6:400 Pyrocat HD (don't ask)
Dev at 73º, 1 min presoak, agitate 1.75 min,
develop for 30min, agitate 15 sec every 10 minutes (one inversion and rolling)
Hunky dory - beautiful negs.
so, I'm guessing the problem is with the Trix?

gainer · Nov 5, 2007

noseoil said:
" In other words, are you sure you would NOT see the same visual effect looking directly at the original scene?" pat

A fair question pat, but here is another copy. I looked for the same print, but only found a warm tone version, so hopefully it will suffice for the sake of argument. The only way to "see" this image as it was taken and then printed, would be to use a pair of 3-D glasses or perhaps a few micrograms of LSD (not sure about magic mushrooms, but the jury is still out on that one). A rim lighting effect could have contributed to the edge effects here, but since the light is from the front / right, I don't think it is the light but film and developer combination which is showing an edge. Take a look at the lower portions of both arms against the wall, the edge effect is still there on both sides. The trade off, in this case, seems to be with enlarged grain (clumping, as it were) due to protracted development.

Second image was a TX400 shot with semi-stand development and pyrocat. Twice the time with very little edge effect, but it is a 6x6 shot, so enlargement isn't really a fair comparison. Best, tim

P.S. The kid in the pictures is my son in his "Sea cadets" uniform last fall. He has since joined the Army and will ship out to Iraq in March. Second shot was of him on leave last month. There are still some decent kids out there.

My question really was whether or not the light coming from the front and side was reflecting off some part of the wall behind, thus increasing the edge effect.

Alan Johnson · Nov 6, 2007

Here is a magnified picture of a gray card on a black card,originally printed enlarged x10. Plus-X,Pyrocat HD semi stand 50min 68F. The scale at the bottom has 1mm small divisions.
There is a light line on the gray card at the edge by the black card about 1mm wide.

noseoil · Nov 6, 2007

Alan, interesting shot above. Would be curious to see the same thing with your other films. Nice way of showing the difference. tim

gainer · Nov 6, 2007

Alan Johnson said:
Here is a magnified picture of a gray card on a black card,originally printed enlarged x10. Plus-X,Pyrocat HD semi stand 50min 68F. The scale at the bottom has 1mm small divisions.
There is a light line on the gray card at the edge by the black card about 1mm wide.

Still not quite convinced this one is not an optical illusion. When I hold a white card against the screen and move it to where it just obscures the darker area, I could not see a definite white line. There is enough randomness in the image on both sides to obscure it to me. Maybe I'm not looking at it right. I'll have to try it myself with various developers to see if I can see it

Is the texture the surface of the cards or is it grain?

Alan Johnson · Nov 6, 2007

I think the texture is the reflection of direct flash on the surface of Ilford Multigrade pearl paper.
Actually the line is rather more visible on the original print(10x enlargement).

Stand edge effects with 3 developers

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