Streaks with an experimental developer

Tumbles · Mar 31, 2020

I've been experimenting Anneman-Gainer Developer. I found the formula here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/carljmoss/6244540929

It's meant for stand development, and it's supposed to give a two stop push. My goal is to be able to shoot Rollei Infrared with 720nm filter at ISO 50. From the results I've gotten it looks like this is going to work out, except I'm getting a lot of streaking. A lot of it looks to be coming from the sprocket holes. I only shoot infrared in 120, so I'm not sure if this will be as much of a problem.

Does anyone know of anything I can do reduce this?

koraks · Mar 31, 2020

Looking at the film strips, I'd say that you are dealing with a problem of optical/light fogging and not necessarily a development issue. Notice how the bottom strip suffers from severe fog throughout the film width, while it is already significantly less at the 3rd strip and almost gone at the top strip. This implies that there was a light leak somewhere, possibly related to the development tank (faulty light trap) where the first frames are at the center of the tank, close to the core, and the last images on the roll are on the outside.

Rudeofus · Mar 31, 2020

I see three artifacts here:

slightly uneven lighting
poorly reproducible fogging of the film
visible streaks around the sprocket holes

The fog may come from differences in TEA quality. If your TEA gives higher pH, you will get fog. Maybe add something to lower pH until your film remains fog free.
The streaks come from inadequate agitation. There are multiple "churches of stand development", and the most sensible preach "agitate at least every five minutes to avoid streaks and bromide drag".

138S · Mar 31, 2020

The bromide drags are from low agitation. If you were using sheets instead rolls a solution would be developing in trays, in that way the film horizontal position does not help gravity to make the drags.

You may try semi stand, or agitating very, very gently several times during development, not enough to refresh much the chem inside emulsion but diluting a bit the bromide concentration on film surface.

Let mention that the drags are not the dark ones falling under perforations, but the the lighter ones falling between perforations. The drag comes from denser bromide falling, and as Br is a restrainer less silver is developed.

Most of speed increase comes more from the stand development than from the developer itself, so you may use other stand recipes not producing drags.

In the stand development you get more effective speed in the shadows from what would be an "excessive" development, but in low agitation conditions that development is not that excessive in the highlights because local Br contamination in the highlights slows development locally, so you have a "compensation". It is often said that the developent in the highlights is slowed because of developer exhaustion, but main effect comes from Br generated by development in the highlights, which restrains development. Bromide drags are proof, as bromide falls down it restrains developent in the drag.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Mar 31, 2020

Tumbles said:
I've been experimenting Anneman-Gainer Developer. I found the formula here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/carljmoss/6244540929

Does anyone know of anything I can do reduce this?

You may want to message the person who posted the formula with examples on flickr and find out if he too faced this problem and what was the solution he found. Just a suggestion.

Tumbles · Mar 31, 2020

Thank for the suggestions. Maybe switching to minimal agitation is the thing to do. I'll likely try that next. Just for reference, here's how each film strip was processed:

1. 1:100, 60 minutes
2. 1:100, 90 minutes
3. 1:50, 60 minutes
4. 1:50, 90 minutes

I did 30 seconds initial inversions, and 5 inversions every 30 minutes. These are from ISO 6 to 200 in 1 stop increments.

koraks · Apr 1, 2020

OK, I did not realize you developed these strips separately. That obviously makes my earlier comment irrelevant.
I agree that a semi-stand/minimal agitation approach is probably a better idea. And also keep the development time limited to an hour if the 1:50 dilution is used.

Your test was actually pretty neat in determining the boundaries within which fog remains acceptable!

138S · Apr 1, 2020

Tumbles said:
Maybe switching to minimal agitation is the thing to do.

Pyro developers are specially suitable for minimal agitation because they have less chances to produce drags. This is because a great share of the density is made with stain, so not producing Bromide that it's what produces the drags.

In the other side Pyro chem is less safe than other developers, so extra care has to be played with that chem.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Apr 1, 2020

138S said:
Pyro developers are specially suitable for minimal agitation

I think OP is interested in Anneman-Gainer developer specifically because of the two stops push it supposedly gives. How would you make Pyro developers do the same for him?

Pentode · Apr 1, 2020

Just out of curiosity, have you tried the suggested agitation and higher temperature recommended by Anneman-Gainer? It might be worthwhile to start there and use it as a point of departure, gradually working your way toward stand developing at lower temperatures. It’s hard to get your bearings if you start out changing too many things at once.

138S · Apr 1, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
I think OP is interested in Anneman-Gainer developer specifically because of the two stops push it supposedly gives. How would you make Pyro developers do the same for him?

Hello Ragu,

From my experience with POTA, I doubt a lot that Anneman-Gainer is to deliver a 2 stops speed increase in Rollei infrared, as it isn't the kind of monodisperse emulsion in what POTA or XR-1 would allow a such an true speed gain.

That link says:

"Perfection XR-1 seems to have been based on POTA and was capable of pushing ultra-fine grain and microfilms by two stops while keeping grain small and contrast acceptable." (Rollei IR is 400 grains, not ultra fine grains).

So those "two stops" are for CMS 20 and for Techpan, not for pictorial class films ! when OP says "it's supposed to give a two stop push" for Rollei IR I guess it's a very optimistic suposition.

In my opinion OP with XR-1 is to have a similar true speed gain than with other Speed increasing developers, or with stand development. Sure you agree stand allows (if wanting that) to overdevelop more the shadows than the highlights, as Br contamination restrains development in the highlights.

In that side by side APX 25 (Bluefire) is shot at EI 80, 1.5 stops, pushing a film it's easy, anyone may shot Tri-X at 1600 with regular developers, but true speed is another matter because when we push a higher EI then we loss shadow detail, a custom development won't solve that much.

Silver halides want light, those crystals not electronicaly charged won't develop a latent image, only fog, there are no (true speed) 2 stops miracles with pictorial film.

...considering true speed is related to speed point, that exposure building 0.1D over F+B.

What I mean is that we may make a 2 stops push with any developer, but XR-1won't be much different about true speed.

Lachlan Young · Apr 1, 2020

If you're getting bromide drag, it's because you're giving way too little agitation. End of story. No fancy magic pyro bullets or whatever are going to help. And the Rollei Infrared/ 200S re-purposed aerial film etc is really about an EI of 125 at sea level without filtration. Work from there, and you might find things a little more logical.

Rudeofus · Apr 1, 2020

138S said:
What I mean is that we may make a 2 stops push with any developer, but XR-1won't be much different about true speed.

If you look at the H&D curve, even that of very modern film will have a pronounced toe. If your subject matter is within this toe region, forced development can determine, whether this toe contrast is just high enough to make a grade 5 enlargement look ok. I accidentally once underexposed Delta 3200, I tried to expose at EI1600, but then set the lens to F/32 instead of F/11. I gave that roll a hefty dose of overdevelopment, and could get wetprinted images out of that roll. Grain was the size of golf balls, and there is no shadow detail to speak of, but the negs were printable. Weaker development would have required grade 7 or 8, something my enlarger can't do.

The attached images are examples of scanned 18x24cm prints made from 6x7 negatives. Obviously there was no two stop speed gain or anything, but I did get images.

138S · Apr 1, 2020

Rudeofus said:
Grain was the size of golf balls, and there is no shadow detail to speak of, but the negs were printable. Weaker development would have required grade 7 or 8, something my enlarger can't do.

Of course... pushing is to make the toe more printable, but true speed is not much enhanced.

Anyway not all modern films have a pronounced toe, for example TMX / Y are very linear, for example.

Tumbles · Apr 1, 2020

Here's one of the filtered ISO 50 frames. This is good enough for me.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Apr 2, 2020

Tumbles said:
From the results I've gotten it looks like this is going to work out, except I'm getting a lot of streaking.

Does anyone know of anything I can do reduce this?

I did a google search for "Anneman-Gainer" and the first result I got was this page:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/84061069@N00/discuss/72157627914653801/

It says this: "Some of the films were prone to uneven development particularly around sprocket holes but this was greatly reduced when everything was kept scrupulously to the same temperature. Uneven development was also reduced by a presoak with wetting agent."

Tumbles · Apr 2, 2020

Looks like processing it the same way I do Rodinal stand would be another thing to try. I've always thrown everything in a bucket of water the night before to try and make sure the temperature is even across everything. I was never sure if this was overkill, but I have yet to see any bromide drag with Rodinal stand.

Thanks for pointing that out.

138S · Apr 2, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
"Uneven development was also reduced by a presoak with wetting agent."

Ilford datasheets say that presoaking may lead to uneven development. Presoak removes surfactants that modern films have in the emulsion to ensure an even development, modern films are designed to not require presoak, presoak advice in ancient literature was for emulsions of that era, but this changed many decades ago for film made by principal manufacturers.

Anyway a long enough presoak won't harm, risk is making a presoak that's too short.

That effect has been missleading, some concluded that if a short presoaking pitfall was leading to uneven development then solution was a longer presoaking, when the good solution is not presoaking at all, as modern film is designed for a perfect development without any presoaking operation.

"No presoaking" and a "long presoaking" are good. Problem is a short presoak. The shuffle method for developing sheets require presoak, if not the sheets in the stack are adhered one to the other.

Rudeofus · Apr 2, 2020

138S said:
Anyway not all modern films have a pronounced toe, for example TMX / Y are very linear, for example.

Delta 3200 would be an archetypical case of a film with a narrow toe, yet its toe is there and covers quite some range of exposure. Look at these three H&D curves, these are the most advanced B&W film which come to my mind, and for each film there are at least 1 or 2 stops of toe region with contrast ranging from completely useless all the way to printable:

Delta3200:

TMAX 3200:

TMAX 400

138S · Apr 2, 2020

Rudeofus said:
for each film there are at least 1 or 2 stops of toe region

As each H unit is 3 1/3 stops the range in the TMX/Y thats's not linear but usable is under 1/2 stop. Additionally you usually have a lot of flare % in that region, so usable toe of TMX and Delta is quite irrelevant.

Instead TX and TXP , for example, have a non linear behaviour until well higher densities, TXP (depending on processing) may be non linear until 0.5D, a particular case is TXP (EI 80) in HC-110 (1:31, around 5 min IIRC), which allows a creative shadow detail compression that's amazing for some kind of portraits. Several portraiture gurus have been using that resource alongside with other features in that curve.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Apr 2, 2020

138S said:
presoak advice in ancient literature was for emulsions of that era,

Since the advice for pre-soak came from the person who has first hand experience of using Anneman-Gainer developer on a variety of films and who had himself faced same problems as OP, I think it would be prudent to listen to his advice. His workflow includes a 5 minutes pre-soak in water + wetting agent.

138S · Apr 2, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Since the advice for pre-soak came from the person who has first hand experience of using Anneman-Gainer developer on a variety of films and who had himself faced same problems as OP, I think it would be prudent to listen to his advice. His workflow includes a 5 minutes pre-soak in water + wetting agent.

Yes, it's prudent following that first hand experience, but let me reiterate that I'm really skeptical that pre-soak may solve anything, sorry, but I see pre-soak as only a source of potential problems if no well done, anyway a 5 min pre-soak sure it's long enough to not damage film.

Anyway I don't see the possibility that pre-soaking has an interaction with bromide drags, what I see is that XR-1 is a very low density soup, concentrate is only this:

Dissolve in 100ml of hot triethanolamine
Phenidone 3.8g
Metol 0.6g
Ascorbic Acid 2.3g
Borax 1.9g

And you dissolve that 1:200 , then the XR-1 soup is to have a similar density than clear water...

Instead D-76, for example, contains 100grs of sulfite per 1L stock, with the soup sporting a higher density than water.

As Bromide drags are produced by the denser Bromide rich liquid falling down perhaps that low developer density has an influence.

Another potential effect would be if Bromide has a higher restrainer effect in that developer, because there is low Metol content which has the high REDOX.

Rudeofus · Apr 2, 2020

138S said:
As each H unit is 3 1/3 stops the range in the TMX/Y thats's not linear but usable is under 1/2 stop. Additionally you usually have a lot of flare % in that region, so usable toe of TMX and Delta is quite irrelevant.

There is no such flare problem if the whole scene mostly lies within the toe region. Nobody in his right mind would suggest pushing for well lit scenes, except for maybe very special artistic purposes.

Regarding toe region: I cropped the toe region of TMY-II and marked the toe region of the pushed curve, and I do see at least a whole stop of variable contrast toe region, some of which actually reaches into the ΔD>0.1 area. The toes of graphs showing lesser development are even longer:

laser · Apr 2, 2020

Use D-76.

138S · Apr 2, 2020

Rudeofus said:
There is no such flare problem if the whole scene mostly lies within the toe region. Nobody in his right mind would suggest pushing for well lit scenes, except for maybe very special artistic purposes.

Regarding toe region: I cropped the toe region of TMY-II and marked the toe region of the pushed curve, and I do see at least a whole stop of variable contrast toe region, some of which actually reaches into the ΔD>0.1 area. The toes of graphs showing lesser development are even longer:

View attachment 243185

Well, this is elastic my view is a bit more restrictive (clik to enlarge):

At left of that you have nothing worth.

Streaks with an experimental developer

Tumbles

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Raghu Kuvempunagar

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Streaks with an experimental developer

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