T-Max in D76 (1:3) for greater sharpness (?)

Hello!

I have added several of Thomas Krebs's superb photographs to my list of favorites. Many of them display the kind of sharpness I'd like to achieve in my own photos.

Here's one example : (there was a url link here which no longer exists).


As I'm new to the art of black and white film photography (it's been only 3 or 4 months since I set up my darkroom), what I'm going to ask you is probably a newbie question. I use T-Max 400 developed in D76. Would I be right to suppose that I must underexpose the film by one or two stops and then overdevelop it?

If that is right, what would be a good development time to begin experimenting with T-Max in D76 at 1:3?

Kodak's pdf file on T-Max says nothing about developing it in a 1:3 solution.

Thanks!

Edimilson said:

Hello!

I have added several of Thomas Krebs's superb photographs to my list of favorites. Many of them display the kind of sharpness I'd like to achieve in my own photos.

Here's one example : (there was a url link here which no longer exists).


As I'm new to the art of black and white film photography (it's been only 3 or 4 months since I set up my darkroom), what I'm going to ask you is probably a newbie question. I use T-Max 400 developed in D76. Would I be right to suppose that I must underexpose the film by one or two stops and then overdevelop it?

If that is right, what would be a good development time to begin experimenting with T-Max in D76 at 1:3?

Kodak's pdf file on T-Max says nothing about developing it in a 1:3 solution.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Note that Thomas Krebs developed the image you cited in Moersch Tanol. Moersch Tanol is a staining and tanning developer that delivers good acutance and tonality.

Since you like the Tannol look, I suggest you try Pyrocat-HD or Pyrocat-MC (or Moersch Tannol). (Pyrocat should be easier to find in the USA than the Moersch product). T-MAX 400 (rated at box speed)works very well in Pyrocat. Try an APUG search for dilutions, developing times and agitation procedures with the T-MAX 400/Pyrocat combination.

D-76 is a non-staining developer. If you dilute it 1:3, the image acutance will improve. Best to determine the development times by testing.

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=008I2M

A claim is made in this thread that the development time varies as the square root of the (volume resulting from the) dilution.

For example: If your development time with undiluted D76 is 5 minutes. Your time for the 1+1 dilution would be (5)(sqrt(2)) = 7 minutes. Your time for the 1+3 dilution would be (5)(sqrt (4)) = 10 minutes.

I have not verified that this estimation method works.

Thanks for the replies. The formula you mentioned provides me with a starting point.

I had noticed that Thomas Krebs uses mostly Tanol, but I also found this instance ((there was a url link here which no longer exists)) in which he mentions "FP4 D76 (1:3)".

All the best!

Edi, just beware that what one sees on the screen is not always what is achievable easily on a sheet of paper.

I myself have some pictures in my gallery, they are not in the same league as Thomas Kreb's pictures, but some of them they look very, very sharp.

The picture of the boat flying out of the water in my gallery is one such print, it looks different on the screen, than in real life. I have found that I have to add unsharp masking to the scanned print to get it to look close to the real thing. But once I have done that and I view it on the monitor, then the sharpness looks very good.

In fact most of my prints are quite sharp, but the sharpness of a print in the hand, is different to the sharpness of a monitor image!

Now to your question, you are wondering whether the diluting of the developer will help with sharpness to your negatives, it will. Perhaps not as much with Tmax 400, which is a newish type of silver grain structure.

I myself have used Tmax 400 with D76 at 1+1. I first used D76 undiluted, but found 1+1 to be very nice, I haven't tried 1+3 with D76.

I currently use Tmax 100 in D76 1+1 and find that to be superb as well.

I have used D76 almost exclusively for the last 25 years, generally speaking it seems to work best at 1+1 for me. I have used D76 with Ilford FP4+ & HP5+ and Fuji Neopan 400 and also found that 1+1 is what I prefer.

Generally speaking you will get reasonably good results by over exposing and slight under development, I think that is what you really mean.

For instance, you could use a test roll of exposures shooting a scene which is close to the type of scene you will normally shoot. Start by shooting one frame at 500 ASA, then 400 ASA, then 320 ASA, then 250 ASA, then 200 ASA and finally one at 160 ASA. Develop the film as you normally do, or at the times Kodak say you should.

Do an inspection of the negs (I'm sure you will) looking for shadow and highlight detail. You should be able to find at least one exposure that looks very good.

Do some prints of the best looking negatives without manipulation (dodging, burning in etc.,). Pick the picture that gives you the best detail in the shadow, mid tones and highlight details.

Whichever frame is the best, is a good starting point for what speed to expose this film, in that camera and with that developer.

From there, you will be able to get better with practice and after a short while you will almost know what exposure is needed without looking at a light meter. I do though, suggest you use a light meter for the best possible exposure and developing techniques.

Mick.

Ed, just a general comment to go along with the above, which is pretty good information already. In general, if you use a developer which is more dilute, it is possible to increase development time. With a very dlute solution (like rodinal @ 1:100 or pyrocat @ 1:1:150) it is possible to bring things into the realm of minimal agitation (a gentle agitation every three minutes), or semi-stand development (just a couple of agitations over a long time period, perhaps 1/2 to an hour).

The advantages of this type of development are perhaps what you're looking for. It will increase film speed, because the shadow values have a longer time to develope. Acutance (sharpness) is enhanced due to "edge effects" which means the areas of light and dark have almost a "glow" to them. Finally, it helps with textures. Micro contrast is the tonality within an area of similar tonality. With longer development, you can expect much better detail and sharpness in your shadows.

If you can get some rodinal or pyrocat (my developer of choice, see photographers formulary for a kit), longer development may be the way to go. Please remember, the dilution, agitation frequency and temperature all need to be constants if you start playing around with this type of development. You really do have to see the difference to believe it. I geberally use minimal agitation and am very happy with results. Most recently, I've had decent luck with tx400 (tri-x) and semi-stand development. best, tim

Edimilson said:

Hello!

I have added several of Thomas Krebs's superb photographs to my list of favorites. Many of them display the kind of sharpness I'd like to achieve in my own photos.

Here's one example : (there was a url link here which no longer exists).


As I'm new to the art of black and white film photography (it's been only 3 or 4 months since I set up my darkroom), what I'm going to ask you is probably a newbie question. I use T-Max 400 developed in D76. Would I be right to suppose that I must underexpose the film by one or two stops and then overdevelop it?

If that is right, what would be a good development time to begin experimenting with T-Max in D76 at 1:3?

Kodak's pdf file on T-Max says nothing about developing it in a 1:3 solution.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Ed if you process Tmax in D-76 1:3 you're going to get quite a bit of grain. I've processed tmax 100 in d-76 1:1 and while it is grainier with Tmax than other developers it yields ezxcellent acutance and tonality. However if you are really seeking high accutance in a fairly fast film you might want to try Delta 100 or 400 in xtol 1:1.

I recently have made experience with ID11(D76) and FP4+ 6X6 dilution 1+2.

But my jobo tank has a volume of 470ml. One 6X6 in it means 160ml ID11 for one film (1+2).

BUT:

If you use the smaller jobo for one 35mm, you have much less ID11 (less corn reduving chemicals) with the same dilution, which should lead with the same dilution to greater grain (although both the same time)!

So it is like always, lets say most of times, you have to do your work yourself ;-)

I have now some rolls HP5 and think that there I will see more difference than with the FP4 between 1+1 and 1+2.

Official statement is: the more diluted ID11/D76 the more grain and sharpness! Sharpness comes from shrp grain, not lack of grain. I made recently exact this experience with XTOL :-( ...and stopped it

Thanks for the formula Tom, I will test it.

MIck,

Thanks for the detailed and most instructive reply. I'll give careful thought to it and experiment as you suggested! Thanks again!

Noseoil, Early Riser and Diwolf,

Thanks for the input as well. It will take me some time to process so much information!

I find that both TMX and TMY are better with full strength D-76 than with any dilution. Neither film seems to suffer any loss in sharpness with the undiluted developer and the finer grain is welcome. Some people like to use extreme dilutions where they agitage for about 30 seconds when the working solution is poured in, go on vacation for a few weeks and then come back and pour out the developer. I know many benefits are claimed for this method but I am not convinced that it's necessary. Try running some tests with TMY in D-76 at the various dilutions. By the time you get to an 11X14 you will see that any increase in edge sharpness with the diluted developer is more than offset by the extra grain.

I have always used the T-Max developer with this film.
If I wanted more sharpness, I would use Rodinal, not D-76.

I don't think you are going to find a very noticeable increase in accutance with TMX by moving from D-76 1:1 to 1:3. I tried D-76 1:3 a couple years ago with 400TX (Tri-X) show and the difference in sharpness was barely perceptible in an 8x enlargement. The increase in graininess, however, was apparent at that degree of enlargement. And I believe there was a very, very slight loss of film speed at 1:3, though it was certainly less than 1/3 stop.

If you're after better accutance with TMX, I'd recommend:

- A staining developer, such as Pyrocat-MC or Pyrocat-HD, and use of a semi-stand development technique.
- Paterson FX39, which was developed by Geoffrey Crawley specifically for T-grain films
- If you're of a mind to mix your own developer from raw chemicals, you can give Ryuji Suzuki's DS-12 accutance formula a try. The details are at: Dead Link Removed

A couple notes on the last two: I'm not sure if FX39 remains available. Late last year Paterson discontinued its B&W darkroom chemicals, though there are rumors of their eventual return. As a rule, developers formulated by G. Crawley are not optimized for shelf life and you should test the developer before processing film.

As for DS-12, Ryuji Suzuki posts here under the name "Ryuji", so you can always try sending him a Private Message if you have questions.

Dynachrome,

To be frank, I have been using D76 diluted 1:2 merely in order to save developer. You made me realize I must not only try it 1:3 or whatever but also undiluted. Hopefully I'll then gain a better feeling of how it works with T-Max.

Petzi

Just some days ago I found here in Apug a recipe for a Rodinal-like developer. I'm anxious to get the ingredients and try it!

and Aldevo,

I'll save your suggestions for future reference. If I'm not mistaken (I still haven't had time to go deep into it) it would be a bit more complicated to get the ingredientes for Pyrocat than Rodinal. But Pyrocat has been in my mind for sometime already, together with Rodinal. As to the other developers you mentioned, they're completely new to me.

Well, guys, thanks a lot for all the information you so generously provided. This is exactly the sort of input I was hoping for!

" it would be a bit more complicated to get the ingredientes for Pyrocat than Rodinal....."

Photographers Formulary has a pyrocat-hd kit (get the one mixed with glycol which has a very long shelf life, not the one mixed with water) that costs about $30 u.s. but not sure about shipping. Drop them a note and see what they would charge. You may have other friends who would like to buy with you to save on shipping charges, or at least some bulk type chemicals to bump up the order so it isn't just one thing. best of luck, tim

Hello, Noseoil!

Thanks for your help. What complicates matters when it comes to importing anything is that the Brazilian Customs charges a 60% fee on any product except books and a few other items. I've been dreaming of ordering a Bessa R by the end of the year, for example, but the 60% fee is a big problem.
I'll consider Photographer's formulary when I'm ready to try Pyrocat. Before that I'll mix some Rodinal.

T-MAX 400 is a tough film...

In several developers I tried, it makes higher contrast in highlight and depresses midtones. Can't change much of that by switching the developer. If you are doing studio shot with controlled lighting, it's a very good film but for other purposes I don't like it. Midtone comes out too dark and highlight is too hard to my taste.

Delta 400, Neopan 400, Tri-X are better for most purposes, I'd say.

Hi, Ryuji,

The photographer who I bought my darkroom equipment from spoke about his preference for Tri-X as compared to T-Max. He argued he found it harder to get the results he wanted with T-Max. Problem is, now I'll be stuck with T-Max for some time, since I have just bought a bulk roll of it. I hope to be able to tell, when this bulk roll is used up, if I must stick to T-Max or not considering my purposes (which, by the way, include mostly outdoor photography).

T-MAX 100 is not a bad film, although you hear bad things about it from many people. T-MAX 400 is, in my strong opinion, not a very good film for outdoor photography.

The best thing you could do is to pull the film by a stop or two. Even then Delta 400 or Neopan 400 is better for outdoor.

Edimilson said:

Hi, Ryuji,

The photographer who I bought my darkroom equipment from spoke about his preference for Tri-X as compared to T-Max. He argued he found it harder to get the results he wanted with T-Max. Problem is, now I'll be stuck with T-Max for some time, since I have just bought a bulk roll of it. I hope to be able to tell, when this bulk roll is used up, if I must stick to T-Max or not considering my purposes (which, by the way, include mostly outdoor photography).

Click to expand...

I get excellent results shooting landscapes in 5x7 and 8x10 sheet film formats with T-Max 400. My preferred developer is Pyrocat-MC. The highlights are well controlled by Pyrocat, the image acutance is excellent and so is the micro-tonality.

I also get excellent results developing T-Max 400 120 rollfilm landscapes in Pyrocat.

Tri-X, FP4 and HP5 also work well for me in Pyrocat.

I don't shoot 35mm; but with T-MAX 400 and medium/larger format I get really good results with el-cheapo D23 diluted 1:1. I get pretty good mid-tone seperation and manageable highlights and a sharp print. I expect that is due the reduced amount of sulfite due to diluting the developer 1:1

Mike

Another thing you can try, since you are mixing D-23, is to mix it with the full amount of Metol but half the amount of sulfite. A third variation is the full amount of Metol, 10 grams of sulfite per liter plus 20 grams of borax per liter. The 10 grams of sulfite are enough to assure the full activity of the Metol and the borax is to raise the pH ro about the value it would have in the original D-23 recipe. If you run out of sulfite, you can substitute sodium ascorbate in the last recipe. 1 tablespoon of ascorbic acid + 1/2 tablespoon baking soda mixed in a small amount of water and added to 750 ml water after the fizzing subsides plus 1 tablespoon metol and 1 1/2 tablespoons of borax + water to make a liter is a quick and dirty way to try it.

gainer said:

Another thing you can try, since you are mixing D-23, is to mix it with the full amount of Metol but half the amount of sulfite.

Click to expand...

What does it do?

A third variation is the full amount of Metol, 10 grams of sulfite per liter plus 20 grams of borax per liter. The 10 grams of sulfite are enough to assure the full activity of the Metol and the borax is to raise the pH ro about the value it would have in the original D-23 recipe.

Click to expand...

What's the pH of D-23 you are referring to?
With your formula, I think you'll get pH around 9.

The D-23 user had the idea that the effect he got by diluting the D-23 was due to the reduction of sulfite. This may be one way to find out. No big deal.

I don't have a good indicator of what the pH of D-23 is. I found I needed that much borax to get the same result that I got from unperverted D-23. Borax, from what I read, can't give much more than 9. Sodium ascorbate is close to neutral. I don't know about Metol, but when the H2SO4 on the end comes loose, it ought to reduce pH. 9 seems about right. It was interesting to me that all 3 of the formulas (including legitimate D-23) gave very close to the same result on pictorial negatives of the same subject taken within 2 minutes on the same 36 exp roll of HP5+. My sharp-eyed grandson couldn't see the grain in 10X enlargements. We're supposed to get lots of grain with little or no sulfite, are we not? I thought edge effects might increase, not that I yearn for them, but because popular belief would seem to expect it. I think D-23 is as sharp as I need as is.

Patrick, I made several detailed posts on pH buffer and developer on photo.net only a couple of years ago. I also posted on sulfite. So if you go back there you'll make more sense out of this. It can be put in an hour lecture but if I have to write again from scratch it's a lot of work to do right now.

Edge effect, sulfite, ascorbate, etc., they all got discussed at least once.

I see you have a notion that ascorbate can be used as a developer preservative just as well as sulfite. That's not true. If you have unprotected ascorbate it can kill the developer faster. Well, sulfite is a better preservative in a few ways. Effective preservatives react with oxygen molecules slowly, not rapidly. But the number of preservative is far greater, at least in B&W developers. If you use something that reacts fast and in smaller quantity, the preservative reacts with air very fast and exhausts very fast. Plus, unprotected ascorbate is a poor choice because when trace amount of metal impurity is present (and it is) ascorbate can act as pro-oxidant and generate a number of potent oxidizing molecules during the course of ascorbate being breaking down.

Also you are misinterpreting the sulfite's fine grain effect. As I said before, sulfite is a silver halide complexing agent (solvent) but this does not entail in fine grain. There are a lot of highly solvent developers that produce coarser grains, such as D-19 and HC-110. If you make a solution of 7.5g/L Metol at pH of 9 and add sulfite, I'm not sure if you get much fine grain effect from the sulfite. I don't know if you try other kinds of developers, but none of your frequently posted developers are particularly fine grain formula. If you compare your classic PC carbonate against XTOL or DS-10, you can see the difference. The test samples you sent me a few years ago, the neg without sulfite was quite visibly coarser to me, although the fine grain effect would be greater if you used D-76 rather than D-76K.

I didn't have any illusions about what to expect. I set out to approximate only slope and intercept obtained by various developers.

The small amount of sulfite is that which is only a little more than is sufficient to form a Metol sulfonate from the oxidation product of Metol, according to data from the Theory of the Photographic Process. That same data showed that ascorbate, at pH below the point where ascorbate becomes an active developing agent, is equivalent to sulfite, mole for mole, for the purpose of counteracting the retardation by the oxidation products of Metol, although they work by different mechanisms. I wasn't expecting either it or the sulfite to be a preservative or a grain reducer. I think it's better to think of ways to avoid increasing grain, since the image is made of grains in any caase.

I think, though I didn't prove it, that the pH was still below that at which ascorbate is a developing agent, though it is an antioxidant. In other words, I don't think the synergism between Metol and ascorbate had much effect.

One part of my rough comparison was D-23 according to the book: 7.5 grams of Metol and 100 grams of sodium sulfite to make a liter. That is my basis for grain and gradations. If I get very close to D-23 by another developer, I am happy.

I have found from previous use that sulfite is not the grain reducer that some say it is. I probably should make it more clear when I am quoting popular belief that is not necessarilly my own. When I do a test of some hypothesis, I am prepared to accept the results whether or not they support the hypothesis, as I am sure you are as well.

If you will PM me your snail mail address or e-mail it to pgainer@rtol.net, I will send some photos and negatives. Scanned images are not the best evidence.