The color of metol

[Wayne]

lets see, it looks worse than 50 year old metol, far far worse...it may "work" but you can also "drink" milk that expired 3 months ago. No predicting what will happen later on though.

Honestly you should not be charged for that brown sugar, whether it works or not. Its old as hell, oxidized badly, and possibly impure. I think it gets the prize for Worst Metol Ever.

Old brown glycin is also known to work, but it is also known to stain

 

[David Allen]

In February 2019, I received some Metol from my, usually very reliable, supplier that was a light tan colour. I have never seen this before. However, I tried using it for my usual developer (Barry Thornton’s Two-Bath developer) and, initially, it seemed to work. However, within a week, the developer had discoloured badly and a test roll of film showed that the developer had lost a great deal of its capacity (films were severely underdeveloped).

I posted on this site and talked to several other photographers here in Germany who make their own developer and all had experienced the same problems with dramatically reduced capacity from the light tan coloured Metol from the same supplier. All said that it worked fine at first but then quickly discoloured to a point where they did not want to use it for fear of ruining their films.

One of the people I talked to was Wolfgang Moersch (https://www.moersch-photochemie.de/content/news) who makes and sells a wide range of interesting products. He had tried the discoloured developer and found that "the only directly visible disadvantage is the grey colour of the solution and a dark, uncomfortable precipitation at the bottom of the bottle. Such solutions are still effective, but I cannot guarantee that exactly the same densities will occur during film development" and this pretty much mirrored my own experience.

I then contacted my usual supplier and explained the situation. They sent me a new batch of Metol for free that was white in colour and worked exactly as expected.

Your Metol looks far worse than mine was so I would firmly say that your Metol is not good and you should send it back immediately.

Bests,

David.

Temporary website address: http://dsallen.carpentier-galerie.de

 

[sterioma]

Thank you for your feedback, I have contacted the shop for a return.

I have bought some paper developer and toners from Moersch and I am familiar with his website. I have also experienced a greish precipitate in my stock D23 after it had cooled down to room temperature; being unfamiliar with this developer I was not sure whether this was "typical" or a sign that something was wrong.

Interestingly, and slightly off topic, my preliminary tests with D23 1:1 against Rodinal and HC-110 with Fomapan 100 exposed at 50 show that there is very little difference between the three, in terms of film speed, grain and resolution. D23 1:1 and Rodinal 1:50 especially look virtually indistinguishable when "scanning" the negatives with a DSLR. I hope to be able to make a print in the darkroom next week.

 

[Donald Qualls]

D23 1:1 and Rodinal 1:50 especially look virtually indistinguishable when "scanning" the negatives with a DSLR. I hope to be able to make a print in the darkroom next week.

This is a very surprising result -- I've had expected to see significantly less visible grain with D-23, even at 1+1, compared to any dilution of Rodinal. With 100 speed film, it might just be that the grain is so small in both cases that your DSLR digitizing doesn't record it well.

 

[sterioma]

With 100 speed film, it might just be that the grain is so small in both cases that your DSLR digitizing doesn't record it well.

You are correct, although the hc-110 looks slightly less grainy. I am suspending my judgement until I can make a 8x10 print.

 

[john_s]

This is a very surprising result -- I've had expected to see significantly less visible grain with D-23, even at 1+1, compared to any dilution of Rodinal. With 100 speed film, it might just be that the grain is so small in both cases that your DSLR digitizing doesn't record it well.

I'm no Rodinal expert, but I've read reports of Rodinal being particularly successful with particular films, like APX100. Decades ago, I used HC110 dil_B with the earlier version of Tri-X and it was particularly and extremely good. It amazed me. The combination was well regarded at the time, of course. So maybe the OP's use of Rodinal was one such happy combination.

 

[sterioma]

As an update, the producer has replied to my query saying that this metol is normally destined for professional use and that it was routed to the "amateur" market by mistake, claiming anyway that other than colour and the precipitate it is equivalent to the "white" version and can be used without issues.

The shop I bought it from is sending me a new jar with "white coloured" metol.

 

[David Allen]

Good to hear that the shop is sending you a new jar.

 

[Kino]

"The Color of Metol"; wasn't that a recent film about a photo chemist captured in the Wild who developed a love interest with one of his female captors and then made love to her in a dip and dunk processor? Maybe I am confused... Sounds familiar...

 

[Wayne]

As an update, the producer has replied to my query saying that this metol is normally destined for professional use and that it was routed to the "amateur" market by mistake, claiming anyway that other than colour and the precipitate it is equivalent to the "white" version and can be used without issues.

The shop I bought it from is sending me a new jar with "white coloured" metol.

That's good of them to replace their obviously faulty product, but not so good they are trying to make excuses for it. You've seen pictures here of 15 to 50 year old metol that still looks as it should, so selling that brown sugar is inexcusable.

 

[sterioma]

The new metol has arrived and it's white as sugar. Same producer, same jar, same label.

 

[Wayne]

Great! Chalk one up for the customer, who is always right.

 

[sterioma]

This is a very surprising result -- I've had expected to see significantly less visible grain with D-23, even at 1+1, compared to any dilution of Rodinal. With 100 speed film, it might just be that the grain is so small in both cases that your DSLR digitizing doesn't record it well.

The actual prints actually showed that Rodinal is indeed grainier than the rest. More details here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...odinal-vs-hc-110-in-35mm.182843/#post-2400153

 

[Donald Qualls]

The actual prints actually showed that Rodinal is indeed grainier than the rest. More details here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...odinal-vs-hc-110-in-35mm.182843/#post-2400153

There we go. Confirmation that what we knew years ago is still true.

 

[Murray Kelly]

Metol and HQ liberated from the lab in 1957. Last 10 years in freezer.