The formula for GVM1, a custom and unique phenidone-glycin film developer

ruilourosa · Dec 19, 2021

I have been checking some literature and your dev. Combining glycin and phenidone is a low sulfite version of a ilford Lumiére dev... Combining also carbonate and a borate buffer but having 90gr/liter of sulfite in the stock solution. This dev. could give you some back support in your experimentation.
I found the formula in a french publication from Paul montel... Claims for the Dev. are not clear but long lasting and clean are adjectives...

Just wondering on glycin but could rodinal be somewhat altered through the addition of glycin?
Becoming sort of an atomal or promicrol?

Alan Johnson · Dec 19, 2021

@grainyvision, GVM1 seems to have much the same ingredients as Crawley's Acuspeed which was sold from 1968 to 1998 so it may keep quite well.. The manufacturers claim is that films such as Tri-X and HP-5 can be exposed up to EI 1250 without appreciable loss of shadow detail. See The Film Developing Cookbook 2020 p127-8.

grainyvision · Dec 19, 2021

ruilourosa said:
I have been checking some literature and your dev. Combining glycin and phenidone is a low sulfite version of a ilford Lumiére dev... Combining also carbonate and a borate buffer but having 90gr/liter of sulfite in the stock solution. This dev. could give you some back support in your experimentation.
I found the formula in a french publication from Paul montel... Claims for the Dev. are not clear but long lasting and clean are adjectives...

Just wondering on glycin but could rodinal be somewhat altered through the addition of glycin?
Becoming sort of an atomal or promicrol?

I've not heard p-aminophenol is superadditive or even just additive with glycin so I'm unsure what the benefit would be. Glycin is acidic though and so there may be a need for pH adjustment. I've not seen this Ilford formula. The only reference I've seen is an aerial film developer patent which adds glycin to a developer similar to POTA for a speed increase and longevity. There are no commercial developer references I've found for the phenidone-glycin combo

Alan Johnson said:
@grainyvision, GVM1 seems to have much the same ingredients as Crawley's Acuspeed which was sold from 1968 to 1998 so it may keep quite well.. The manufacturers claim is that films such as Tri-X and HP-5 can be exposed up to EI 1250 without appreciable loss of shadow detail. See The Film Developing Cookbook 2020 p127-8.

It does not seem very similar to Acuspeed other than containing both glycin and phenidone and being around the same pH. It differs in concentration most significantly, and lacking hydroquinone and it is well known to be difficult to create a compensating hydroquinone-phenidone developer. The concentration is also 10x more, so shelf life should be better as well.

Regardless, I really hope someone else tries out this developer. If shipping chemicals weren't such an issue I'd even give out small 100ml samples. I believe this developer is really something unique in today's market place.

Also here is a print I made last night from FP4+ pushed to 400. Shadow detail is clean and crisp with not a single bit of grain detectable. I enlarged this to 11x14 size (but cropped to 8x10 since I didn't have my 11x14 setup) and still found no visible grain. For a shot taken at ISO 400 and in a high contrast scene like this, I believe you'd find it very difficult to use a different developer for similar results. Printed on Arista EDU Ultra FB matte, GVL1 print developer, contrast grade 2.5

ruilourosa · Dec 19, 2021

Superaditivity means increased activity not desirable edge effects or fine grain or compensation effect, and ortho aminophenol has been combined in comercial solvent developer promicrol and atomal.
I will order some stuff and glycin is one of them...

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 19, 2021

ruilourosa said:
Just wondering on glycin but could rodinal be somewhat altered through the addition of glycin?

@ruilourosa: That's a reasonable idea and I have tried something similar but not directly with Rodinal. For fun I formulated a p-aminophenol + glycin developer last year:

Developer A-PAP-3
Acetone: 100ml
Para-aminophenol: 4g
Water: 700ml
Sodium sulphite: 88g
Glycin: 1g
Borax: 2g
Potassium bromide: 1.0g
Water to make: 1000ml

First dissolve p-aminophenol in acetone.
Next, dissolve Sodium sulphite in water.
Mix the two solutions, stir well till the solution becomes clear.
Then add Glycin, Borax and Potassium bromide in that order .
Top up with additional water to make 1l.

I tested it on Kentmere 400 undiluted and it seems to give full speed: @400: 16 minutes @20C. I was pleased with the results and the smell of the developer is quite something. The developer can be reused for at least 10 rolls and retains activity for more than six months when stored full in tightly capped bottle. If I had easy access to Glycin, I would have continued tinkering with this developer.

p.s. I used p-aminophenol base. If one were to use p-aminophenol hydrochloride instead, some changes are needed in the formula.

Acetone serves two purposes. First, p-aminophenol dissolves quite readily in relatively small volume of Acetone. Second, Acetone forms an adduct with Sodium Sulphite releasing hydroxyl ions which provide the requisite pH for the developer to work.

ruilourosa · Dec 20, 2021

Acetone is used in some lith developers and promotes infectious development.

I will try just to add glycin to rodinal diluted.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 20, 2021

ruilourosa said:
Acetone is used in some lith developers and promotes infectious development.

I will try just to add glycin to rodinal diluted.

Infectious development in lith developers is due to Hydroquinone under specific conditions (low Sulphite and balancing amount of Bromide). Infectious development is not seen with other developing agents. And even moderate amounts of Sulphite inhibits infectious development. I for sure didn't notice any infectious development with the developer I described earlier. So there's no need to be sceptical of Acetone for wrong reasons.

Any way, if you are going to use Rodinal, you don't need acetone for either of the purposes I mentioned in my post. I see little point in using expensive Glycin in single use working solutions, but if that's what you are after with Rodinal, good luck to you.

ruilourosa · Dec 20, 2021

I wander about grain and speed with a small amount of glycin...
Like pmk+

I tend to use one shot always except with dd.

Alan Johnson · Dec 20, 2021

This from the archives:
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/7e/42/e0/cbc21f1129b7c8/US2753265.pdf
Appears phenidone-glycin are superadditive.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 20, 2021

Haist Vol 1 has this:

"Fine-grain images are said to result when photographic Glycin is combined with Phenidone, as in the concentrate:
Potassium sulfite (71 % w/v) 422ml
p-Hydroxyphenylaminoacetic acid 40g
1-Phenyl-3-pyrazolidone 2g
Water to make 1 liter

This concentrate is diluted with nine parts of water, then about 13 g solid sodium hydroxide added to make the pH 9.1. Exposed, fast panchromatic film, developed 10 min at 68°F, produced a fine-grain image of high photographic speed."

Given the relative simplicity of this formula compared to OP's, it would be nice if OP can use this as the baseline to evaluate the more complicated formulation.

[Edit] This is the same as the third formula in the Ilford patent shared by Alan as observed by Michael.

lantau · Dec 21, 2021

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
If you try the D-76 dilution 1:10 spiked with 0.5-0.75g of Sodium Hydroxide per liter of the working solution, it'll turn out to be significantly economical compared to D-76 stock or D-23 stock. Same idea works well with D-23 as well.

I'm ok with commercial developers. I used D76 and switched to Xtol last year. Though my first batch was the faulty one, and I didn't even realise until my splitgrade controller told me I have to print everything on grade 5.

I'm trying to begin a replenishment regime with Xtol. I bought new stock from Foto Impex, which has no problems. Replenishment makes it not only cheap, it also minimises waste disposal.

With such an exteme dilution of D76 you are getting a non-solvent developer. D76 isn't that well buffered to begin with, getting strongly diluted and you are adding strong alkali to compensate. Are you getting high acutance grain?

ruilourosa said:
7,5 grams of metol can be reduced on d23...
Comercial developers are always a worst choice...
Price, quality and consistency are traditionally much better than imediate convenience...

Just look at hc110...

Yes, I read in FDCB (2020) that the amount of Metol was excessive. I'll stick to Xtol as my general developer. I still have Rodinal, but I'll rarely use it, now. I do have raw chemicals to mix the occasional special need developer. But after reading FDCB, I realise that there aren't many use cases were Xtol can be beat. But if I need a one off dose of, say, D96, I will be able to mix it. That's more economic than buying a commercial package and not using it up.

grainyvision said:
Regardless, I really hope someone else tries out this developer. If shipping chemicals weren't such an issue I'd even give out small 100ml samples. I believe this developer is really something unique in today's market place.

There are come uncommon ingredients in your developer. I'd have to order glycin, dimezone-s, propylene glycol and K2SO3 solution. But I was planning to order some stuff anyway. But it might be quite a while until I get through the whole chain of things to do until I'd have results.

juan · Dec 21, 2021

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Haist Vol 1 has this:

"Fine-grain images are said to result when photographic Glycin is combined with Phenidone, as in the concentrate:
Potassium sulfite (71 % w/v) 422ml
p-Hydroxyphenylaminoacetic acid 40g
1-Phenyl-3-pyrazolidone 2g
Water to make 1 liter

This concentrate is diluted with nine parts of water, then about 13 g solid sodium hydroxide added to make the pH 9.1. Exposed, fast panchromatic film, developed 10 min at 68°F, produced a fine-grain image of high photographic speed."

Given the relative simplicity of this formula compared to OP's, it would be nice if OP can use this as the baseline to evaluate the more complicated formulation.

Can you expand on how the sodium hydroxide is used? Mix the 13g into the stock solution? - into some quantity of water to make a B solution?
Thanks

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 21, 2021

juan said:
Can you expand on how the sodium hydroxide is used? Mix the 13g into the stock solution? - into some quantity of water to make a B solution?

First prepare 1l of stock solution according to the formula (or make just 100ml of stock solution using 1/10th of the weights and volumes in the formula if that's more convenient). Then take 100ml of stock solution and add 900ml of water. To this add up to 1.3g of Sodium Hydroxide till pH becomes 9.1. This results in 1l of working solution.

Though Haist doesn't mention the capacity of the working solution, I guess it can be reused for at least five rolls of film with possibly longer development time after the first few rolls. [Edit] Ilford patent says that the working solution can remain stable for at least 3 months when stored properly, which is quite encouraging.

john_s · Dec 21, 2021

grainyvision said:
..........Regardless, I really hope someone else tries out this developer. If shipping chemicals weren't such an issue I'd even give out small 100ml samples. I believe this developer is really something unique in today's market place.................

I'm interested in trying it. I have every ingredient except for potassium sulfite which seems not easy to get. Would sodium sulfite do (quantity adjusted for molecular weight)?

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 21, 2021

john_s said:
I'm interested in trying it. I have every ingredient except for potassium sulfite which seems not easy to get. Would sodium sulfite do (quantity adjusted for molecular weight)?

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...aqueous-solution-of-potassium-sulfite.178063/

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 21, 2021

michael_r said:
FYI see the patent linked above by Alan Johnson. Example 3 is the formula in Haist.

oh..ok I was needlessly pessimistic about the shelf-life of the working solution:

"The foregoing developer, when diluted as indicated, can be kept in full stoppered bottles for three or more months without any substantial loss of developing activity."

Alan Johnson · Dec 21, 2021

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Haist Vol 1 has this:

"Fine-grain images are said to result when photographic Glycin is combined with Phenidone, as in the concentrate:
Potassium sulfite (71 % w/v) 422ml
p-Hydroxyphenylaminoacetic acid 40g
1-Phenyl-3-pyrazolidone 2g
Water to make 1 liter

This concentrate is diluted with nine parts of water, then about 13 g solid sodium hydroxide added to make the pH 9.1. Exposed, fast panchromatic film, developed 10 min at 68°F, produced a fine-grain image of high photographic speed."

Given the relative simplicity of this formula compared to OP's, it would be nice if OP can use this as the baseline to evaluate the more complicated formulation.

[Edit] This is the same as the third formula in the Ilford patent shared by Alan as observed by Michael.

The NaOH is added to the concentrate before dilution. Enough, usually about 13g, is added to bring the pH when diluted to 9.1.
Interesting to know if this simple formula gives a similar EI to the more complex mixtures of Crawley and of Grainyvision.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Dec 21, 2021

Was there a commercial Ilford developer based on these formula?

cc: @Ian Grant

Ian Grant · Dec 21, 2021

Yes Ilfosol was Ilford's commercial Phenidon Glycine concentrated developer, it had poor keeping properties.

Ian

Tom Kershaw · Dec 21, 2021

Ian Grant said:
Yes Ilfosol was Ilford's commercial Phenidon Glycine concentrated developer, it had poor keeping properties.

Ian,
Gylcin seems to be entirely absent on the UK market as a developing agent. Do you know when it ceased to be generally used here?

Tom

grainyvision · Dec 21, 2021

I found a very similar interesting developer in Film Developing Cookbook, TDLC-102 and TDLC-101, listed on page 132 as a modification of POTA for usage with document films
TDLC-101:
* Sodium sulfite 4g
* Phenidone 0.1g
* Glycin 0.5g
* sodium bicarbonate 20g
* Water to 1L
* Develop tech pan for 15m

TDLC-102
* Sodium sulfite 4g
* Phenidone 0.25g
* Glycin 0.25g
* sodium bicarbonate 5g
* Water to 1L
* Develop tech pan for 15m

101 would likely be the most similar to compare to, and is similar to prototype #5 of GVM1 due to very high buffer capactiy, however GVM1 prototype #5 had a pH of around 10.5-11. I assume that what makes it suitable for normal films rather than only for document films is the greatly increased pH.

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Haist Vol 1 has this:

"Fine-grain images are said to result when photographic Glycin is combined with Phenidone, as in the concentrate:
Potassium sulfite (71 % w/v) 422ml
p-Hydroxyphenylaminoacetic acid 40g
1-Phenyl-3-pyrazolidone 2g
Water to make 1 liter

This concentrate is diluted with nine parts of water, then about 13 g solid sodium hydroxide added to make the pH 9.1. Exposed, fast panchromatic film, developed 10 min at 68°F, produced a fine-grain image of high photographic speed."

Given the relative simplicity of this formula compared to OP's, it would be nice if OP can use this as the baseline to evaluate the more complicated formulation.

[Edit] This is the same as the third formula in the Ilford patent shared by Alan as observed by Michael.

I'm not sure I see why addition of metaborate and glycol are "greatly more complicated". The glycol is a non-toxic and photo-inactive solvent which is very easily available in food grade purity. (I bought a gallon for $15 from Amazon). I personally think working with sodium hydroxide, due to the inability to have exact purity (due to absorbed water) and thus exact weight, is a much more difficult prospect than adding using metaborate and carbonate. The metaborate could likely be removed, but I believe it has photoactive properties beyond its simple buffering effect, a small amount of carbonate in it's place would likely be sufficient though.

Also yes it's been on my list to try sodium sulfite in place of potassium sulfite. The equivalent amount in my formula is 6g and I began prototypes using sodium, only switching to potassium for better concentration. If 50% more water were added, shelf life may be measurably worse, but still reasonable and sodium sulfite would then be possible to use.

Ian Grant · Dec 21, 2021

Tom Kershaw said:
Ian,
Gylcin seems to be entirely absent on the UK market as a developing agent. Do you know when it ceased to be generally used here?

Tom

I've never been able to obtain Glycin through my suppliers here in the UK, I mainly used Hogg Laboratory Supplies, Ninian Hogg had set up his company in the old Brunswick Works of E & T Underwood the camera manufacturers, he showed me around and commented there had been wood working shops here and there. His main business was chemicals and apparatus for schools, colleges, and Universities, however he had one room full of specialist photo chemicals. I first dealt with him around 1976 and he had no Glycin then and said it was unobtainable.

Ian

Tom Kershaw · Dec 21, 2021

Ian Grant said:
I first dealt with him around 1976 and he had no Glycin then and said it was unobtainable.

Thanks Ian. I wonder if there has never really been a demand here? - personally, I've never felt a lack of developing agents, we have the Phenidone(s), Metol, Catechol etc.

Ian Grant · Dec 21, 2021

Tom Kershaw said:
Thanks Ian. I wonder if there has never really been a demand here? - personally, I've never felt a lack of developing agents, we have the Phenidone(s), Metol, Catechol etc.

I think low demand and poor shelf life meant it wasn't viable, as far as I now it was never manufactured in the UK.

Ian

Down Under · Dec 21, 2021

Interesting, but the cost of buying the basic chemicals for this brew, at least here in Australia, would make it expensive for all but the richest of users...

Bearing in mind my very limited (entirely due to its cost) use of glycin some years ago, and the fact that I found the mixing and using to be fiddly to work with and the results somewhat inconsistent, so requiring too much testing for my efforts and needs, I reckon there are probably many commercial developers as good as and perhaps even better than this.

The images posted look good, but how do they hold up to printing to say 16x20 from 35mm?

All this respectfully said. Not intending to be a devil's advocate, merely my observations. Awaiting constructive comments to this and I will be happy to reply accordingly.

The formula for GVM1, a custom and unique phenidone-glycin film developer

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency