whoisusingd23?

Ryuji · Jan 13, 2012

Brad and Thomas,

Yes, D-23 loses speed. Maybe you don't feel like losing much if you compare to D-76. But with more modern formulation it's not hard to get 1 stop genuine speed increase from D-23. Say Tri-X. Real speed in D-76 is about 320. In D-23, 200 or 250. Yeah you can get 400 or 500 with DD-X. Spend it wisely for one stop of shutter speed or one stop of DOF. It's useful, especially when you're already shooting 400-speed film and any faster film comes with significant grain penalty.

I'm talking about real speed as measured by 0.1 density above base plus fog, just because that's standard and it is also a good standard.

But in situations where you don't necessarily need rich shadow details it would make sense to overrate the film if you have to, although I prefer to switch to TMZ or D3200 and get rather normal gradation.

Speaking of simplicity, I'm not sure if you guys are following the other thread but I have a new developer. Open a jar, take a tablespoonful of the dry powder mix (20g) and dissolve in one liter of water. That's the working solution. If you'd rather process single roll of 35mm, yeah that'd be 5g in 250ml of water. No wastage, simple prep, fewer things to wash at the end. I still get one stop some are missing. I'm not planning to commercializing it but contemplating sending out public beta test samples once I figure out the packaging and logistics aspect of it, just for fun.

I won't send it to Tom Daschle's office, though. (if you remember the incident)

BradS · Jan 13, 2012

Ryuji said:
Brad and Thomas,

Yes, D-23 loses speed. Maybe you don't feel like losing much if you compare to D-76. But with more modern formulation it's not hard to get 1 stop genuine speed increase from D-23. Say Tri-X. Real speed in D-76 is about 320. In D-23, 200 or 250. Yeah you can get 400 or 500 with DD-X. Spend it wisely for one stop of shutter speed or one stop of DOF. It's useful, especially when you're already shooting 400-speed film and any faster film comes with significant grain penalty.

Ryuji,
Your assessment agrees very closely with my personal experience. Most times, I would very happily take and extra stop of DoF - especially when shooting that old "guess focus" folder. My complaint with DD-X is and has always been that it is too expensive. I have used accufine and found it to give true box speed...forgot about that. I've also run a replenished liter of ID-68....it also gave true box speed. Perhaps, I should revisit the ID-68.

I am interested in the all powder developer that you've mentioned...am looking forward to hearing more about it.
Thanks!

mdarnton · Jan 13, 2012

For information, I just checked two batches of metol weight vs measure. The conclusions are, first, I may go back to the scale, since both were very different, and second, maybe I won't go back to the scale, because what I've been doing has been working fine.

Roger Cole · Jan 14, 2012

I haven't used D23 but I'm tempted, because I get time in the darkroom rarely. Most of my liquid concentrates keep ok, but mixing fresh from powder constituents each time has a pretty big appeal.

Ken Lee has some info on his site about his use of D23:

http://www.kenleegallery.com/html/tech/D-23.php

Ian Grant · Jan 14, 2012

Ken Lee's comments and the 1944 Ansel Adams example are interesting because Henn & Crabtree only published D23, D25 and the common replenisher DK25R in late 1944, Dec 10th - J.Phot. Soc. America, Kodak Communication No, 977

So were Kodak getting Adams to field test this developer at the time ?

Ian

RalphLambrecht · Jan 15, 2012

Ryuji said:
Nope, just being silly.

But in all seriousness, I prefer Dimezone S over Metol in developers.

is there a substititr converdion fsctor for the two?

BradS · Jan 15, 2012

RalphLambrecht said:
is there a substititr converdion fsctor for the two?

Ralph, I'm not sure about the substitution factor of Dimezone S for Metol but the generally accepted factor of Phenidone for metol is to substitute one tenth as much Phenidone for a quantity of Metol. So for example, substitute 0.2 grams of phenidone for 2 grams metol. D-76 becomes:

0.2g phenidone
100g sodium sulfite
5g hydroquinone
2g borax
water to make 1 liter.

I think this one works better if you rearraged the order in which the ingredients are added. Since Phenidone is difficult to dissolve in water, I think it might go better if the Hydroquinone were dissolved first then the phenidone and finally the sulfite and borax...

Finally, Phenidone and Dimezone are similar (are the isomers? - I don't know) and so would expect the substitution ration to be similar.

Ian Grant · Jan 15, 2012

Brad, Axford and Kendal of Ilford did do quite a bit of work on a PQ version of D76/ID-11 which they marketed as Autophen. In some US books it's mistakenly said to be Microphen.

In a series of articles in the BJP in the early 1950's Ilford published the Autophen formula, this evolved from an itial PQ FG formula published in 1954:

Ilford Autophen - Fine Grain PQ developer

Sodium sulphite (anhydrous) 100 gm.
Hydroquinone 5 gm.
Borax 3 gm.
Boric acid 3.3 gm.
Phenidone 0.2 gm.
Potassium bromide 1 gm.
Water to make 1 litre

Autophen was a very long life photo finishing developer and there were two different replenishers depending on whether the machine used bleed or topping up replenishment.

They also published a second Fine Grain PQ developer which is interchangeable with Microphen, it gives a slight increase in effective EI.

ID-68 (Microphen)

Sodium sulphite (anhydrous) 85 gm.
Hydroquinone 5 gm.
Borax 7 gm.
Boric acid 2 gm.
Phenidone 0.13 gm.
Potassium bromide 1 gm.
Water to make 1 litre

The substitution of Phenidone for Metol varies from 1/10th to a 1/6th by weight depending on the developer formula. It needs to be rememberred that the term Phenidone is used to cover a class of compunds including Dimezones and that there are a few different forms of Phenidone and Dimezone etc.

Ian

BradS · Jan 15, 2012

Hi Ian, I often refer to your article entitled The Ilford PQ variant of Id-11 (there was a url link here which no longer exists).

Ian Grant · Jan 15, 2012

Michael, one advantage of Phenidone is PQ film developers can tolerate very much higher levels of bromide than a similar MQ formula, this meant that Autophen was far more stable than D76/ID-11 and could be replenished and the cycle kept going for a very long time before beginning afresh. It's a build up in bromide levels that causes D76/ID-11 to collapse.

One of Ilford's 1950's articles discussed this issue and another testing methods used to determine the best replenishment.

There may be small advantages in using Phenidone rather than Dimezone in fine grain developers.

Ian

RalphLambrecht · Jan 18, 2012

piu58 said:
Dear Ralph,
what are you trying? Which answers come from Apug if you send a enigmatig question in?

igot eactly what i was hoping for. thsnks everyone!

Keith Tapscott. · Jan 23, 2012

Ryuji said:
Nope, just being silly.

But in all seriousness, I prefer Dimezone S over Metol in developers.

Why is that?

BradS · Jan 23, 2012

Keith Tapscott. said:
Ryuji said:

But in all seriousness, I prefer Dimezone S over Metol in developers.

Click to expand...

Why is that?

Perhaps, this topic deserves a thread of its own?

piu58 · Jan 24, 2012

Dimezone is a Phenidone modification (made for longer shelf life in solutions). Phenidone/Dimezone based developers give around half a stop more speed (in comparision to Metol). They react less to bromide so you have to look for other substances to reduce fog.
Ultrafine Plus and T Max developer are Dimezone based. There exist a large amount of Phenidone based developers, mostly powder. Microphene is one of them.

Keith Tapscott. · Jan 24, 2012

Phenidone and it's dimezone derivatives do have some advantages over metol in film and paper developers.
Some PQ and dimezone-hyroquinone film developers like DDX, T-Max and Microphen offer a slight speed yield advantage over the industry standard D-76 and ID-11, but at the expense of slightly coarser grain. Xtol is the 1st hydroquinone-free developer that offers an equal to slightly finer grain than D-76/ID-11 without a lower speed yield penalty.

Apart from the fact that some people have an allergic reaction to metol, I have never undestood why some people dislike it. Metol film developers are usually soft working and produce very good tones. Geoffrey Crawley often combined both metol and phenidone with hydroquinone in some of his film developers.

Keith Tapscott. · Jan 24, 2012

BradS said:
Perhaps, this topic deserves a thread of its own?

Perhaps, but the thread starter is about D-23 which is a simple metol formula, but Ryuji mentioned that he prefers dimezone-s. I was merely curious why he did.

Ryuji · Jan 24, 2012

Keith Tapscott. said:
Perhaps, but the thread starter is about D-23 which is a simple metol formula, but Ryuji mentioned that he prefers dimezone-s. I was merely curious why he did.

I said Let D-23 die.

Let D-23 die.

What's the advantage of D-23? It's a soft, low contrast, fine grain, low accutance developer. In fact, XTOL or DS-10 (my formula) is uniformly superior to D-23 or for that matter D-76.

So, why D-23 now? Its probably known for the simplicity in the formula, but its not particularly easy to dissolve (Metol takes quite some time to dissolve in weakly alkaline and high salt solution like D-23.) but really, is that what we want in 2012? It's time we move on to more advanced solutions.

Silvergrain Super PAC is only responsible for fixing but not the development of this negative campaign.

Ryuji · Jan 24, 2012

Keith Tapscott. said:
Phenidone and it's dimezone derivatives do have some advantages over metol in film and paper developers.
Some PQ and dimezone-hyroquinone film developers like DDX, T-Max and Microphen offer a slight speed yield advantage over the industry standard D-76 and ID-11, but at the expense of slightly coarser grain. Xtol is the 1st hydroquinone-free developer that offers an equal to slightly finer grain than D-76/ID-11 without a lower speed yield penalty.

Apart from the fact that some people have an allergic reaction to metol, I have never undestood why some people dislike it. Metol film developers are usually soft working and produce very good tones. Geoffrey Crawley often combined both metol and phenidone with hydroquinone in some of his film developers.

Actually, Microphen and Ilfotec DD-X are good developers if you are using large format negatives. They give very good shadow details and beautiful gradations. If the light is harsh, you could cut development time for soft contrast without losing much speed. It's just that most people shoot small formats and granularity becomes a factor against them.

I've been using a new developer that uses Dimezone and ascorbate based formula, but more similar to DD-X rather than XTOL (having a bit of press developer type characteristics - no finer grain than necessary, but give more film speed and good accutance) and I love the results. DD-X speed with D-76 grain and tonality. About the only place I prefer finer grain formula is when making big prints from 35mm 400 speed film... but in that case simply shooting 400TMY-2 will solve the problem.

Keith Tapscott. · Jan 24, 2012

Ryuji;1291190[B said:
]Actually, Microphen and Ilfotec DD-X are good developers if you are using large format negatives.[/B]

They give very good shadow details and beautiful gradations.

If the light is harsh, you could cut development time for soft contrast without losing much speed. It's just that most people shoot small formats and granularity becomes a factor against them.

I've been using a new developer that uses Dimezone and ascorbate based formula, but more similar to DD-X rather than XTOL (having a bit of press developer type characteristics - no finer grain than necessary, but give more film speed and good accutance) and I love the results.

DD-X speed with D-76 grain and tonality. About the only place I prefer finer grain formula is when making big prints from 35mm 400 speed film... but in that case simply shooting 400TMY-2 will solve the problem.

I agree with the highlighted quotes Ryuji and would include medium-format as well as large-format to your list.
However, 35mm users probably prefer using a finer-grain developer though and be prepared to sacrifice some film speed to acquire that requirement hence D-76/ID-11 or even a Microdol type developer.

I look forward to your new developer very much, so please keep us informed. DDX speed and D-76/ID-11 grain would be ideal. Does it provide Rodinal acutance too?

Keith Tapscott. · Jan 24, 2012

Ryuji said:
Actually, Microphen and Ilfotec DD-X are good developers if you are using large format negatives. They give very good shadow details and beautiful gradations. .

This formula is cited as being Ilford Microphen by the author, but I cannot confirm that it actually is.

http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/showpost.php?p=6982&postcount=1

Roger Cole · Jan 24, 2012

Ryuji said:
I said Let D-23 die.

Let D-23 die.

What's the advantage of D-23? It's a soft, low contrast, fine grain, low accutance developer. In fact, XTOL or DS-10 (my formula) is uniformly superior to D-23 or for that matter D-76.

So, why D-23 now? Its probably known for the simplicity in the formula, but its not particularly easy to dissolve (Metol takes quite some time to dissolve in weakly alkaline and high salt solution like D-23.) but really, is that what we want in 2012? It's time we move on to more advanced solutions.

Silvergrain Super PAC is only responsible for fixing but not the development of this negative campaign.

Nonsense.

Some of us like old stuff like this BECAUSE it is old.

No one really needs to shoot film nowadays (ok, almost no one) and I certainly don't need to shoot 4x5. I do it because it's old style and I like it, mainly.

I actually use mainly T-Max RS, but I like hearing about old formulas and may well experiment with them. I find old stuff fun.

John Austin · Jan 24, 2012

Metol

Ryuji said:
I'll take a hug as long as the body is free of Metol.

A pipe of metol in the morning will make you as strong as a camel's courtyard

Ryuji · Jan 24, 2012

Roger Cole said:
Nonsense.

Some of us like old stuff like this BECAUSE it is old.

That doesn't justify you calling me nonsense.

Ryuji · Jan 24, 2012

Keith Tapscott. said:
I agree with the highlighted quotes Ryuji and would include medium-format as well as large-format to your list.
However, 35mm users probably prefer using a finer-grain developer though and be prepared to sacrifice some film speed to acquire that requirement hence D-76/ID-11 or even a Microdol type developer.

Even in 35mm format if you use Acros or TMX the grain isn't a problem. You'll see the limitation of camera optics before grain becoming a problem. But with those films, with handheld camera, I don't want to lose film speed or accutance.

In 1990s, I used Microphen 1+1 or 1+2 with TMX with very good results, in both 35mm and MF. I used Microphen 1+1 for HP5 Plus with good results in MF, but still it was rather grainy.

Ian Grant · Jan 24, 2012

Keith Tapscott. said:
This formula is cited as being Ilford Microphen by the author, but I cannot confirm that it actually is.

http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/showpost.php?p=6982&postcount=1

According to Ilford themselves who published it in the 1950's that formula is Autophen which was their PQ developer derived from ID-11/D76 and designed for commercial macnine processing. Autophen is also known as "Axford and Kendall's Photofinishing PQ Developer".

Microphen is a different formula (ID-68) more like a PQ variant of the Adox Borax MQ formula and gives a higher effective film speed compared tp ID-11 or autophen. Paert of the speed increase is due to the drop in Sulphite to m80g/l and part to the use of Phenidone. Ilford claimed Microphen was "an altogether new type of developer" when it was released.

Autophen was available in powder and liquid forms, along with replenishers.

Ian

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