Frankly, the ISO boost is small and I very rarely notice it, but then if I want shadow detail I use the Zone System metering and that would be more shadow detail than the ISO boost.
LESS shadow detail as seen from the chart. One needs to bear in mind that these differences are minute (imagine the x axis to be a foot / mile long ...)
This was when I lived in Denver and worked at a photo lab there. We ran a nitrogen burst line for B&W film development but I can't recall what developer we used but I'm certain it wasn't HC 110.
How is this done with Ilfosol, Rodinal Spezial / Studional, TT Ultrafin liquid and similar which usually dilute to 1+9 or 1+29?
I think the baseline you need to start from is that 'fine-grain' is often relative to whatever the marketing department wanted it to be. If your comparators are Rodinal and Neofin Blau, a lot of things can be called 'fine-grain'.
Rodinal Special/ Studional uses/ used Triethanolamine (thus about 1930s tech, if you are going from Kodak patents) and was clearly aimed at aspects of the HC-110 market. Agfa made other (powder) developers that were much more explicitly aimed at being properly fine-grain in character (Refinal - essentially their version of Microphen - and Atomal etc).
Tetenal Ultrafin had a rather questionable formula from what I can tell (a bit like some of Crawley's less brilliant ideas), but we should note that the evolved variants of Ultrafin were essentially an HC-110-alike (Ultrafin Plus) and a DD-X-alike (Ultrafin T-Plus), which rather suggests they were perfectly aware of the same issues that the bigger film manufacturers were finding too, but also had a clientele who were fixed in their ideas of developer preference, so kept making regular Ultrafin.
Ilfosol 3 is a bit more puzzling. I suspect it of using a tiny amount of an ammonia salt (there is a prime suspect for what this could be) to enhance solvency in a more concentrated developer (you can smell it at 1+9, but not as clearly at 1+14 - and it's not from exhaustion of the developer) - Ilford's patents from the 1990s hint rather heavily at them actively researching this. It would definitely explain some of the specific oddities of Ilfosol 3. The grain character is fine but noticeably more defined than something like ID-11, not coarser - however this results in the granularity being a little more obvious.
Earlier versions of Ilfosol seem to have been quite chemically varied, so I'll leave those out of this.
Ultrafin were essentially an HC-110-alike (Ultrafin Plus) and a DD-X-alike (Ultrafin T-Plus)
The Ultrafin Plus I used was more similar to a DD-X like product.
Yes. Tetenal Neopress HC was the product similar to Kodak HC-110.
In that case Ultrafin Plus was probably closer to Tmax developer (its MSDS explicitly stated it used a sulfur dioxide adduct) - Ultrafin T-Plus was definitely a DD-X-alike, but was relatively more recent (2010's).
Just to confuse everyone further, Neopress HC's MSDS (from the early 2010's) states that it used a large amount of potassium sulphite rather than the sulphur dioxide adduct from HC-110/ HC.
The type of developer in which the diethanolamine-sulfur dioxide adduct was replaced by potassium sulfite can be traced back to 2007 when PhotoSystems, manufacturer of the new T-Max developer, produced this msds for Kentmere K-110 ,an HC-110 type, but the originator of this replacement is not publicly known.Now I wonder who was involved in reformulating T-MAX developer? Kodak themselves? Their supplier?
Thanks. But why the change in the first place?
Much easier to manufacture.
I can only comment on the situation as of March 2024 where there appears to be only two suppliers of diethanolamine sufite and they are both in China.
Google found numerous suppliers
Are you sure? Google found numerous suppliers from Turkey (Borotech, Isik Kimya), Thailand. etc.
OK, but supplier != manufacturer.
Much easier to manufacture.
It is very difficult to find in Canada, it is not suitable for use with sheet film, and the version that was suitable for both sheet film and use with replenishment is no longer made.
I would agree that it is better than HC-110.
Interesting, thanks.
Now I wonder who was involved in reformulating T-MAX developer? Kodak themselves? Their supplier?
The original T-Max Developer was formulated by Kodak. As time moved on and supply moved to others the suppliers would influence the formulation. Kodak had extensive resources to apply to formulating the original T-Max Films and Developer. I doubt if the chemical suppliers had as extensive resources. The original formulation was done in side-by-side with the film designers.
Ergo, with the new formulation the quality must have gone downhill.
Oh, I'm glad I'm not that naive. But yeah, we are all speculating, nothing more.Not necessarily. Changes might reflect modern improvements in manufacturing techniques, positive improvements respecting the availability of chemical constituents or a whole host of other positive factors.
The only thing that is certain is that the world is different than when Eastman Kodak originally designed the product, and when manufacturing first transitioned to other parties.
Oh, I'm glad I'm not that naive. But yeah, we are all speculating, nothing more.
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