William Mortensen and ultra cold development

[Paul Howell]

After reading the post and blog post on cold Rodinal I recalled that William Mortensen would develop at very low temperatures leaving film in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. My first though was to use Adox 09 at 1:100, but my bottle might have gone off so I used MCM 100 1:5, film 6X6 UF 400 rated at 200. Over the 24 hours I did 4 single inversions, after 23 hours let the tank, SS, sit on the counter to come to room temp. The negatives are in the wash, look really good, I was expecting very dense negatives, not the case, look very pintable. Later this week I will print scan the prints and post.

 

[Alan Johnson]

I have the book "Mortensen on the Negative"
He worked with indoor portraits of low subject brightness range , slightly underexposed and developed to gamma infinity to give a good range of tones on the print,
He recommends " ...developers of rather low potential should be used ." IMO, since he lists Edwal 12, MCM 100 should be OK.
He recommends "..development of 35 minutes up to an hour and a half........Under favorable circumstances [not specified] .... have left negatives in the developer overnight...with beautiful results.
However in his book he does not mention development in the refrigerator. He says of overnight development "... such fantastically long periods are not to be recommended for ordinary "
So your test may relate to one of his experiments rather than his recommended procedure.

 

[pentaxuser]

What's MCM Paul ? Thanks. So that's stand development at about 3 degrees centigrade with about one inversion every 6 hours or just under with presumably an 8 hour gap for sleep so maybe in reality 1 inversion every 4 hours

I would be nice to see the results if that's OK

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

Paul, I felt that William Mortensen rang a bell and now I recall from where. It was on the IlfordPhoto site under the Learning Zone. It concerns uprating HP5+ to 1600 using a Mortensen method- just not extreme cold and only semi-stand for an hour

I do not want to sidetrack this thread nor lead to any discussion on it here but as you may be interested in his methods I thought I'd mention it Worth a look IMO

pentaxuser

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

Several times in the late 1990's/early 2000's I did rolls of AGFA APX 25 and 100 in Rodinal 1;500 starting temp 55 F put in a bucket with ice. Went surfing, 3-5 hours returned (ambient @80+F) to melted ice, fixed and dried. Looked good and was had enough compensation effect to make most exposures have a good printable density. It was a handy way to do film and be productive while surfing.

 

[pentaxuser]

Several times in the late 1990's/early 2000's I did rolls of AGFA APX 25 and 100 in Rodinal 1;500 starting temp 55 F put in a bucket with ice. Went surfing, 3-5 hours returned (ambient @80+F) to melted ice, fixed and dried. Looked good and was had enough compensation effect to make most exposures have a good printable density. It was a handy way to do film and be productive while surfing.

Just out of interest how much Rodinal did you use at 1:500. The general consensus seems to be at least 6ml of Rodinal but that makes it a 3L tank which seems a lot. However as no inversion is mentioned then perhaps a 3L container is fine. Are there any lightproof tanks that big?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

He recommends " ...developers of rather low potential should be used ." IMO, since he lists Edwal 12, MCM 100 should be OK.

There's one person on Facebook who has done (and continues to do) some interesting experiments with Mortensen's method and reported his findings. Not sure he's a member of this forum. He uses 510-Pyro.

 

[Ian Grant]

MCM was a magazine, Miniature Camera MAgazine, in those days miature meant smaller than Quarter plate and foren encompassed 120 and 127 roll film as well as 35,,, 16mm etc is Sub-miniature/

M.C.M. 100 was a developer designed to give extra fine grain with miniature films, it was sold by Johnsons of Hendon, the oldest photographic company in the world, they supplied Fox Talbot, still exist as Johnsons Photopia. M.C.M. 100 was a Meritol based developer, Meritol was unique to Johnsons and a fusion product of Pyrocatechin and Paraphenyldiamine, it was also used in Unitol.

One of the reasons for working at low temperatures is the misguided belief that it helped produce finer grain, there was a German trend to use Rodinal at around 15ºC for this reason. In practice temperature doesn't affect grain size, however it can improve apparent graininess caused by surface artefacts of the emulsion super-coat, these are caused by sudden temperature variations during processing. Most modern films are well hardened so this is now rarely an issue, Acros and the original Tmax400, EFKE and Foma films are/were prone to issues, it's also known as Micro or Incipient reticulation and during printing and particularly scanning the surface artefacts add to the apparent graininess.

Back in Mortesen's day plates and films were poorly hardened and prone to full blown reticulation unless temperature controls were tight, two other factors also affect the swelling of the emulsion apart from increased temperature. on is pH so the more alkali the more swelling. also choice of alkali, Hydroxide softens emulsion far more than Carbonate and Rodinal contains Hydroxide, there's more free Hydroxide now in Rodinal/RO9 since the reformulation after the merger of Agfa with Gevaert in the early 1960's.

M.C.M. 100 uses Borax like ID-11/D76 so there's less emulsion swelling.

Ian.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks Ian for that insight into MCM 100 I had never heard of it. I wonder how this has ended up in Paul's in Arizona but maybe Meritol still exists as Meritol M.C.M. 100 but not made by Johnson's anymore?

pentaxuser

 

[Ian Grant]

Meritol is made by heating Pyrocatechin in laboratory conditions with of Paraphenylene Diamenebut Edmund Lowe (of Edwal) stated that mixing Pyroctachin and of Paraphenylene Diamene in solution gave the same results as long as the proportions are correct.

Ian

 

[Paul Howell]

I use Photographers Formulary version of MCM 100, which is the pyyrocatchin and paraphenylene version, in normal use with UF 400 at 75F about 7 minutes, so 1 to 5 seemed like a good bet at 40 degrees F. I replenish MCM 100 using the same method I use for Edwal 12 or 777, mix a quart, toss half my current stock solution replace with new MCM100 then with the remaining 16 oz, discard 1oz for each roll of film and replace with fresh. Down side it is expensive, about $48 a gallon, about 75 cents a 35mm 36 exposure roll. On the up side I've this tank of MCM 100 going for about 4 years. I sacrificed the stock MCM as I just ordered another kit and going to replenish.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks Paul Not being U.S. based I'd forgotten about PF. When Ian mentioned Johnson's of Hendon I did just wonder how you had acquired that variety of MCM 100

pentaxuser

 

[eli griggs]

Did Mortesen no also use Ansco 130 as a film developer as well?

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

Aloha, I used a four 35mm tank steel with steel top (Nikor) generally either one 120 roll/reel sitting on a 35mm reel to space it off the bottom or 2 35mm reels again spaced off the bottom and one 35mm reel on top to keep them from moving too much. Rodinal was 2 ml to 1 liter I took filtered water straight out of the refrigerator, generally a 30-45 sec initial light inversion/twist agitation. The spacing of reels off the bottom reduced the bromide drag especially on the 120. In Hawaii at that studio the ambient temps were 85-90F when I did this with an ice bucket bath and the stronger dilutions (5-8ml per liter) seemed to increase my potential for bromide drag and I did not gain any appreciable contrast/density gains to warrant using more Rodinal, IMO the weaker/colder/longer seemed to make it easier to get what I wanted with less effort and potential for errors.

Just out of interest how much Rodinal did you use at 1:500. The general consensus seems to be at least 6ml of Rodinal but that makes it a 3L tank which seems a lot. However as no inversion is mentioned then perhaps a 3L container is fine. Are there any lightproof tanks that big?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[Alan Johnson]

Did Mortesen no also use Ansco 130 as a film developer as well?

Not in his book.
He did list his own glycin -sulfite-carbonate formula but it had no hydroquinone in it and likely would give lower contrast than Ansco 130.

 

[removed account4]

clay posted something about mortenson's glycin variant
a loooong time ago ( before he was known as the turnip ).
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...developers-to-make-with-it.12698/#post-175990


==

Eli.
I use Ansco 130 as a film developer, it works great!

John

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks RidingWaves. That's an incredibly small amount of Rodinal at 2ml but it clearly worked. I suspect that if a newcomer to film has suggested that he was going to use as little as 2ml and starting at 55 degrees F he might have received warnings of disastrous consequences to follow

pentaxuser

 

[NB23]

I’m baffled as to why it is always rodinal.

Stand, semi-stand, ultra-stand, mega-stand, no-stand, double-stand, rock-stand, extra-stand, penetration-stand, smooth-stand, relax-stand and my favorite: Smooth’N’Relax-stand, all can be done with absolutely any developer.

Any.

Rodinal is not a magical liquid that permits smooth’n’Relax-stand development over D76, for instance.

 

[Paul Howell]

I think any concentrated developer will work, HC 110, or one of fX formulas, maybe Foma LQR, I got results with MCM 100 at 1:5, printing a few shots from my test roll, no bromide drag, good tones, as I used Ultra Fine 400 some of the highlights are blown, which is typical. My first thought was 24 in the refrigerator as an experiment, then thought what about 4X5, Yankee tank, hold up to 20 sheets of film, slush for one agitation every 4 hours or so?

 

[Paul Howell]

Attached is 2 test prints, film is Ultra Fine, 400 shot 6X6, rated ISO 200, Yashica D, orange and red filters, MCM 100 1:5 24 hours at 40 degrees. No bromide drag, grain is about I get with MCM as are the tones when used stock at 75 degrees. The rabbitt was cropped otherwise straight split contrast printing.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Nice prints but apart from developing to gamma infinity the method does not have much to do with Mortensen.
His process [ in his book ] involved a photographing a subject of low brightness ratio and developing to expand the tonal range.

 

[Paul Howell]

I agree, lockdown is getting to me, looking for experiments. The only advantage that I can see with ultra cold is maybe 4X5 in a Yankee tank, no need to mess with filling the tank in the dark, agitation is simple, but don't know if I want to wait 24 hours for negatives. I was surprised that it worked at all, thought the emoustion might come off, or the film fogged.

 

[eli griggs]

[QUOTE="Paul Howell, post: 2301253, member: don't know if I want to wait 24 hours for negatives.[/QUOTE]

Depending on your kit, shoot a second camera, back, or holder and use these as fodder for long developer.

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

Way back pre-digital with a habit of finding lenses that needed disassembling and cleaning I would do a round of quick standard tests on film all the time so I found this occasional way to process film to be productive while re-creating. The quality of the results was always revealing and I could accept the variation of the process. I do less of this type of testing these days since the inclusion of digital, but it was a fun 'party trick' when hanging out with surfing photographer friends, test some lenses then toss the film into an ice bucket, go surf, then return to fix wash dry with a beer and snacks....a certain charm from a different era....