Your best semi-stand experiences?

jay moussy

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I have only done semi-stand with Caffenol, and wonder what other developers/routines would work in semi-stand mode.
Success stories?

Psst.. I know semi-stand is heresy to many, but why not have some fun with stuff.. and I was nice enough to not to mention extreme s-s! We are all friends, here, as Big Sandy like to say.
 

npl

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(semi)stand is mostly used with rodinal, it's also possible with HC-110.

The one and only case where I found semi-stand quite good was for a ISO 100 film (foma 100) shot at box speed in harsh contrasty light, developed for 60min in rodinal 1:100, a few gentle inversion at the 30min mark. It is fine in this specific situation, but not better than overexposing and pulling with normal agitation.
Always got terrible results with caffenol CL, I don't get that trend.
Did semistand twice with HC-110, not great, not terrible. 1:119, same routine as above.

It's not heresy, it's just not great. Lots of drawbacks and few advantages : very high risk of ruining your negatives with bromide drag, flat dull negatives in normal contrast light, high grain.
 
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john_s

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I don't do semi stand, but I prefer my negatives now that I do somewhat reduced agitation. It seems to be important though that the initial agitation be quite substantial: I do inversion for a full 2 minutes to start with.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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It's only heresy to those who don't know how to use it properly. It's been in my arsenal for about 25 years. My favourite stand/semi-stand developer by a long chalk... Pyrocat-HD. I normally dilute it 1+1+240, but recently, I've been playing around with different mixtures of A and B. John_s is correct about the initial agitation being quite substantial. I also do two minutes constant agitation at the start. It is key in eliminating mottling, and the dreaded bromide drag. 510-Pyro is also excellent.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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Full on stand is very risky. Semi-stand...and there are many variations, including EMA....that are quite safe to use if one works carefully. However, if I work sloppily, I would expect sloppy results.
 

Rolleiflexible

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Rather than recite the catechism here, the OP might (re)visit any of the numerous threads on the subject, most recently, this one:

WARNING: EXTREME STAND DEVELOPMENT!

www.photrio.com

It's not heresy. It is a great way to hold highlights while developing out shadows. It saves a lot of fuss over temperatures and times. If you are mindful of how to do it, it is flawless. I've done it for decades and it is reliable. Others will disagree. Draw your own conclusions.
 

Bronson Dugnutt

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It is a sound technique when done correctly, but I wouldn't process all my film that way. I'll choose 1+100 rodinal semi-stand on occasion as an aesthetic choice: huge grain and edge sharpness gives a Tmax developer-like look. Understanding the behavior of different developers at high dilutions is very useful.

Reduced agitation is almost a requirement if you want pictorial results from technical films.

Minolta QT, FPP Sonic 25
D-23 1+3 12' 'semi-stand'
 

Andrew O'Neill

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Naturally, one shouldn't rely on stand/semi-stand for all occasions. But when I really want to emphasise texture, and/or acutance, it's Pyrocat-HD at 1+1+240.
This morning, I semi-stood a sheet of CatLABS 80 in Mortensen's Glycine Variant, and another in Pyrocat-HD. I got as far as sleeving them this afternoon. It was foggy outside and I rarely get the opportunity to photograph in snowy foggy conditions, so out the door I went! Then the Canucks played the Leafs . I'll look more closely at them tomorrow.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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That looks great, Bronson. I've used D-23 a lot over the years straight and at various dilutions, but have never used it for semi-stand.
 

mshchem

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So is there an extreme, I'm somewhat serious here, of constant agitation, like rotary, using extraordinarily diluted developer??

I wonder if you had a huge tank, so given time and agitation, the developer would gradually find the image??

When I want to live risky I just use XTOL 1+3
 

chuckroast

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I have gotten fine semistand results from Pyrocat-HD, DK-50, HC-110, and D-23 across a wide variety of films and dilutions. In all cases, I prewet for 3 minutes, continuously agitate for 2 minutes, agitate 10 seconds at 31 minutes, and pull at 60 minutes.

For almost everything, these days, I use Pyrocat-HD 1.5:1:300.

When I want really enhanced sharpness, I use D-23 1+9 adding 0.5g/l of lye. This is not recommended for 35mm because it really pops the grain, unless you happen to like that look.

My notes here:

https://gitbucket.tundraware.com/tundra/Stand-Development
 

Rolleiflexible

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Bronson Dugnutt said:
It is a sound technique when done correctly, but I wouldn't process all my film that way. I'll choose 1+100 rodinal semi-stand on occasion as an aesthetic choice: huge grain and edge sharpness
Click to expand...

I do process all my film using semistand development, in Rodinal. But it occurs to me that I shoot only 120 roll film now. For me, grain size is mostly inconsequential. If I were shooting 35mm, maybe the grain would affect my views. And maybe sprocket holes would cause issues. I can’t say.
 

chuckroast

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35mm semistand processed in Pyrocat-HD shows no objectionable grain.
 

npl

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Just a note that there really should be separate discussions on (semi)stand for each developers as they don't behave the same at all. As an exemple, conclusions drawn from using one of the popular pyros developers with (semi) stand can't be fully applied to more conventionnal developers commonly used with this technique like rodinal or HC-110, and certainely not caffenol.

With *theses three* (rodinal, HC-110, caffenol) I would not call semi-stand a safe method. From the numerous threads on the subject and personnal experience, even with extensive testing to find the ideal combination of agitation, reel positionning... and so on to eliminate bromide drag, the risk is still there and shouldn't be underestimated.

Lastly what do we call semi-stand ? for some it's one inversion mid-way, for others so much intermediate inversion that it start to look like conventionnal agitation and the debate is muddied further..
 

Andrew O'Neill

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For me, full on stand is agitation at the start only. After that, it's semi-stand. EMA is a form of semi-stand with shorter rest intervals, using one developer, Pyrocat-HD. I'm still exploring that technique. Then there's the geometric agitation technique with 510-Pyro.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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Sherman's EMA (Extreme Minimal Agitation) is a bit of a misnomer, in my opinion. The film is agitated quite a bit compared to what I normally do with Pyrocat-HD and semi-stand.
Here is his agitation technique: 1st agitation vigorous @ 2min. stand 7.5 min. / agitate 20 sec. / stand 7.5 min. / agit. 20 sec. / stand 7.5 min. / Stop Bath
 
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Alan Johnson

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Once I made an experiment in which 2 sets of 120 photographs of a uniformly light colored wall were semi-stand developed in a Paterson tank and developed one roll in Rodinal and the other in Crawleys FX-2 glycin.
The Rodinal was pretty good in avoiding bromide drag and other marks except near the film edges but the glycin was even better.
I wonder if the tendency these days to use proprietary developers has resulted in glycin being overlooked as possible best stand developer. As mentioned by Andy glycin was used by Mortensen who was to some extent a specialist in this procedure.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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I need to give Crawley's FX-2 a go again, but I'll have to get some Pinacryptol Yellow in. The last time I tried that stuff, I was still in Japan. That was full on stand with HP5, if I recall.
 

chuckroast

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Keep in mind that the idea of semistand is to quickly exhaust highlight development but leave the film in developer a long to to allow shadows to fully develop and mid-tones to expand local contrast. This mandates a very highly dilute developer.

The normal dilutions published by Kodak are simply not dilute enough. Their tables end at Dilution F at 1:79. I got perfectly fine semistand results with HC-110 at 1+128 developing for a full hour with an initial 2 minute agitation and a 10 second agitation at 31 minutes.

However, at that dilution, HC-110 sharpens a lot and you'll get more visible grain. It's not terrible for 120 or larger, but I wouldn't use it for 35mm.

The other thing is that superadditive developers, like DK-50 and HC-110, tend to really pump up the mid-tone contrast in long standing development. For these reasons I prefer Pyrocat-HD for semistand and use it at 1.5:1:250 or 300. This calms the midtone expansion to a pleasant level. And, of course, the Pyro stain helps mask grain, making it suitable for smaller formats.

npl said:
Lastly what do we call semi-stand ? for some it's one inversion mid-way, for others so much intermediate inversion that it start to look like conventionnal agitation and the debate is muddied further..
Click to expand...

The convention proposed by Sandy King and Steve Sherman that most people use in these discussions is:

Conventional: 1 or 2 agitations per minute or continuous agitation
Stand: 1 initial agitation followed by uninterrupted standing time
Semistand: 1 initial agitation and 1 agitation at the midpoint time during the stand
Extreme Minmal Agitation: 1 initial agitation, and several (2-4) brief agitations during the standing time

There is nothing magical about these definitions, they're just definitional conveniences so that we're all on the same page.

I have made my notes from the past several years of doing this available for others to read, here:

tundra/Stand-Development

gitbucket.tundraware.com
 

chuckroast

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I think you will find that the Paterson tank and reel are likely implicated in bromide drag. I've done a ton of testing over the past several years and found that the more contact the film has with its support structure, the more drag you risk. Similarly, getting the reel of the bottom of the tank lets gravity pull away the byproducts during stand and reduces the risk of streaking.

For these reasons, I use only Nikor stainless reels in a tank twice as large as needed. I invert a funnel at the bottom of the tank and place the loaded reel on top of it. This suspends the film well above the bottom, and the Nikor reel design appears to have minimal tendency toward bromide drag since so little is in contact with the film. YMMV
 

Andrew O'Neill

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Alan Johnson said:
FDC 2020 p79,"Crawley suggests Pinacryptol need not be added to FX-2 when developing tabular grain films"
Click to expand...

That's good to know! Thanks, Alan. I have plenty of those types of films on hand. As far as I know it is an anti-fogging agent, so I wonder if the addition of KBr would work as a substitute.
 

What About Bob

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My first introduction to stand and semi-stand development was when I was a student at Hallmark. Don Ayotte, the school's director and teacher, put together a special class on the zone system and of stand development. HC-110 was what we used at the school. Don first showed smaller prints from the normal exposure and development, one under print and one over of a scene of a bridge and trees in very bright and harsh sun with very deep shadows. After showing these small print examples he brought out the 40X50 print of the final image from using the zone system and stand development The dimensionality of the print was breath-taking. You could hear the class having their breath taken away. Beautifully detailed shadows and gorgeous highlights with details. It was after this class that I started playing around with the system.

I was using HC-110 that I had bought when I was back home for vacaction. The dilution was...... 1:63 I think? One of the dilutions, probably F or something. I remember making a picture of criss-cross patterns of a chair with the shadow of this pattern hitting the floor of the porch at an angle.. It was a very bright and sunny day with hot highlights and deep shadows. The chair pattern and wood floor underneath were sharp and the criss-crosses literally popped out. It was like viewing a 3D black and white print. I was shooting Tri-X 320 at the time, exposed at around 100 ISO. I did go to 50 a few times for greater compression of the scale. As far as grain was concerned; I couldn't find any from my recollection. If I ever can find that image I will post it.

I also played around with stand and semi-stand development in late 2019. I was using Pyrocat-HD and Rodinal with Ultrafine film and the Ilford films. Someday I will have to try other diltuions for Pyrocat and Rodinal. I only used the 1:1:100 for Pyrocat The stuff is really nice with FP4. When I used the stuff for the first time the negatives looked a little on the flat side but printed very nice. I liked the chocolately stain color that the developer produced.

Seeing that I have moved to playing around with D23 it will be interesting to try this out as a stand and semi-stand developer.
 

chuckroast

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What About Bob said:
Seeing that I have moved to playing around with D23 it will be interesting to try this out as a stand and semi-stand developer.
Click to expand...

It works really well, especially at high dilutions. Here is a scan of a print made from a 9x12cm negative developed in D:23 1+9 with 0.5 g/l lye added. The high dilution gives you great sharpness:


However, this comes at the cost of consdiderably more visible grain in smaller formats like 35mm:


I've gotten really good semistand results in D-23 1+3 that is a more day-to-day balance between sharpness and grain.
 
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