ZoneImaging Photochemicals: A new photochemical company

Tom Kershaw said:

'This further progressed to experimenting to make his own black and white developers after sparking a friendship with Jay DeFehr, the most celebrated photo-chemist of the 21st century' - citation? This kind of marketing hyperbole instantly puts me off the company.

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Given that none of Jay DeFehr, Rudiger Hartung and Daniel Keating are in any sense qualified photographic research chemists, or for that matter apparently aware of many aspects of basic developer design principles/ user safety with regards to pyrogallol or raw PPD (and Lane & Hartung are once again clear examples of victims of persuasive writing - Barry Thornton was a much better journalist than he was an amateur photo chemistry researcher, unfortunately), it's fair to treat everything they claim very skeptically (and possibly wearing appropriate PPE). Keating is just the latest 're-discoverer' of what has been old knowledge since the 1890s - that many phenols in alkali solution will develop silver halides to one degree or another.

I'd add that the reason Pyrocat seems (some of the time at least) to be less problematic is probably because it fortuitously has adopted a pyrazolidone: dihydroxybenzine ratio (or close to one) that is known to work well at the given pH without delivering poor coverage. Not that it couldn't be probably improved upon - but that would require proper resources (microdensitometry for a start) & there's every chance you'd end up back at something like Ilfosol-3 or FX-39 II. The academic/ industrial literature would seem to suggest that Dimezone S, Ascorbate, DTPA for stopping the Fenton reaction and a carbonate/ bicarbonate buffer (and sulphite/ other silver solvents as needed for optimal outcomes) might constitute a fair starting point for the variables to use for an as nominally eco-friendly (very much a shifting variable over time) a developer formulation as possible - and you could get quite a variety of developers out of that. Problem is, it wouldn't be able to be hyped up as it uses very standard ingredients & doesn't turn your film weird colours or force you to work with noxious/ toxic chemicals (which makes me think there might be other unexamined psychological/ sociological aspects at play here too).

Lachlan Young said:

that would require proper resources (microdensitometry for a start)

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Apart from the usual suspects like Ilford, Kodak and Fuji, who has this kind of equipment? Does Adox have one? Not sure I've seen any RMS granularity stats in their data sheets.

The last independent contributor who published microdensitometer results was Geoffrey Crawley,d 2010, in Amateur Photographer magazine 2000-2010, he was technical consultant.
The fate of his microdensitometer is not publicly known.

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Apart from the usual suspects like Ilford, Kodak and Fuji, who has this kind of equipment? Does Adox have one? Not sure I've seen any RMS granularity stats in their data sheets.

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The only film manufacturers who release figures on granularity are Agfa, Fujj and Kodak.

Alan Johnson said:

The last independent contributor who published microdensitometer results was Geoffrey Crawley,d 2010, in Amateur Photographer magazine 2000-2010, he was technical consultant.
The fate of his microdensitometer is not publicly known.

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Ansco (and others of that ilk - Perkin Elmer?) appear to have made made automated recording microdensitometers in the 1950s-ish era that seem to have been somewhat commercially available - from what I recall reading, their usefulness was limited over about 20-25 cyc/mm - I would need to go and look up exactly why this was. An educated guess would suggest that Crawley's device was probably of an era with these (as were some of his technical pronouncements of that era which are unfortunately still repeated as absolute 'fact'). I don't think any were using X-ray exposure, but purely visual light exposure.

Richard Henry was the only person I can think of who adapted a commercially manufactured scientific instrument of a later era to act as an effective microdensitometer, but again using visual light exposure. A drum scanner is very similar internally to a microdensitometer & other high end scanners could probably be used for the purpose, if they could be cross-referenced/ calibrated to a set of test grating images that were scanned on a calibrated microdensitometer of the sort that lives in manufacturers' labs. I can definitely see and measure adjacency effects on films I have scanned (and could plot them if I could be bothered), but I can't see anything that would contravene either Richard Henry or other work in the engineering/ academic materials - and what it mostly tells me is that most of the 'analysis' of various fashionable developers is being done to such a low technical baseline of (seemingly nonexistent) simple process controls and sharpness/ resolution as to render the claims completely questionable. D-76/ ID-11, a functionally accurate enough thermometer and adequate standards of sharpness throughout the imaging chain tell a lot of unkind truths, I'm afraid to say.

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Apart from the usual suspects like Ilford, Kodak and Fuji, who has this kind of equipment? Does Adox have one? Not sure I've seen any RMS granularity stats in their data sheets.

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Most of them will gather the data, but may choose not to publish it as large parts of the supposedly 'technically-minded' part of the user base seem to struggle badly enough understanding ISO film speed ratings as it is & would simply rely on RMSG ratings without context to compare materials without actually understanding what they mean or how they relate to visual results. From what I understand, the 48µm aperture that is often specified relates to a 12x enlargement. As a matter of fact, you can use MTF charts to predict the outcomes of resolution tests, if you know the contrast ratio of the test chart being used - and that sometimes fascinating errors of reading creep in (such as all transparency films resolutions being read out at extinction, but neg films at somewhere between 5% and 10% MTF) which effectively renders the conclusions of this sort of enthusiast-level resolution testing moot (even if the results aren't 'wrong', just not properly standardised - and if they were properly standardised, the results wouldn't be confounding to what is visually apparent in a good print or scan!).

I don’t know what’s stopping any scanner from performing as a microdensitometer

Bill Burk said:

I don’t know what’s stopping any scanner from performing as a microdensitometer

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Densitometer, yes, but a microdensitometer needs much higher sharpness than a consumer flatbed (or most consumer grade film scanners) can deliver. And then you actually need to be able to deliver exposures to the film in a meaningful way that lets you differentiate out various sharpness affecting behaviours (hence visual light and x-ray exposures). From what I can tell, in manufacturing R&D, it's essentially as simple as: put sample in a microsensitometer (I think that's what they're called) to expose it, process it in candidate developer etc, put sample in automatic microdensitometer, take plotted data, repeat until series of candidate developer formulae has been tested.

I was wondering if there's any lab that offers microdensitometer analysis as a service that the 21st century developer inventors can avail and prove doubters wrong.

Agfa sure would do so. Filmotec too, if still alive,

AgX said:

Agfa sure would do so. Filmotec too, if still alive,

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Fantastic! So in principle nothing is preventing Zone Imaging from taking service of such labs to do systematic evaluation of their products including 510-Pyro? Of course they might not want to do it for other reasons.

It would be a matter of money and I doubt such one-man-show is in the right league for such service.

AgX said:

It would be a matter of money and I doubt such one-man-show is in the right league for such service.

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Curious to know about other companies which manufacture and/or sell photochemistry like Tetenal, Cinestill, Bellini etc. Do they have their own equipment to systematically evaluate the various developers they develop? Or they take services of the two companies you mentioned earlier?

AgX said:

It would be a matter of money and I doubt such one-man-show is in the right league for such service.

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If they were operating at a level where they regarded such tests as necessary, I don't think they'd be pursuing the ingredient choices that they are with such conviction.

Lachlan Young said:

If they were operating at a level where they regarded such tests as necessary, I don't think they'd be pursuing the ingredient choices that they are with such conviction.

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Trouble is, to what extent are marketing lead operations like 'Zone Imaging' believed in the general population of photographers; are they supposed to be a "cool" product to promote on YouTube?...

Tom Kershaw said:

Trouble is, to what extent are marketing lead operations like 'Zone Imaging' believed in the general population of photographers; are they supposed to be a "cool" product to promote on YouTube?...

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At the end of the day, all photographic products are marketing led - it's just that some put much more effort into getting a product that is measurably and perceptibly superior using rigorously scientific methodology and applied institutional knowledge, rather than wasting effort on forcefully marketing a needlessly toxic product to those desperate for a magic solution to their development problems (which are invariably process control problems instead).

The problem is that those companies putting much more effort into doing what you stated are not seen as the "cool" companies. Newcomers and some "oldies" as well crave "new" things all the time.

Fantome 8, Babylon 13 etc create much more excitement and a "must buy" desire than "bread and butter" stuff from Ilford's, Kodak's etc range

Last year's stuff or heaven forbid last 20 years' stuff is so..."last year"

pentaxuser

Unfortunately "cool is in" sometimes does lead, and the less real information sometimes does lead the way.
Also what may be "better" sometimes has quirks that folk don't like. I am sure that Kodak thought that they had an absolute winner with T-Max 400. By many measures it is a much better film, BUT it is more fussy to process correctly, and it does not "look" like Tri-X. thus Tri-X remains very popular.

cmacd123 said:

I am sure that Kodak thought that they had an absolute winner with T-Max 400. By many measures it is a much better film, BUT it is more fussy to process correctly, and it does not "look" like Tri-X. thus Tri-X remains very popular.

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I've never really looked into whether Tri-X has any shadow speed advantage over T-Max 400.

Jemzyboz said:

I say to give it a chance. It may be a product to get them off their feet to fund research for more products.

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Zone Imaging Labs is now teasing another "21st century developer":

"

There’s another planned developer to join 510 Pyro, another staining developer! The following is all the information we can divulge so far.

This developer is the most concentrated ever formulated and will be a two-part developer. This developer was designed to create unique artistic results which are quite different depending on the dilution of Part A by either 1:200 or 1:500.

The characteristics you can expect are medium-high contrast, extreme high acutance, and fine grain (though not as fine as 510 Pyro). When Part A is used 1:500, it’s described that you get an “etching like” effect, a lot of compensation, and a compression of midtones. When Part A is used 1:200, you get more midtones and the etching effect is removed.

"

From the description, it appears to me that the new concentrated developer could be Zone Imaging Lab's own attempt at creating a variant of Jay DeFehr's Obsidian Aqua with possibly additional developing agents but no idea what this "etching effect" is.

Does the world really need a new black and white film developer, which may or may not be new, particularly one which delivers "unique artistic results"? What are "unique artistic results", and, in particular, what renders such results "artistic"? Any samples of photographs with and without "etching"?

As far as James Lane of ZoneImaging is concerned, here's two extracts from 2 videos by the same presenter. In the latter James talks of his newest innovations, mentioning "etching and what Raghu said in a recent thread but the presenter in neither asks the kind of penetrating questions that might give any useful answers.

James also hints at his latest developer i.e. a third one in which Ilford may be involved but this one really is just skimmed over Here's the first video which is the one I posted before


Here is the second :

The James Lane bit is from 15:15 to 16: 40

Apparently all 3 of his developers starting with 510Pyro are eco-friendly but his third one for which he wants/needs to get Ilford involved will be grainless and the most eco-friendly developer ever devised

The presenter describes James Lane as "the amazing James Lane"

pentaxuser

I will be distributing Zone Imaging 510-Pyro in the USA. HIs is an improved formula over the original. I have 50 bottles en route to my shop as we speak.

pentaxuser said:

As far as James Lane of ZoneImaging is concerned, here's two extracts from 2 videos by the same presenter. In the latter James talks of his newest innovations, mentioning "etching and what Raghu said in a recent thread but the presenter in neither asks the kind of penetrating questions that might give any useful answers.

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Can anyone address James Lane's claim in the video that when we look at a negative we do not see the grain, but the spaces between the grain? Would an analogy be that when we read, we do not see the letters comprising the words, but the spaces between the letters comprising the words?

Always good to see new peoples in this field.

NortheastPhotographic said:

I will be distributing Zone Imaging 510-Pyro in the USA. HIs is an improved formula over the original. I have 50 bottles en route to my shop as we speak.

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Is Zone Imaging's formula for its 510-Pyro proprietary? If not, how does it differ from Jay DeFehr's formula for 510-Pyro?