Darkroom – Gerhard Schulze

Juni 20, 2022

Kodak Pro-X 125 120er film

I used a rather old (expired 1969) Kodak Pro-X 125 film in an 1929 build voigtländer bessa 6×9 camera.

Sunny sixteen rule, 1/100 sec, 11.

The film was stored since the early 60´s in camera, in a rooftop storage in dirty environment.

Developed in HC 110 1:31 7min at 20 C I got surprisingly nice results.

Oktober 4, 2021März 2, 2022

Developer HC 110

HC 110 seems to have a upswept curve.

Dilution from EUROPEAN CONCENTRATE (500 1466)	240 mL (1 roll, steel tank)	300 mL (1 roll, plastic tank)	480 mL (2 rolls, steel tank)	600 mL (2 rolls, plastic tank)
A (1:4)	48 mL	60 mL	96 mL	120 mL
B (1:9)	24 mL	30 mL	48 mL	60 mL
C (1:5.25)	38.5 mL	48 mL	77 mL	96 mL
D (1:11.5)	21 mL	26 mL	38.5 mL	52 mL
E (1:14)	16 mL	20 mL	32 mL	40 mL
F (1:24)	9.6 mL*	12 mL*	19 mL	24 mL
G (1:36.5)	6.4 mL*	8 mL*	12.8 mL*	16 mL*
H (1:19)	12 mL*	15 mL*	24 mL	30 mL

*Be sure to use at least 19.2 mL of European concentrate per 135-36 or 120 roll of film, even if this requires you to put more than the usual amount of liquid in the tank.

Dilutions G and H are unofficial — not described in any Kodak publications. See „Unusual Uses“ below. I use Dilution H as a substitute for Dilution B to give twice the development time.

Dilutions C, D, and E seem to have been designed to match, respectively, the developing times of DK-50, DK-50 1:1, and DK-50 1:2 with sheet film (Carroll, Photographic Lab Handbook, 1979).

With this developer, development time is roughly proportional to dilution. Thus:

Dilution D	Develop 25% longer than with Dilution B
Dilution E	Develop 50% longer than with Dilution B
Dilution F	Develop 2.5 times as long as with Dilution B

I bought mine by Fotoimpex online and got the original concentrate, not the „european“ one.

A test Foma 100 in solution B, 6 minutes, 21C and 10sec every min agitation gave me good results.

Here is a good summary:

http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/index.html

Oktober 4, 2021März 2, 2022

Foma Film

This is a nice film for its price.

The recirprocity is really „bad“, but I still like it, even for my pinhole shots if there is some light.

100 very good with Tmax and Rodinal, my favorite Foma film in all formats. Results in HC110 (6 min, sol B, 21 C) were also good.

200 don t like this film, never used it
400 rather grainy
320 retro I find the film not sharp enough

August 13, 2020

Umkehrentwicklung Fotopapier

nach Rüdiger Hartungs Mitteilung in „facebook“

1 Papierentwickler normal bis etwas höher verdünnt (für schwache Kontraste)
2. Rotes Blutlaugensalz 40 Gramm pro Liter an.
3. Klärbad 90g Natriumsulfit in einem Liter Wasser.
4. Ein Blitzgerät zur Nachbelichtung (oder Lampe)

Fotopapier mit dem Dia 2 bis 3 Blenden überbelichten. Falls das Endergebniss (Positiv) noch zu dunkel ist, noch mehr überbelichten.

2. Erstwicklung. Ausentwickeln. Es entsteht zunächst ein Negativ. Wegen der Überbelichtung ist dies sehr dunkel.
– kurz in Wasser abspülen –

3. Bleichbad. Mindestens 2 Minuten. Es bleibt ein Restbild stehen. Wenn sich absolut nichts mehr tut,
-kurz mit Wasser abspülen-

4. Klärbad. Auch mindestens 2 Minuten. Zum Ende hin wird das Restbild etwas flacher, milchiger.
– in Wasser mit Bild nach oben legen-

5. Nachbelichten. Blitz mit kleinster Leistungstufe und ca 1m Abstand.

(Variante : Wer eine Schwefel/Sephiatonung macht, kann sich die Nachbelichtung und Zweitentwicklung sparen, das erledigt der Schwefeltoner zusammen).

5. Zweitentwicklung im selben Entwickler (wer die etwas besser steuern möchte, kann 1+1 verdünnen).

5. Fixieren, wässern.

Bei Licht Ergebnis beurteilen.

Finetuning.
Falls das Positiv zu hart oder zu dicht ist:
(Das Bild muss sehr gut gewässert sein nach dem Fixieren. Fixierreste plus Bleiche frisst Lichter unwiederbringlich weg!)

Nochmals bei Licht in die Bleiche (ggf. stärker verdünnen 1+5) und so lange bleichen, bis die Schatten so sind, wie man sie haben möchte und dann schnell in Wasser und bewegen. Die Lichter werden dann mit sehr stark verdünntem Erstentwickler (1+10) zurück entwickelt. Ggf. wiederholen. Dann nochmals fixieren und wässern.

Geht praktisch schneller, als es hier den Anschein hat.

August 10, 2020

x-ray film in caffenol

Here an interesting scientific analysis. It works.

https://research.lpubatangas.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/APJAHS-2018-001.pdf

Juli 29, 2020Juli 29, 2020

Film – Ilford

Ilford Pan 100 (old): 510-Pyro 1:200 10 min 1min Agitation, 21 C

Ilford delta 400: 510-Pyro 1:100 5 min 1min Agitation, 21C

Ilford FP4+: 510-Pyro 1:100 7,30 min 1min Agitation, 21C

Juli 14, 2020Juli 14, 2020

Keatings Developers

Danie Keating regularly comes up with useful and very interesting ideas of alternative developers. Find him on flickr.

The formulas are as follows—assuming 300ml single reel 35mm tank:

Keating’s T42 Green Tea Phenol Developer

300ml tap water room temp
4ml 10% solution of sodium hydroxide (lye drain cleaner)
0.7g sodium bicarbonate (common baking soda)
0.5g ascorbic acid (vitamin C powder)
0.25g Green tea Phenol powder

Times will vary with film speed 20 mins to 1 hour semi stand

Keating’s Peppermint Twisted Developer

*Same 300ml assumption

300ml room temp tap water
2g Sodium Metasilicate (this is sold as TSP/90 wall wash for paint prep at hardware stores)
0.7g sodium bicarbonate
1g ascorbic acid
0.25g dried peppermint extract

40mins-1 hour stand—expect more grain with this formula on higher speed films. Use either formula soon after mixing.

Personally, I prefer the Green Tea version but you may want more grit for street photography. These small footprint formulas solve for the following:

Less expensive than caffenol. 250G of green tea is $26 and 0.25g per roll means you can realize 1000 rolls at 2.6 cents per roll. Instant coffee is about 30 cents per roll for Caffenol.
Less consumptive of total weight of chems—far smaller overall footprint or impact on what goes down the drain.
No exposure to metol or sodium sulfite so contact dermatitis is avoided.
Nothing has to come from a chemist.
Image quality looks quite good to me

Another post from Daniel:

same negative Smena MZ3, the whimpy washed out scan was fixed in Kodak Rapid fix. The higher density one was achieved by re-fixing it in Arista non-hardening fixer. These are both raw scans of the same negs from same scanner. Easily a 1.5 stop boost

His pic shows the difference. Interesting.

März 10, 2020

Developer: fine grain

Here nan interesting discussion about „fine grain“ devs:

Hi! here it is 🙂

AGFA 12 FINE-GRAIN TANK DEVELOPER

This fine-grain formula keeps well and makes an excellent tank developer

Hot Water (125 F. or 52 C)
Agfa Metol 8 grams
Agfa Sodium Sulphite, anhydrous. .. 125 grams
Agfa Sodium Carbonate, monohydrated. 5.75 grams
Agfa Potassium Bromide 2.5 grams
Water to make 1 Liter.
Do not dilute for use. Develop 8 to 12 minutes at 65 F/(18 C.).

And a comment from (I think Rüdiger):

O.K. Fine grain is due to the high content of sodium sulfite (solving developer).

Potassium Bromide seems to be a little high. This may eat quite a lot of sensitivity 1 gramm up to one stop. Modern emulsions don’t need that much – if any.

I work with a much simpler bath that Barry Thornton made for new emulsions. It is a two-bath basically

Bath A:

6.5 g metol, 80 g sodium sulfite to 1 litre.

Bath B:

20 g of sodium metaborate to 1 litre

You „charge“ the emulsion in bath A with initial inversion 1 minute, then once per minute.

Then change to bath B without watering in between.

Initial inversion only once (in order not to wash out the developer) and also once per minute.

The good thing about is: Every ISO 100 film need 4 minutes in each bath and every ISO 400 film 5 minutes.
The developer is good for 10 to 15 rolls.

Very good highlight balancing due to two-bath (developer gets exhausted in the highlights). Fine grain and sharp.You get at least box speed, if not 1/3 to 1/2 f-stop on top.

Januar 21, 2020