Divided D-76 Style Film Developer
jch
Hello All,
I have been reading about divided developers for film. Never tried it;
looks promising though! Do any of you in this group have any experience
with this approach? The reason for my interest is the fact that i live
in the country and that my house disposes of waste water via a septic
tank system. Hence, i want to minimise the amounts of photographic
chemicals entering the tank in case they kill the microbes.
Below is a divided developer formula; a variant on D-76 where BATH A and
B can be kept for a long time:
A BATH
Water at 125F 3 cups
Metol 1/2 tsp
Sodium sulfite 2 TBL
Hydroquinone 2 tsp
Potassium bromide 1/8 tsp
Cold water to make 1 quart
B BATH
Water at 80-100F 3 cups
Sodium sulfite 2 TBL
Borax 2 TBL
Cold water to make 1 quart
Process 2-4 minutes in A BATH, and the same time in B BATH, both at 68F.
Agitate for 15 sec initially, and for about 5 seconds every half
minute. Stop bath is not recommended after B BATH, a quick 1 min rinse
in water is enough. Fix the film in the usual manner.
A BATH will last indefinitely, and B BATH can be used for 20-30 rolls of
film before any change in contrast or density should be noticed.
There is also a phenidone version of this formula to obtain increased
film speed.
--
Regards / JCH
Peter
Not sure what to make of this, but at least A BATH will deteriorate
with use and with time. The usual interpretation of "indefinitely" in
"A BATH will last indefinitely" is misleading. The lifetime may be a
little uncertain, but it will steadily deteriorate.
As B BATH becomes contaminated with A BATH it will at least look
ugly.
Metol and Hydroquinone decompose in air. They are the more
troublesome parts of your mix (although I don't necessarily recommend
drinking a lot of borax). Unless you process a whole lot of film, you
may be just as well served by letting the used developer sit in a tray
for a few days before pouring it down the sink.
Jean-David Beyer
Tri-X. I used D-23 or D-25 for Bath 1 and a solution of 2% Sodium MetaBorate
and 2% Sodium Sulfite for Bath 2. I used up to 7 minutes in bath 1 and 3
minutes in bath 2.
The good part was the measured film speed went up one stop.
The bad part is that it worked the opposite of what people said. They said
it would lower the highlight contrast while maintaining the contrast
elsewhere. What I got was that it lowered the shadow contrast (even though
it increased the film speed). The only way to control the highlight contrast
was to reduce the time in bath 1, and that lowered the contrast everywhere.
When I switched films to the TMax series, it was even worse because all the
sulfite made the sharpness very mushy. So I gave it up entirely.
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
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jch
>> I have been reading about divided developers for film. Never tried it;
>> looks promising though! Do any of you in this group have any experience
>> with this approach? The reason for my interest is the fact that i live
>> in the country and that my house disposes of waste water via a septic
>> tank system. Hence, i want to minimise the amounts of photographic
>> chemicals entering the tank in case they kill the microbes.
> I used several divided developers in the past for 4147 Plus-X and 4164
> Tri-X. I used D-23 or D-25 for Bath 1 and a solution of 2% Sodium MetaBorate
> and 2% Sodium Sulfite for Bath 2. I used up to 7 minutes in bath 1 and 3
> minutes in bath 2.
>
> The good part was the measured film speed went up one stop.
>
> The bad part is that it worked the opposite of what people said. They said
> it would lower the highlight contrast while maintaining the contrast
> elsewhere. What I got was that it lowered the shadow contrast (even though
> it increased the film speed). The only way to control the highlight contrast
> was to reduce the time in bath 1, and that lowered the contrast everywhere.
>
> When I switched films to the TMax series, it was even worse because all the
> sulfite made the sharpness very mushy. So I gave it up entirely.
_____
Jean-David,
Thanks, that is excellent feedback. I was hoping for a universal long
life developer solution. I found a 30 m bulk roll of ILFORD FP4,
probably purchased around 1987, and stored in the freezer all this time.
The price was C$28.69. I was planning to test the divided developer
formula with this film.
I am getting back to wet, analog photography after 20 years. In the
past i used a lot of Beutler and Acufine style developers. These
formulations always gave my very consistent results. I wonder how well
the Diafine formula would work? The latter is also supposed to be a
divided developer.
/ John
--
Richard Knoppow
"jch" <j...@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:ukxTj.244286$pM4.43310@pd7urf1no...
Devided or two bath developers work on the principle
that the emulsion soaks up the developing agents from the
first bath and they are made active in the second. Since the
amount of developer that the emulsion can hold is limited
the amount of development is limited. In theory this can
result in a consistent contrast with limited control and,
for some films, for reduced development of the highlight
areas since, presumably, the developing agents get used up
faster there. In practice the system often does not work
very well especially with modern films which have much
thinner emulsions than those of the 1930's when most of
these developers were devised.
On your main point about polution: I think there will be
little difference between the single bath and two bath type
developers. To cut down on discarded developer it makes more
sense to use a replenished system. When the developer
eventually reaches the end of its life it can be disposed of
at a recycling place. This takes quite a bit of time so it
can be done even if you are out in the sticks.
The real culprit for septic tanks is hypo. Hypo
accumulates silver in a form which kills some types of
bacteria. The bacteria in the tank are what causes it to
break down the waste so you want them to be healthy.
Kodak used to have an on-line pamphlet about photo
chemicals and septic tanks, I don't know if its still there
but its worth a look.
Much of the silver in hypo can be recovered by simple
methods. For instance, the silver will plate out on steel
wool put into the solution. Use oil and soap free steel
wool. It takes several days and the resulting hypo can not
be reused but is environmentally friendlier.
There are a number of developers available with
replenishers or are self-replenishing. D-76, Xtol, and T-Max
RS are examples.
--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dick...@ix.netcom.com
sometime.p...@gmail.com
> with this approach? The reason for my interest is the fact that i live
> in the country and that my house disposes of waste water via a septic
> tank system. Hence, i want to minimise the amounts of photographic
> chemicals entering the tank in case they kill the microbes.
Kodak does not recommend putting any photographic solutions into a
septic tank.
The chemicals breakdown naturally with aerobic bacteria found in
municipal processing
plants, but not with the anaerobic bacteria found in a septic tank.
See Kodak's web site for more details:
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=4218&pq-locale=en_US
John
http://www.onecachet.com/products.php
As good as it gets for modern films.
JD
jch
> In practice the system often does not work very well especially with
> modern films which have much thinner emulsions than those of the
> 1930's when most of these developers were devised.
Richard,
Have you personally tested the divided development process recently with
the modern thin emulsion films? Any conclusions?
Jean-David B. reported: "The bad part is that it worked the opposite of
what people said. They said it would lower the highlight contrast while
maintaining the contrast elsewhere. What I got was that it lowered the
shadow contrast."
> There are a number of developers available with replenishers or are
> self-replenishing. D-76, Xtol, and T-Max RS are examples.
_____
OK, will look at those. Being a person who likes to experiment a bit, i
will try to use the divided developer formula i posted (from the Zone V
booklet) to see if i can duplicate Jean-David B's results.
/ John
--
jch
J-D,
An off-topic question: i noticed that you run Linux. What distribution
are you using these days? I started with Red Hat Linux about 1998, but
now i run OpenBSD for the past couple of years.
/ John
--
jch
Excellent info, thanks.
/ John
--
jch
Thank you very much indeed for this link. Looks like an excellent line
of products. It seems that wet, analog photography is alive and well in
a niche market.
/ John
--
Jean-David Beyer
> J-D,
>
> An off-topic question: i noticed that you run Linux. What distribution
> are you using these days? I started with Red Hat Linux about 1998, but
> now i run OpenBSD for the past couple of years.
>
I am running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 on my main (this) machine, and I run
CentOS 4 on my old machine. I started with Red Hat Linux 5.0 around 1998
(when it was the current version).
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
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