Has anyone tried the brush development technique? If so I would like to hear of their process and results. thanx in advance
Has anyone tried the brush development technique? If so I would like to hear of their process and results. thanx in advance
I have been doing brush development for years and IMO produces the most even negatives possible outside of rotary development. For negatives 8x10 and smaller IMO it is a waste of time, any rotary development like BTZS tubes, the now new JandC tubes or Jobo will do just as well with the added convenience of being able to do more than one at the time. OTOH, for ULF negatives outside of a Jobo processor this is the best way to obtain even negatives.
Give it a try, you wont be dissapointed.
What Jorge said.... minus the "waste of time" part.
I process my negs by brush development in conjunction with development by inspection (DBI) so tubes are out for me for that reason. The idea is simply to have your neg emulsion side up in a tray and "paint" your neg in an up and down motion (and/or sideways) using a 2-3" hake brush or other fine artist brush. Little pressure needs to be applied. This essentially "forces" the chemicals into the emulsion more evenly than when free flowing.
The result is that you get very even development of your neg. This is especially apparent with clear skies and such. I do my 8x10s in an 8x10 tray with 400 ml of Pyrocat and my negs turn out just fine (no streaks , blotching or scratches). It is more time consuming as you can only do one at a time but considering how much time and effort I take the get the image onto the film, another few minutes getting it out of the film is a non-issue for me.
Good luck with it.
I'm with Dan except for the part about brush choice. I use cheap, 4" foam paintbrushes from Home Depot, and have never had any problems whatsoever resulting from their use. I also have a slightly different take on the actual mechanism involved. Brush agitation mechanically breaks up the boundary layer of developer solution that adheres to the surface of the film, and which prevents more effective replacement of exhausted developer solution by agitation. For this reason, I believe that brush agitation is more efficient than rotary processing, which is far less effective in breaking up the boundary layer. The difficulties associated with acheiving even development increase with film area, so where one draws the line regarding the "waste of time", depends upon the degree of success one has in acheiving defect-free negatives in a given format. I draw that line at 8x10, because I can't reliably shuffle 8x10 negs in a tray, and tubes preclude the possibility of inspection. If you want to give it a try, I suggest that you buy one of the cheap foam brushes for .49 cents at Home Depot. If you like the technique, you can decide wether or not a fine, artist's brush is an investment you're willing to make. Good luck.
Jay
How do the development times compare to shuffling negs? I shuffle 4 negs at a time. But this has always been done with tmax. Now I'm using a little more finicky film in regards to how easily this new film is scratched (efke pl 100) I thought i was good at shuffling until i saw the scratches on the first batch of the efke. ( no more bragging about not scratching a neg) Drum and tubes are out...I just moved to ULF and I'm shooting 8x20. I have only heard good results from thr brush technique. But there is just something about running a brush across the emulsion side that kind of makes me uneasy.
Development times are almost comparable to rotary development and will be faster than tray development. Efke film seems to have a softer emulsion, you are not the first one who complains about scratches when doing many sheets by tray development.
If you are planning on using brush development with Efke film then I would definitly stay away from the cheap foam brushes. A good Hake brush using the side of the bristles will not scratch your film.
A few observations, I have compared negatives done with the JandC tubes in 8x10 and those done by brush development and I have seen no difference. With the tube, the laminar flow layer is broken when the tube rotates through the empty part of the tube. Fluid mechanics would be too long to explain here, but basically the developer in contact with the film flows "slower" than the immediate molecular layer on top, thus the developer is prone to exhaustion and in some cases bromide drag. WHat we do when we shuffle sheets, rotate the film or pass a brush on top of the film is essentially breaking the laminar layer in closest contact with the film and allowing fresh developer to replace this layer.
As I said, make sure that when you brush you dont use the tips of the brush but the side and you will be fine. DO this with a gentle touch, no pressure.
Jorge,
have you ever scratched a neg with a foam brush? I'm not suggesting that it's impossible, but I have a hard time imagining how it would happen. I have developed many, many sheets of film with cheap, foam brushes, and have never had any problem whatsoever that could be attributed to them. In fact, I've never read any report of anyone experiencing problems related to the use of foam brushes for brush development of negatives.
Jay
When I worked in the environmental field it never failed that there was an old timer who asked: "why do you take all those precautions, I have been doing it like this for 20 years and nothing ever happens?"
nuff said...
It just so happens that I have em both. I'm sure the foam brush would be more than adequate but it is hard to beat the softness of this Hake brush. Being my maiden voyage with brush development I'll opt for the Hake brush seeing I'm already nervous about this procedure. But of course I have shot about a dozen tests shots to play with this. So I'll give the foam brush a spin once I feel a little more comfortable. I'm sure I would become more proficient shuffling with some practice with these soft emulsions but I'm tending to agree with you if this eliminates the need to worry about that one golden shot that took all day to get why risk it in development. Thanks guys
That's kind of what I thought. It seems to me that your making an assumption that the Hake brushes are safer, without anything of substance upon which to base that assumption. It's possible that the foam brushes are both cheaper and safer. Without a failure of one or the other, it's impossible to say which is safer, but it's clear which is cheaper.
Jay
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