Diafine and Acros 100 - Two Bath Dev.

[Jim Cole]

I develop by B&W for a scanning workflow and after reading Sandy King's article in the most recent View Camera magazine, I decided to give the two bath development a try. I really bought it to try with the new TMax 400, but decided to give it a try with a few sheets of Acros 100 to compare to the same images developed in Rodinal.

Since the article did not test Diafine with Acros, I was looking for some first hand experience before I commit the sheets to Diafine. Has anyone used this combo with satisfaction?

Fred Newman at the View Camera Store did not recommend using Diafine with the Acros, but before I defer to his opinion, I was hoping to hear about some other results.

Sandy, have you tried this combo yet?

Thanks,
Jim

[sanking]

Jim,

Yes, I have tried Acros 100 in Diafine. To get the same average contrast that you get with most other films you should increase development time to about 5 + 5. It is also a good idea to agitate a bit more with Acros as too little agitation may cause uneven development and bromide drag.

Sandy King

I develop by B&W for a scanning workflow and after reading Sandy King's article in the most recent View Camera magazine, I decided to give the two bath development a try. I really bought it to try with the new TMax 400, but decided to give it a try with a few sheets of Acros 100 to compare to the same images developed in Rodinal.

Since the article did not test Diafine with Acros, I was looking for some first hand experience before I commit the sheets to Diafine. Has anyone used this combo with satisfaction?

Fred Newman at the View Camera Store did not recommend using Diafine with the Acros, but before I defer to his opinion, I was hoping to hear about some other results.

Sandy, have you tried this combo yet?

Thanks,
Jim

[Jim Cole]

Sandy,

Perfect! Thanks for your quick reply. The box does recommend a 5/5 time with the 35mm Acros, but they don't reference the sheet film.

Would a Jobo 2500 tank on a Uniroller be too much agitation for the compensating effect? Or, should I try just doubling the recommended hand agitations to 5 seconds every 30 seconds?

[sanking]

Jim,

Continuous agitation will work fine, but if you develop in a Jobo this I would recommend trying the Diafine diluted 1:1 with water. That should give about the same average contrast as if using the developer full strength with intermittent agitation. That was the case with the films I specifically tested this way, but I did not test Acros this way.

Sandy King

Sandy,

Perfect! Thanks for your quick reply. The box does recommend a 5/5 time with the 35mm Acros, but they don't reference the sheet film.

Would a Jobo 2500 tank on a Uniroller be too much agitation for the compensating effect? Or, should I try just doubling the recommended hand agitations to 5 seconds every 30 seconds?

[Jim Cole]

Thanks again Sandy. I'm going to try doubling the hand agitation before attempting the roller jobo with the diluted developer.

I'm going to do this right now so I'll post the results in a couple of hours after the film dries.

[Jim Cole]

Ok, here's my results with the Diafine on 4 Acros 100 sheets. All film was shot at my tested speed of ISO 80. Subject matter was a landscape with Ponderosa Pines, a pond with reflections and stormy clouds shot with front lighting in late morning light. Scenes were metered for shadows on Zone III and the highlights in the clouds hit Zone IX.

Diafine sheets were compared to identical sheets developed in Rodinal 1:49 in a Jobo 2553 (double 2509n reel) tank on a Uniroller with a normal development time of 7 minutes with a 5 minute prewash.

The Diafine development at about 75F was in a Jobo 2521 tank (single 2509n reel) using 1500ml of each solution which fills up the tank. Gentle agitation was done with hand inversion. The development time used was 5 minutes per solution and I doubled the suggested agitation time from 5 seconds every minute to 5 seconds every 30 seconds. No prewash as suggested on the box. Development in A and B was followed by a 30 second wash, normal fixing and final washes. I used tap water for the solutions.

Negatives were scanned on an Epson 4990 using VueScan. Linear scans were made using the green channel only for 16 bit grayscale scans. Scans were then inverted using ColorNeg with a gamma of 1.00 and all highlight and shadow clipping eliminated.

The results with Diafine:

1) A much lower contrast negative as expected.
2) Greatly improved shadow detail, with much smoother tonal transitions.
3) Highlights similar to a N-1 development in Rodinal with improved tonal transitions
4) A definite reduction in grain although I don't find the grain in the Rodinal development to be objectionable. Athough the grain reintroduces itself after scanning when a steeper curves adjustment is made to compensate for the flatter neg, it can be moderated with a little masking of the curves adjustment.
5) Definitely improved edge effects for a sharper appearing negative and scan.

I must note that this is my first attempt at hand inversion instead of using a Uniroller base and I did get uneven development with considerable vertical streaking on the negatives. I may try Sandy's suggestion of diluting the working solution 1:1 and putting it on the roller in the larger tank. I'm not sure if using distilled water for the working solutions would eliminate the streaking as I get a little uneven development using the roller base with Rodinal and tap water as well. I am careful to only load 4 sheets on each reel leaving the center position on each side open for maximum developer flow, so I'm not sure why this is happening.

Overall, I really like my initial results with Diafine for a scanning workflow. I have to dial in the process to eliminate the uneven development. If I can be successful with that, Diafine may become my principal developer.

[Ron Marshall]

Sandy, I enjoyed your article in View Camera. Very informative. Thanks!

How precise does one need to be with development times for a two bath? For example: developing TMY, using Diafine 1:1 in a Jobo, would a 20% increase or decrease in development time have an obvious effect on contrast?

[Jim Cole]

Ron,

I'm not Sandy, but I'll jump in here. I think you need to hit the minimum time for Diafine which is 3 minutes each for solutions A and B (for most films). According to the instructions on the Diafine box, extending the times will have no effect.

So it seems that you need to error on the long side rather than the short.

[sanking]

Ron,

Thanks for the comment. It was fun doing the research and testing for the article as this was a methodology I had not previously used so there was a lot of learning to do.
However, since most of my work these days is scanning rather than direct printing I can see that this method is one that I will use a lot in the future.

Two-bath development is pretty simple. The film soaks up the reducer in Bath A, and then development takes place in Bath B. It is actually a bit more complicated than that because with some formulas (D-23 divided for example) some development actually takes place in Bath A, whereas with a formula like Diafine no development takes place at all until the film goes into Bath B.

Time is probably less important than the temperature of the developing solutions, especially Bath A, in determining the average gradient to which the film will develop. In other words, you won't see much difference in contrast between three and five minutes, with Bath A at 72F, but you will see a lot of difference between Bath A at 70F and 80F. The higher temperature causes the emulsion to swell more, which allows it to soak up more of the reducer. The more reducer it soaks up the higher will be the gradient to which it will develop in a given time.

As Jim notes, the key is to do the minimum time at the temperature recommended, and a a minute or more in both solutions won't have much impact on contrast. But a change in temperature of five degree or more will have a significant impact at a given time so it is important for consistency to keep your temperature as standard as possible.

Sandy

Sandy, I enjoyed your article in View Camera. Very informative. Thanks!

How precise does one need to be with development times for a two bath? For example: developing TMY, using Diafine 1:1 in a Jobo, would a 20% increase or decrease in development time have an obvious effect on contrast?

[sanking]

Jim,

Thanks for the very informative post of your tests.

I don't know what to say about the uneven development. As I mentioned earlier, Acros definitely requires more agitation than other films. On the other hand, I use four agitation cycles per five minute development with roll film on stainless reels and am getting very even development with Acros, using both Diafine and divided D-23. I just developed some 30 plus rolls of Acros in divided D-23 that I exposed on a recent trip to the Pacific northwest and after scanning most of the important negatives I don't see any uneven development at all.

My suggestion would be to definitely try developing in the Jobo with the developer diluted 1:1. Given the small amount of developer that would be necessary for rotary development I would suggest that you just discard the solutions after use.

Sandy

Ok, here's my results with the Diafine on 4 Acros 100 sheets. All film was shot at my tested speed of ISO 80. Subject matter was a landscape with Ponderosa Pines, a pond with reflections and stormy clouds shot with front lighting in late morning light. Scenes were metered for shadows on Zone III and the highlights in the clouds hit Zone IX.

Diafine sheets were compared to identical sheets developed in Rodinal 1:49 in a Jobo 2553 (double 2509n reel) tank on a Uniroller with a normal development time of 7 minutes with a 5 minute prewash.

The Diafine development at about 75F was in a Jobo 2521 tank (single 2509n reel) using 1500ml of each solution which fills up the tank. Gentle agitation was done with hand inversion. The development time used was 5 minutes per solution and I doubled the suggested agitation time from 5 seconds every minute to 5 seconds every 30 seconds. No prewash as suggested on the box. Development in A and B was followed by a 30 second wash, normal fixing and final washes. I used tap water for the solutions.

Negatives were scanned on an Epson 4990 using VueScan. Linear scans were made using the green channel only for 16 bit grayscale scans. Scans were then inverted using ColorNeg with a gamma of 1.00 and all highlight and shadow clipping eliminated.

The results with Diafine:

1) A much lower contrast negative as expected.
2) Greatly improved shadow detail, with much smoother tonal transitions.
3) Highlights similar to a N-1 development in Rodinal with improved tonal transitions
4) A definite reduction in grain although I don't find the grain in the Rodinal development to be objectionable. Athough the grain reintroduces itself after scanning when a steeper curves adjustment is made to compensate for the flatter neg, it can be moderated with a little masking of the curves adjustment.
5) Definitely improved edge effects for a sharper appearing negative and scan.

I must note that this is my first attempt at hand inversion instead of using a Uniroller base and I did get uneven development with considerable vertical streaking on the negatives. I may try Sandy's suggestion of diluting the working solution 1:1 and putting it on the roller in the larger tank. I'm not sure if using distilled water for the working solutions would eliminate the streaking as I get a little uneven development using the roller base with Rodinal and tap water as well. I am careful to only load 4 sheets on each reel leaving the center position on each side open for maximum developer flow, so I'm not sure why this is happening.

Overall, I really like my initial results with Diafine for a scanning workflow. I have to dial in the process to eliminate the uneven development. If I can be successful with that, Diafine may become my principal developer.