Underdevelopment through Stand development possible?

[Steve Sherman]

I've taken a day or so to reflect and to reread the entire thread, process my comments as well as others.

I'll start by apologizing to Michael R for over reacting, as Kirk pointed out I spoke before I collected my thoughts. That said, I do believe the phrase "largely myth and hyperbole" to be unfortunate and misleading with regard to Minimal Agitation forms of film development.

Further, it was noted that I do not have charts and graphs to support my theories, rather I indicated what "I believed to be true". In fact I am not a plot and graph guy, possibly if I were I might have gotten to where I am today much sooner. That said, much like Bob Carnie, at some point many of us employ a "trust your eyes" means of testing. That was always my methodology, my photographs were my tests, I paid very close attention to the results of making only one change at a time to formulate my beliefs and adjustments.

Further, by in large it is a hassle for me to digitize any comparisons I make, I imagine that is something I will have to address if I am to participate in these discussions with any credibility going forward.

I'll include a scan that I do have of the very first negatives that were developed using a one hour Semi-Stand technique. Without trying to throw fuel to the fire, I would imagine if most any darkroom technician of average experience were to see these two scans I would offer that their "belief" would be that something extraordinary is going on. The difference in negative densities suggests to me that these results are a product of reduced agitation vs continuous agitation in a tray rather than that of a chemistry difference.

The portion of these identically exposed 7x17 negatives can be described this way.

Extremely low contrast scene, 1 degree spot meter shows no more than 3 zones of differing tonality in a very overcast Utah sky. One negative developed in ABC Pyro, an extremely aggressive Pyro formulation. This negative yielded a highlight density of 1.54 (densitometer was given to me as a gift, it has turned out to be useful) The Semi-Stand processed negative in PyroCat HD has a highlight density of 1.36 yet still yields a negative of considerably higher micro contrast...and so Semi-Stand came to be in 2003.

Lastly, my recollection and understanding of the terminology as it evolved 10 years ago as I was exchanging thoughts with Sandy about the process is; Stand Dev. was one initial agitation and then no agitation at all until the film was removed from developer. Semi-Stand was the same initial agitation of any length and then only one other agitation cycle at the half way point of time in solution. Extreme Minimal Agitation was any regime where there were two or more agitation cycles such as my method. The phrase "Reduced Agitation" to me was a reference to any development regime where significantly less than normal agitation methods were used for reducing the film.

Cheers,

[Kirk Gittings]

FWIW Steve, formal testing has never been my strong point. I don't have the head or the patience for it beyond the bare necessities. On the other hand I just processed some 400 negatives with quite a few +'s and ++'s and -'s and out of those two were double exposed and two were under exposed rather dramatically and a couple of negs were scratched by my fumbling in the darkroom. The rest were well exposed and developed. 6 bad negs out of 400-not bad. But I must have been aware of my folly because there were good duplicates made at the time of the mis-exposures and always duplicates of every image that saved me with the scratches. I was covered as we say. So I must have figured out something that works. I have watched you print and seen your finished prints and it is inspiring even to an old dog like me. Whatever you have been doing sure works.

[Peter De Smidt]

Michael is making a very specific claim. Namely, that Rodinal diluted 1+100 does not lead to compensation with stand development and FP4+. He's not making any claims about edge effects, apparent sharpness, or other film/developer combos. Thus, what he and Steve are saying is compatible. Steve interpreted Michael's comments to mean that minimal or stand agitation schemes are worthless. Further discussion showed that that's not what Michael meant.

[Michael R]

No arguments from me. I can also relate to the hassle of digitizing. Regarding darkroom work and printing, I do everything by eye. It is what works for me, and what I enjoy. The graphs and charts are reserved for investigations into the science, which also interests me.

Regards

I've taken a day or so to reflect and to reread the entire thread, process my comments as well as others.

I'll start by apologizing to Michael R for over reacting, as Kirk pointed out I spoke before I collected my thoughts. That said, I do believe the phrase "largely myth and hyperbole" to be unfortunate and misleading with regard to Minimal Agitation forms of film development.

Further, it was noted that I do not have charts and graphs to support my theories, rather I indicated what "I believed to be true". In fact I am not a plot and graph guy, possibly if I were I might have gotten to where I am today much sooner. That said, much like Bob Carnie, at some point many of us employ a "trust your eyes" means of testing. That was always my methodology, my photographs were my tests, I paid very close attention to the results of making only one change at a time to formulate my beliefs and adjustments.

Further, by in large it is a hassle for me to digitize any comparisons I make, I imagine that is something I will have to address if I am to participate in these discussions with any credibility going forward.

I'll include a scan that I do have of the very first negatives that were developed using a one hour Semi-Stand technique. Without trying to throw fuel to the fire, I would imagine if most any darkroom technician of average experience were to see these two scans I would offer that their "belief" would be that something extraordinary is going on. The difference in negative densities suggests to me that these results are a product of reduced agitation vs continuous agitation in a tray rather than that of a chemistry difference.

The portion of these identically exposed 7x17 negatives can be described this way.

Extremely low contrast scene, 1 degree spot meter shows no more than 3 zones of differing tonality in a very overcast Utah sky. One negative developed in ABC Pyro, an extremely aggressive Pyro formulation. This negative yielded a highlight density of 1.54 (densitometer was given to me as a gift, it has turned out to be useful) The Semi-Stand processed negative in PyroCat HD has a highlight density of 1.36 yet still yields a negative of considerably higher micro contrast...and so Semi-Stand came to be in 2003.

Lastly, my recollection and understanding of the terminology as it evolved 10 years ago as I was exchanging thoughts with Sandy about the process is; Stand Dev. was one initial agitation and then no agitation at all until the film was removed from developer. Semi-Stand was the same initial agitation of any length and then only one other agitation cycle at the half way point of time in solution. Extreme Minimal Agitation was any regime where there were two or more agitation cycles such as my method. The phrase "Reduced Agitation" to me was a reference to any development regime where significantly less than normal agitation methods were used for reducing the film.

Cheers,

[Doremus Scudder]

Steve,

Thanks for sharing your scans of the two negatives. I find them enlightening.

If I may be so bold as to make some observations about them. Certainly, the semi-stand negative has much higher micro-contrast. The ABC-pyro neg, which appears to be developed N+something, has much more density in the shadows that may be attributable to N+ development raising the fog level and the toe. I've had similar results with N+ development with PMK and with TMax negatives in stronger dilutions of HC-110 (never used ABC-pyro though). At any rate, I found that higher dilution and less agitation helped with N+ developing. That said, my reduction in agitation was nothing like semi-stand; it was simply agitation at 60-second instead of 30-second intervals. For some reason that I have not been able to explain, longer development times with more dilute developer and less agitation seems to yield contrastier N+ negatives with clearer shadows and less fog; at least with the films and developers I've tried this with.

I might also attribute the dramatic increase in local contrast in your semi-stand negative to edge effects. Certainly, the shadow areas in the semi-stand negative are much less fogged, as are the lower mid-tones. This would point to a straighter toe, which may be one of the effects of semi-stand.

I'd be interested in your analysis, especially where it differs from my cursory observations.

Thanks again for the post; I've got some new things to test when I get the chance.

Best,

Doremus

[Steve Sherman]

Steve,

Thanks for sharing your scans of the two negatives. I find them enlightening.

If I may be so bold as to make some observations about them. Certainly, the semi-stand negative has much higher micro-contrast. The ABC-pyro neg, which appears to be developed N+something, has much more density in the shadows that may be attributable to N+ development raising the fog level and the toe. I've had similar results with N+ development with PMK and with TMax negatives in stronger dilutions of HC-110 (never used ABC-pyro though). At any rate, I found that higher dilution and less agitation helped with N+ developing. That said, my reduction in agitation was nothing like semi-stand; it was simply agitation at 60-second instead of 30-second intervals. For some reason that I have not been able to explain, longer development times with more dilute developer and less agitation seems to yield contrastier N+ negatives with clearer shadows and less fog; at least with the films and developers I've tried this with.

I might also attribute the dramatic increase in local contrast in your semi-stand negative to edge effects. Certainly, the shadow areas in the semi-stand negative are much less fogged, as are the lower mid-tones. This would point to a straighter toe, which may be one of the effects of semi-stand.

I'd be interested in your analysis, especially where it differs from my cursory observations.

Thanks again for the post; I've got some new things to test when I get the chance.

Best,

Doremus

Hello Doremus,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

My recollections of the ABC formula I used (going back 10 years) was a 1-1-1-7 ratio, this in fact maybe Michael Smith's version of EW's ABC formula, that I am not positive of, back then I was corresponding with MAS quite a bit. Further, again my recollection ( I have only used the ABC formulation that one time ) Pyrogallol is much more prone to chemical fog than that of the Pyrocatechin formulated developers. Pyrogallol is considerably more costly, more unstable and creates a larger grain pattern than Pyrocatechin based developers such as Sandy King's PyroCat HD that I use since abandoning PMK.

The ABC neg was developed for 24 minutes in a tray with continuous agitation, I do believe that is where the increased shadow density results from. Like I said, the original scene was quite low in contrast, only 3 Zones, so I am sure I would have exposed the negative with darkest rocks on Zone 3 and indicated a N + 3 development for a Zone 6 high value, when contact printing I do shoot for a bit more density than with negatives designed for enlargement. So with regard to my negative I am not surprised by the added density in the shadows given they began at Zone 3 and were likely expanded a bit with such aggressive development coupled with increased fog. One of the best pieces of advice I got long ago, when expanding development make sure and "anchor" the low values. That word made all the sense of why my pre Pyro negs were always on the heavy side.

As far as your findings with higher dilutions and longer D times, examples such as this is exactly why I embrace careful "practical" experience much more than I do "theory". Theory is great until it doesn't make sense and such is the case with your example. I would draw from your findings that there exists a careful balance between strength of dilution and time in solution relative to chemical fog.

Clearly my Semi-Stand neg is a dramatic example of edge effects, the two prints side by side are quite telling in that the shape of the negative's characteristic curve has been altered significantly, very little toe and goes right into a steeper straight line with Semi-Stand Dev. With mid tone contrast being so difficult to affect when it is intrinsically tied to exposure and development, the Reduced Agitation technique is invaluable to my way of thinking. Inherent to the Reduced Agitation technique is the natural suppression of high light densities, again a difficult component to control when trying to maximize micro contrast.

Lastly, I've long admired your work, not to disparage others but I put a premium on those making photographic art rather than testing. Testing to me is work, making photographs is inspiring !

Cheers !

[Cor]

Steve,

On which paper do you print ? Must be FB I assume, but is it fixed or VC ?

( I do minimal agitation of Fomapan100 in diluted (1/250) Pyrocat HDC myself, and sometimes I obtain too high a stain in the highlights, when printing on VC I do not get the contrast or snap that I want. I blame it to the soft masking effect of the Pyro stain. When switching to a fixed to a Grade 2 paper I get the snap and tonality I want )

Thanks & best,

Cor

[Doremus Scudder]

Hello Doremus,

...

Lastly, I've long admired your work, not to disparage others but I put a premium on those making photographic art rather than testing. Testing to me is work, making photographs is inspiring !

Cheers !

Thank you very much Steve.

And thanks to you, Sandy and Michael for the detailed explanations. I think I'll be trying out a few new things when I get my darkroom up and running this summer. I'll report back then.

Best,

Doremus

[Kirk Gittings]

I'll chime in too-I've long been a fan of your work, refined and elegant.

[Steve Sherman]

Steve,

On which paper do you print ? Must be FB I assume, but is it fixed or VC ?

( I do minimal agitation of Fomapan100 in diluted (1/250) Pyrocat HDC myself, and sometimes I obtain too high a stain in the highlights, when printing on VC I do not get the contrast or snap that I want. I blame it to the soft masking effect of the Pyro stain. When switching to a fixed to a Grade 2 paper I get the snap and tonality I want )

Thanks & best,

Cor

Hello Cor,

With Multi Contrast papers I use exclusively Ilford Warmtone, I have tried others and find the Ilford papers to be significantly more to my liking, any papers with a Chloride component to their emulsion will inherently produce higher micro contrast in the low values. While it's not published anywhere that I know of I believe Ilford WT has a blend of Chloride and Bromide in the hard contrast emulsion. Naturally all the papers I use are Fiber based.

With the larger film (7x17) I do occasionally use Azo. That said the Multi Contrast papers offer such flexibility when using a Split Contrast printing technique it is hard not to always take advantage of that method. The beauty of the Split Contrast technique would play directly into the concerns you are having with regard to highlight micro contrast. I am imagining that you might have some high value non descript clouds that do not separate as well as you would like. With the Split Contrast method you would "Set" the highlight tone with either the # 0 or # 1 filter and then add in the appropriate contrast for the rest of the pirint with the max # 5 filter. Once your print map is complete you can go back into the cloud / sky area in question and burn the area with the max # 5 filter. While it will not add the high contrast dramatic skies that we sometimes see it will definitely add some contrast by darkening the areas within the cloud / sky area that are less dense than the highest values with in the area. It will be subtle but very obvious when compared to a single filter print or fixed grade paper print.

If your minimal agitation is increasing your fog level due to longer times in solution try adding more A than B, such as my Normal Dev. dilution of 1.5 - 1 - 175. If the problem persists increase the initial agitation so that the overall time in solution is kept below 20 minutes but still maintaining at least 5 minutes between agitation cycles to maximize edge effects. Some films are more prone to an increase in fog due to time in solution, such as HP 5 and some of the Efke films as I recall.

Post some pix if you have them, possibly others could offer their thoughts.

Cheers !