Looking for a developer I can stand in...

[Mark Sawyer]

I spent the last hour-and-a-half rereading old posts on the forum about stand development. By far, the most popular developers fo this are Pyrocat HD and Rodinal. Problem is, both require the user to wear rubber gloves while tray-developing. Let us be gauche but honest, gentlemen; wearing rubber gloves while developing is like wearing a condom during sex, and I don't wanna do it.

The question, then: is there a developer which yields excellent results in stand developing which is also reasonably safe for limited skin contact?

[Kevin Crisp]

Rubber gloves in Rodinal? I've never heard that. I've been using it 1:50 with my hands in it going on 15 years. I'm lucky, or blissfully unaware, or not doing anything dumb and I suspect I'm about to learn which. I wouldn't think extremely dilute HC110 would bother anybody, so that is another candidate. Usually with long development times you're not soaking your nails in it like Madge and her Palmolive. Rodinal? You're soaking in it. You're kidding....

[Mark Sawyer]

Kevin- There's lots of info out there arguing whether it is or isn't toxic, but FreeStyle (http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=&pid=4697) classifies it as ORM-D, (Other Regulated Materials, Class D), ground shipment only. They don't do that for Pyro PMK, one of the more hardcore pyro developers, or some other nasty chemicals, which gives me pause...

[Michael Veit]

I also have used Rodinal without gloves for years. And remember that with stand development you're probably talking dilutions of 1:150+ and spending very little time with your hands in the soup because of non-agitation. There's simply nothing to worry about here, but if you're really still concerned and think you need protection, make the act of putting on gloves a part of photographic foreplay: take your time, laugh about it ...a safelight and soft music can help.

[domenico Foschi]

I also have been using Rodinal for years without gloves.
It sure is not gentle in your hands since at times I can feel burning sensation on my skin when I use it.
I have not soffered of any kidney problems....yet.

[Brian Ellis]

Can you stand develop sheet film in trays? I've developed 8x10 film in trays and I thought I remembered it curling at the ends and floating to the top when it sat there unagitated for any length of time. I would have expected that to lead to uneven development. No?

[Louie Powell]

a safelight for processing film? Are you thinking of the dark green light used in inspection development?

[Frank Petronio]

The Genesee River - upstream from RIT and Kodak - was used by a photo grad student to develop film and paper back in the 80s. A bit slower than Dektol, but it got the job done.

[robert_4927]

The little woman is a R.N. So I have an endless supply of surgical gloves. They work really well and are a little more sensitive to the touch than rubber gloves. I tray develope with pyro so I just think its better to be safe than sorry. Rubber gloves can be cumbersome. But if you ever have a reaction to pyro then you developing career with it is over and that is not an option for me as I find pyro to produce the best negatives for what I do.

[Bill_1856]

TROLL. You don't put your hands in the developer at all (that's what's meant by stand developing -- the film just sits there, untouched until fully developed), and nobody but a total idiot refuses to use a condom when it's appropiate (for the safety of BOTH parties).

[Michael Kadillak]

You cannot get acceptable results tray developing sheet film using the stand or semi stand technique. It must be done in tubes or tanks with the film oriented vertically during processing. There is much discussion in many threads about this basic initial conclusion.

That said, I predicate the decision of processing singularly on the end result. There can be no question that dilute Pyrocat HD is a marvelous developer for this technique. The special properties of catchetol are well documented and worthy of the reasonable safety considerations to utilize it. Nobody would consider "rubber" gloves for any darkroom procedures because they are simply not designed for this application. However, the very thin nitrile single use gloves are excellent in this regard and allow you to maintain the dexterity of your fingers as though you were not wearing them at all. I have developed up to 12 sheets of 8x10 sheet film in a tray wearing the nitrile gloves and accomplished this without any scratch marks on the film. Inserting sheet film into tubes for the stand technique with even highly dilute Pyrocat mandates skin protection. Even if I could avoid contracting a skin rash I would use the nitrile gloves because they work so well.

Get over your mental paradigm and broaden your experience palate. You just may like what you see.

Cheers!

[David Beal]

And if you are sensitive to latex, you can get nitrile gloves. The price of these has really come down, because auto mechanics have taken to wearing them while working on engines. Nitrile is not allergenic, is relatively tough, and transmits enough pressure that you don't lose sensitivity. You can buy a box of 50 for about $5 at most drug stores or big box places. I've used them for developing paper for 3 years, and they work very well.

Good dipping.

/s/ David Beal ** Memories Preserved Photography, LLC

[Henry Ambrose]

Read some more about stand developement as you must have missed at least one of the important parts.

With Pyrocat (dont' know about Rodinol) you will want your film to stand on -edge- (in tubes most likely) for good and even results. You will have problems if your film is flat in a tray. And you won't have your hands in the developer for very long as the whole idea of stand development is that you leave the film unmolested for quite a while.

Pulling your film out of the soup won't take but a few seconds, so if you must go bare handed I suppose you will have minimal exposure if you wash up quickly. Its not like your hands are in the developer for 30 minutes shuffling film, because in stand development you leave the film alone! (got that now?)

If you are using tubes you won't have to touch the film until you pour off the developer or remove the tubes from the developer. You will not need to inspect your film during development - one of the principals of stand development is that it kinda times out within a very big window. Your big decisions are whether you will agitate once or twice in 30 minutes or twice in 45 minutes and maybe use a different dilution/time for + or - development (or some such schemes to your liking and test results).

I wear gloves if I will have much direct immersed contact with any chemistry stronger than PhotoFlo, but that's just my idea of safety and others will do it differently.

[Donald Qualls]

The reason Rodinal gets shipped ORM-D when PMK doesn't is that Rodinal, in concentrate form, is alkaline enough with sodium hydroxide to be a hazard independent of the other chemicals dissolved. It's not as strong as drain cleaner, but for shipping purposes, it's classified the same way.

[John Kasaian]

How about instant coffee?

[Bruce Watson]

wearing rubber gloves while developing is like wearing a condom during sex, and I don't wanna do it.

Clearly, you already understand that you are safer wearing protective gloves regardless of which developer you choose. Yet you don't wanna. Poor baby.

You know better. You know that what you wanna do or don't wanna do will have no impact on reality. The reality is keeping your hands in developer is dangerous. You know this. Wear the damn gloves and get over it.

[Steven Barall]

"...wearing rubber gloves while developing is like wearing a condom during sex, and I don't wanna do it."

Do you smoke a cigarette after you develope film also?

I don't know what all the fuss is about. I always wear a condom while I have sex while I'm processing film.

[robert_4927]

Condom issues? my best advice is..... Stay away from Tijuana

[John_4185]

All this talk of condoms and such wold make this thread a skewed 'hit' for Google if it also mentioned Developing Aids, and it does!

[Mark Sawyer]

Regarding stand development, I'll say that I've been doing my own strange perversion of it for a couple of years or more, using HC-110 (dilution b) in a tray for 12-18 minutes, no agitation after the first 15 seconds. I generally get very acceptable, evenly-developed negatives with good tonality, though I occassionally get a bit high (but manageable) on the contrast.

I've read that HC-110 is not one of the better developers for stand development, (the sodium sulfite preservative promotes silver migration, the adjacency effects wont be as good...) and want to try one that is. Pyrocat and Rodinal seem to be the popular ones, but as I said, there are some concerns about the toxicity. I'm leaning towards Rodinal at 1:100 or 1:150, and seeing how it goes. (I'm probably going to try Pryrocat too, just cause I never have, which, the more I think about it, seems a shame...) I'll stay with tray developing at first and see how it goes; as I mentioned, it's worked well for me so far, (no streaking, film doesn't float up, etc.), but will move to a tank if necessary. (Yes, I've read about that, just gotta find out for myself...)

I just don't like wearing latex/nitrile/rubber gloves... waaaah!

[John Kasaian]

Instant coffee ;-)

[Mark Sawyer]

Instant coffee as a developer? I've heard that strong tea can be used as a weak developer, if you give 2-4 extra stops exposure and extended development time. I doubt it would give optimum results, but could be a fun little experiment.

Unfortunately, my coffee is probably more toxic than pyro concentrate... ; )

(Just ordered Pyrocat HD to make 10 liters standard working solution. We'll see...)

[Jay DeFehr]

Hi Mark.

PC-TEA is the least toxic developer I know of, containing only phenidone, ascorbic acid, and triethanolamine. You might need to add a little antifoggant for stand development, but that shouldn't toxify it too much.

Jay

[John Kasaian]

During flu and cold season, you could switch to vitamin C, heh-heh-heh!

[Donald Qualls]

I've developed film with coffee for a couple years, and it's my standard developer for the Copex Rapid I shoot in 16 mm (actually a coffee-vitamin C mix), but IMO coffee isn't very suitable as a stand developer. It needs normal agitation in a half hour of process, give or take, just to produce normal contrast on conventional films -- and without any preservative, might not last for the hour or two it would take to produce a normal contrast negative in a stand process. Add vitamin C and you can halve the process time, plus the C should preserve the caffeic acid that's the prime suspect for the developing agent in coffee -- but the C also greatly reduces or eliminates the stain coffee produces, removing most of the advantage of using coffee (as a non-toxic staining developer) in the first place.

[Mark Sawyer]

"and without any preservative, might not last for the hour or two it would take to produce a normal contrast negative in a stand process."

So, must coffee be brewed, then quickly cooled and used within about an hour? Is that why instant coffee is used; mix at room temp and no cooling? (While not likely to become my normal developer, I can see already that I'll have to ruin a little 4x5 film, just to say I did it. These are fun little things for my students to see, too. Thanks, guys!)

Hmmmm, Pyro-Caf HD...

[Old-N-Feeble]

Yeah, I know... ancient thread. I found it during a google search. My apologies to all.

Curiousity got the better of me when someone mentioned skewed search findings for those seeking condom information... or such. So I googled "condom pyrocat" and this thread popped up fifth from the top. :D

[Jay DeFehr]

Mark,

The toxic part of Rodinal is the caustic alkali. I don't think it's a problem when diluted. I formulated a developer for stand development (GSD-10), and what that developer taught me is that stand development is hardly ever a good idea.

I've looked closely at and tested agitation fairly extensively. Agitation is like a wave pattern, with frequency and amplitude -- how frequently you agitate determines the frequency, and how vigorously, the amplitude. Once you determine, by various development defects, that stand development/ no agitation is a problem, your new problem becomes one of determining optimum agitation. Optimum agitation is highly developer dependent, but film, format, and image also play parts. I'll unpack the previous claim -- some developers are very sensitive to agitation, and for various reasons. If a developer is very active, high frequency agitation can lead to runaway highlights and empty shadows. A very dilute developer, prone to aerial oxidation, might exhaust too quickly with frequent and vigorous agitation. And an active but dilute tanning/staining developer might produce extreme and unattractive edge effects with infrequent agitation. Slow, high contrast films can be quite sensitive to agitation, while faster films seem less so. 35mm film with sprocket holes can create streaks around the holes with insufficient agitation. It is sometimes claimed these streaks are surge marks from too vigorous agitation, but I've never been able to produce that result by that method. I think what's actually happening is that fresh developer from the holes is creating density adjacent to the holes when agitation is not sufficient to replace spent developer. And some images just demand agitation. The image I used for testing agitation was a white square with a small black square in the center, next to a black square with a small white square in the center. This test image would reveal any uneven development, streaks, or extreme edge effects at a glance, while an image dominated by a brier patch might conceal even significant defects.

I say stand development is almost never a good idea because it's almost never the case that no agitation is better in any measurable way than some agitation. In other words, even if you manage to get a perfectly even and defect free negative with stand development, it's unlikely that some agitation would degrade your results in any way. In my opinion, it's much better practice to identify the characteristics you hope to secure by stand development, and then determine the best way to get those characteristics.

What do you hope to gain by stand development?

[Jay DeFehr]

Man, I really need to start checking dates before I reply to threads.

[Mark Barendt]

Man, I really need to start checking dates before I reply to threads.

You are in good company.

[Old-N-Feeble]

Nahh... we just need to make better use of condoms and pyrocat. I've had no need for either in... well... a long time now. I just found the google search humorous. ;)

[Mark Sawyer]

For the record, I found a few years ago that HC-110 worked well for stand developing for most films. I like stand developing for its compensating nature, and while I've been hooked on wet plate for a while now, when I go back to film, (soon, I hope), it will undoubtedly be with stand development.

As far as the age of this thread, I'm just glad the forum doesn't go back to my middle school years, when I would've been asking "why are girls so different?"

[Old-N-Feeble]

Girls are different??

[cdholden]

Girls are different??

Usually.
Are you in Shanghai?

[Old-N-Feeble]

Usually.
Are you in Shanghai?

Nope... Texas. Sometimes these cowgirls can be pretty tough. Sometimes ya' gotta' look under the ten-gallon-hat to know whatcha' got.

[Mark Sawyer]

That's why I stick with pixies!

[Ed Bray]

From the title I thought you were looking for some kind of rubber footwear or a developer that would be kind to your feet.

[Old-N-Feeble]

That's why I stick with pixies!

Texas has it's pixies too but ya' still gotta' look under the hat!! Think Austin. No, I don't live there.

[cdholden]

Texas has it's pixies too but ya' still gotta' look under the hat!! Think Austin. No, I don't live there.

Look at the neck.
If you find find the apple, you may find a banana too.

[SpeedGraphicMan]

Some versions of Caffenol allow this.

Something like 70 minutes with only light initial agitation.

[graywolf]

What do you hope to gain by stand development?

Freedom from time/temperature constraints. Freedom from darkroom drudge. Low cost. Load the tank, fill, agitate, set the tank down, and come back an hour or so later. I doubt that stand developing is the best way to develop film, but it is the most convenient I have found in 50+ years of photography experience.

[Jay DeFehr]

Freedom from time/temperature constraints. Freedom from darkroom drudge. Low cost. Load the tank, fill, agitate, set the tank down, and come back an hour or so later. I doubt that stand developing is the best way to develop film, but it is the most convenient I have found in 50+ years of photography experience.

Good enough!

[Mark Sawyer]

What do you hope to gain by stand development?

Hi, Jay! Sorry I missed your question earlier...

I go with stand development because I like the compensating effect. Since the developer exhausts quicker in the denser parts of the negative, without agitation the development slows down there after a while. Meanwhile, the developer keeps working away at near full strength in the thinner areas. In images with bright highlights and deep shadows, it gives me a robust negative with printable information at both ends. Conventional development would require more exposure and less development for printable information, but the negative would be a bit anemic overall...

Unlike Graywolf, I stand develop one negative at a time in a tray, and keep a close eye on my temperatures, so it's not much more convenient for me... :(

[Ed Bray]

I use Caffenol CL with a semi-stand technique, currently I process 4x 4x5 in a Paterson Orbital without base with 400mls of developer (this is sat in a 10"x 12" tray on a tray warmer), I use a waterbath first for 5 minutes then pour in the developer, I rock the Orbital gently for 30 seconds then give 3 gentle rocks (so as not to spill any of the developer) after a further 2, 4, 8, 18 minutes with the developer finally being poured out after a further 40 minutes giving a total development time of 72.5 minutes.

Using the method above gives me absolutely fantastic negatives with a fantastic range of tones, acutance, and fine grain but also allows me to process different film stocks in the same tank at the same time.

[Jay DeFehr]

Hi, Jay! Sorry I missed your question earlier...

I go with stand development because I like the compensating effect. Since the developer exhausts quicker in the denser parts of the negative, without agitation the development slows down there after a while. Meanwhile, the developer keeps working away at near full strength in the thinner areas. In images with bright highlights and deep shadows, it gives me a robust negative with printable information at both ends. Conventional development would require more exposure and less development for printable information, but the negative would be a bit anemic overall...

Unlike Graywolf, I stand develop one negative at a time in a tray, and keep a close eye on my temperatures, so it's not much more convenient for me... :(

Hi Mark,

Compensation by regional exhaustion doesn't necessarily require omitting agitation altogether, and in my experience, some agitation is almost always preferable to no agitation. Like pyro developers, stand development has a rich history of hyperbole and controversy, and near-mythical status among some sects of photographers, especially when the developer is based on glycin. Intrigued, I bought some glycin and experimented with stand development, and eventually formulated a developer for that purpose -- GSD-10. That developer, and my view of stand development evolved together, influenced strongly by my experience with Hypercat/ Obsidian Aqua, which is highly responsive to agitation. As it happens, I was interrupted in making this post by an incoming email asking about stand development, so I'll borrow from my response to that question:

In short, some agitation is always better than no agitation, except in the cases where there's no difference. Put another way-- There is an optimum agitation frequency for every film/developer/scene combination, and that optimum is never 0. And less succinctly-- if you tested no agitation against one agitation period at the halfway point of development, any differences will favor agitation over no agitation. Further, if you test agitation at 1/3 and 2/3 of development against agitation at the halfway point, any differences will favor more agitation to less.

Why is this? Primarily, because any differences we're likely to detect will be development defects, like streaking, mottling, or uneven development. The benefits of stand development-- compensation, edge effects, enhanced micro-contrast -- are subtle, difficult to quantify, and not significantly decreased by low frequency agitation.

I haven't used GSD-10 since I left Idaho, mostly because I left my bottle of it there, but my enthusiasm for that developer has waned for other reasons, too. First, glycin is expensive, and available from only one supplier, and also because of my evolved attitude towards stand development, as expressed above. I think the best use for GSD-10 is as a replenished tank developer, with low frequency agitation, and I have a different favorite for that purpose.

Here's a blog post by my friend, Jim Byers, describing his process for finding the optimum agitation frequency:

http://gsd-10.blogspot.com/2010/07/gsd-10-semi-stand-and-finding-preferred.html

And here's an example of how this developer handles high contrast light:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vQiBpnvmQMY/S_DvdkZpkxI/AAAAAAAAAfI/NU0f4L-rypU/s1600/M-0510-39-001.jpg

[Mark Sawyer]

Lovely portait, Jay! Yes, I can see what you mean, sun and shadows with detail in both. I had pretty good luck with zero agitation a few years ago when I was working in darkly lit rooms shooting through windows to sunlight outside and getting detail in both:

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g139/Owen21k/Woodshop_window_500high.jpg

But I'm going back to film soon, re-experimenting (this time with pyro), and will try semi-stand as well as stand. We'll see!

[Jay DeFehr]

Very nice, Mark! Have fun experimenting.