Barnbaum & "severe minus development"

[PViapiano]

When Bruce Barnbaum talks about "severe minus development" for negatives that he has exposed up into Zones 13, 14 & 15 (as in his Photo Techniques special issue), how severe does he mean? After all, Zone 15 is N-7 territory, no?

Once we get beyond N-2 development, are we talking about compensating developers as well here? Or just time adjustments?

I've never seen Bruce in person or at a workshop, so I was wondering if someone could shed some light on this...

Thanks!

[Brian Ellis]

I attended one of Bruce's workshops and I remember him discussing the compensating developer he used at that time and giving us the formula for it. He had just switched to it from the one discussed in his book. So he must use his compensating developer in the situations you mention. Unfortunately I don't remember the compensating developer he used though I probably could dig out my workshop notes if you were really interested.

[Ron Marshall]

I attended one of Bruce's workshops and I remember him discussing the compensating developer he used at that time and giving us the formula for it. He had just switched to it from the one discussed in his book. So he must use his compensating developer in the situations you mention. Unfortunately I don't remember the compensating developer he used though I probably could dig out my workshop notes if you were really interested.

I would also be interested if you are able to easily locate your notes.

I have Barnbaums book, but perhaps his current tecnique supercedes those discussed there.

In his book, he lists several compensating developer formulas; but then states that after using a single bath compensating dev. for 17 years he recently found greater success with a two solution technique.

The example in his book:

the first solution is HC-110, 1:7.5 (from stock) continuous agitation for 50 seconds, then stand for 50 seconds; second solution is HC-110 1:45 (from stock) cont. agitation for the first 20 sec. then 1 minute stand, then 15 sec. agitation every minute. The total development time in both baths is 10 minutes.

Contrast control is achieved by varying the time in the first bath, but maintaining a total of ten minutes development time.

I have tried this method to compress a 15 stop range and it worked well.

[Brian Ellis]

I'll see if I can find them. I used to keep all my workshop notes in a binder in my darkroom but when we moved last January I got rid of a lot of darkroom stuff. I'm not sure whether that binder was discarded or not, I'll see.

[phil sweeney]

I accomplished N-7 in semi-stand development with HP5 and highly dilute pyrocat. In fact my only reason for looking into semi-stand development was for handling extreme subject brightness ranges. This was covered by Steve Sherman in view camera articles
and at the AZO and APUG forums.

http://www.apug.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26956&page=6&highlight=semistand

I ended up using pyrocat at 1.5-1-345. Steve recommended to keep it at 1.5-1-200. I would recommend using two negatives and adjusting time for the second as needed.

[Eric Rose]

Bruce is always willing to answer questions directly. Email him at barnbaum@aol.com

[Ron Marshall]

Bruce is always willing to answer questions directly. Email him at barnbaum@aol.com

I emailed Bruce, he said he is still using the two solution method with HC-110 from his book, that I outlined below.

[Brian Ellis]

I emailed Bruce, he said he is still using the two solution method with HC-110 from his book, that I outlined below.

By "his book" we're talking about "The Art of Photography," right? In the workshop (which was his Georgia workshop, probably around 1996) he made a big deal out of the new forumla he had just started using. I guess with use he found some problems with it and went back to the old one. But thanks for asking him, saves me the trouble of digging out my old notes and posting incorrect information.

[PViapiano]

Thanks, everyone...great info here.

I also emailed Steve Sherman for his articles, which are also a great help in getting an overview into this area.

Looking forward to experimenting with what I've learned here...

[RPNugent]

I took a workshop around the same time as Brian and he was experimenting with something I think was called Perfection XR1 or something like that followed with dilute HC110. The Perfection formula went out of production I believe and as a result he had to go back to HC110 whether he had decided he liked the results or not I guess.

[steve simmons]

PMK ad Tri-X are a great combination for severe minussing. I have done up to/down to -5 and then burned the hightlights a little bit. Tri-X holds on to its local contrst the best of any film and I have tested several times over the last 25 years.

steve simmons

[Jim Noel]

I learned extreme compensating development from Ray McSavaney who is a real master in the field as evidenced by his images from teh Royal Tire Factory.

Ray uses a simple pyrocatechol developer highly diluted. ALthough I have this formula, I would not like to pass it on without his permission. Instead, I would suggest Pyrocat diluted about 2-3 times as much as usual with semi stand develoment.

Jim

[Ron Marshall]

There is a great article in the July/August 2005 issue of View Camera magazine about minus development.

The author used dilute HC-110 or dilute Pyrocat-HD to capture up to 15 zones.