What is stand development, semi-stand development, Agfa development?

[ericzhu]

What is stand development? What is semi-stand development? What is Agfa development? After searching this forum, it seems that they are all connected with reduced inversion times, for example, 1 inversion every 1 minute.

I used to develop trix using D76 1:1, 5 inversions every 30 seconds, is it the right way for develop trix?

[Louie Powell]

The right way to agitate is the way that works for you. You should find a pattern that works, and then stick with it.

Stand development is a development cycle that involves two key elements:

1. It uses an extremely dilute developer. Not all developers work in the stand process - the most successful practitioners of this approach use a pyro-based staining developer, but it also can reportedly be done with Rodinal. Other traditional developers (D-76, ID-11, T-Max, etc) don't work in stand development.

2. It is a very long development process with essentially no agitation at all. For example, with Rodinal (1:100 dilution), one recommended sequence is 1 hour with intermittent agitation during the first minute, and again at about 30 minutes into the process, but with the tank left stationary for the rest of the time.

The advantages of stand development are enhanced control over contrast (it is an extreme example of compensating development) and sharpness.

[Peter De Smidt]

I'll add that stand development can cause rather extreme edge effects. For the right images, it's a nice look, but for me at least it's not a great general purpose treatment. That said, my experiments were with 35mm enlarged to about 5x7. With large format, and the concomitant lesser enlargement, it might fit more images. Lot's of other developers work, btw. Bromide drag can be a problem.

Semi-stand developments gives results in between stand development and normal development.

There's no "right way" to development film. What matters is the results that you want.

Btw., be careful about uneven development with reduced agitation schemes.

[Brian Ellis]

The method you describe (1-1 dilution of D76, 5 inversions every 30 seconds) is fairly typical for D76. Some people do 5 or 10 inversions every minute. Some people don't dilute D76. But 1-1 and 5/30 will work fine, the important thing is to pick a method and stick with it. There are numerous versions of "stand development" as Louie and Peter have explained.

[Chuck P.]

What is stand development? What is semi-stand development? What is Agfa development? After searching this forum, it seems that they are all connected with reduced inversion times, for example, 1 inversion every 1 minute.

I used to develop trix using D76 1:1, 5 inversions every 30 seconds, is it the right way for develop trix?

The reduced inversion associated with dilute developers with these techniques allows the shadows to continue developing for greater contrast while the developer in the more highly exposed areas becomes exhausted. So, you can plan extra exposure to the shadows and use stand or semi-stand development to control the highlight density (less agitation reduces denisity buildup in the highlights). I use semi-stand development with very dilute HC-110 with TMX (1:119 from concentrate, 15 minutes with agitation at 4/15/4 which is 4 inversions in 15 sec every 4th minute in a Combi-Plan tank) for N-3-----that's a highlight exposed to a zone XI brightness but developed to a zone VIII negative density. But for normal development I use d-76 1:1 for 8 min and agitation being 4/10/1.

[Nathan Potter]

As implied above there are two salient features to "stand development".

The first as described by Chuck above is that of reduced developer action in the highlight areas (reduced density buildup) due to exhaustion of the developer in those areas. One does not bring fresh developer to those highlight areas through agitation. So from a zone system point of view it's like an N- type of development control.

The second phenomena (IMHO minor) is an adjacency effect. That is in areas of fine detail coupled with a high contrast ratio the exhaustion phenomena actually can increase the visual contrast and hence the apparent sharpness. The effect is not dramatic but present.

The implementation of the technique, as one might conclude, depends on using generally dilute developers in order to enhance the depletion effect. Considerable experimentation is required to work out a controllable process. Like Louie above I've used Rodinal very dilute. Never tried Pyro based systems.

Nate Potter Austin TX.

[Peter De Smidt]

A tip: I've found that continuous agitation during the first minute helps give even development with reduced agitation methods.