Diafine: Help please for uneven development [Archive]

Wayne Crider

27-Dec-2012, 18:33

I've had Diafine give me uneven development but far worse then yours. It was almost like the emulsion didn't soak the A solution up very much in some areas. First I question your continuous agitation since with Diafine you don't do that, so I don't know what that's about. I can tell by the shadow of the reflector on the wall the light is coming from the left and a little higher thru a window; I can see the reflection in the pan, and I also can see density in the reflection partly being the bulb, and since the umbrella is higher the shadow is more in line. The only area I see that looks strange is the left wall shadow up high. Is there any chance in a million that you didn't see this and got what was there or the light was filtered by something outside or reflected off something inside? Can't black satin(?) reflect a shadow? The other thing that comes to mind is how large open areas of a sky might give problems. It might be a wall with some texture but it's very homogenous being one color. So, just some ideas from a Diafine user.

20 45's shouldn't be a problem with a gallon of Diafine if it's reasonably young, and for Diafine young can be a couple of years depending on usage.

Renato Tonelli

27-Dec-2012, 18:45

I have gotten uneven development also and only with constant agitation (Jobo); I could only conclude that Diafine is not well suited for constant agiation (I might have also read about it). It's a pity because I use it quite often.

Leigh

27-Dec-2012, 19:21

...today I got this result, in spite of continuous agitation.
That's your problem. Diafine wants very limited gentle agitation. It's a compensating developer.

Per the box instructions: "Agitate very gently 5 seconds initially, then 5 seconds each minute thereafter.
The bold-faced very gently is in the original instructions, for emphasis.

No pre-soak is correct. It will inactivate the developer.

Photo-flo would do nothing as it's used after development and fixing are completed.

Diafine lasts forever when replenished per the instructions. You need to keep a quart of unused solutions for this.

Replenishment is done by adding enough fresh Solution A to replace the volume lost (measure the volume), then
adding an equal volume of fresh Solution B to its container. Discard any excess used Solution B.

Replenishment can be done at any time, so you can do it now to add the previously lost volumes.

I've used Diafine for several decades with very uniform results. I really love it for tray development (4x5 & 8x10).

- Leigh

Ken Lee

27-Dec-2012, 19:40

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/DiafineProblem2.jpg

I made 2 exposures of that scene, and here's the other negative. It show less streaking, but development is still blotchy.

Sorry for the confusion, but all the sheets I've tried over the last weeks have been continuous shuffling agitation in a deep tray, and this is the first time I've seen uneven development. This time I developed 12 negatives in the same batch, 4 min + 4 min. Could there be something about the presence of 12 sheets rather than 6 ?

With Divided Pyrocat, we add Photo Flo to Solution A to help absorption: it's very effective. See http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?52913-Anybody-using-Pyrocat-HD-or-MC-as-a-Compensating-Developer

I'm reluctant to add Photo Flo to the Diafine Solution A: I don't want to spoil it accidentally.

Leigh

27-Dec-2012, 19:49

I don't see anything wrong with your process. I normally do a maximum of six sheets in a batch, but if you're comfortable with handling 12, I see no reason why it wouldn't work properly.

Depending on solution depth there might be insufficient developer in contact with each film.

Photo-Flo is a surfactant (i.e. soap), designed to reduce the surface tension of water, allowing it to run off a negative rather than beading up during the drying process. I have no idea why it would affect developer absorption.

- Leigh

Ken Lee

27-Dec-2012, 20:11

Perhaps I'm wrong, but with less surface tension holding the water molecules together, they can more easily migrate into the emulsion. A wetting agent makes water more... wet, no ?

I will try using more volume. Meanwhile, I'm hooked on 2-Bath developer: there's something very smooth going on.

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/img020AB.jpg

Leigh

27-Dec-2012, 20:25

Yes, it makes water wetter. My problem is determining how that would affect uptake in an emulsion.

Perhaps it does.

- Leigh

Ken Lee

27-Dec-2012, 20:34

From Encyclopedia Britannica (emphasis added)

Wetting Agent:

also called surfactant, chemical substance that increases the spreading and penetrating properties of a liquid by lowering its surface tension—that is, the tendency of its molecules to adhere to each other.

Leigh

27-Dec-2012, 20:41

I know the definition. I don't know how it would affect uptake.

- Leigh

Ian Gordon Bilson

27-Dec-2012, 21:02

You don't appear to have described the film you use , but Ilford for example,don't recommend surfactants,or pre-soaks for their films, at least in the pre,or development, phase.

Nathan Potter

27-Dec-2012, 21:09

Ken, I use a surfactant (Triton X 100) in both solution A and B Diafine with slow but continuous agitation in a small tube. The viscosity of the developer doesn't change with the addition of 2 to 4 drops per 8 oz. so I suppose one could say the water is not wetter. The idea is to reduce the surface tension at the film surface which will then enhance the penetration of the developer solution at T = 0. This really only ensures that the rate of take up of developer is linear over the time of development.

This is a common industrial technique especially where very uniform wetting of process liquids are needed on hydrophobic surfaces such as with many plastics and especially with anodic oxidation processes such as with anodized pigmented aluminum where one needs uniformity of pigmentation.

Absolutely vital technique in some integrated chip fabrication steps where incredibly uniform wetting of wafer surface is required.

The notion is that it should aid the uniformity of development, but I will say to establish this in the context of Diafine would take more precise tests than I have done. I use the surfactant rather blindly as insurance of uniformity.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

Ken Lee

28-Dec-2012, 02:02

You don't appear to have described the film you use , but Ilford for example,don't recommend surfactants,or pre-soaks for their films, at least in the pre,or development, phase.

Sorry, this has been Kodak 400 TMAX.

sanking

28-Dec-2012, 08:35

Ken,

First, I would not call the shuffle method of agitation you use "continuos" agitation. If you are shuffling through 6-12 sheets of film at some point most of the sheets are in contact base/emulsion. This could easily cause some type of uneven absorption of the developing agent, especially with short time in Solution A. I am not going to say you can not get even development with two-bath developers and shuffle development, but this method complicates matters a lot IMO, whether with traditional development or with two-bath formulas.

On other matters.

1. A pre-soak with pure water should not cause uneven development if the remaining steps are carried out appropriately. The pre-soak results in some swelling of the gelatin emulsion and will therefore affect the rate of absorption of the developing agent by the silver halides, which are embedded in the gelatin. Depending on the film, the rate of absorption could be faster or slower. For this reason I generally favor a fairly long development time in Solution A (with warm solution), which will ensure that the emulsions absorbs as much of the reducer as possible. However, with a developer that is re-used the pre-soak should be avoided because it will result in a slow, but inevitable, dilution of Solution A.

2. Regardless of the instructions that come with Diafine I have seen no evidence that continuous agitation, if gentle and random, causes uneven development. To the contrary, my experience is that a fairly long development time at about 75º F, say 5-7 minutes, with continuous agitation, is the best form of agitation for Diafine and other two-bath developers.

3. The use of a surfactant makes a lot of sense in theory for the reasons mentioned by Nate. And I have seen no evidence that the use of a few drops of Photo-Flo will negatively impact the chemistry of the reducer in Solution A with Diafine.

4. After removing the film from Solution A drain it for 10-15 seconds, and then immediately introduce it into Solution B. If the surface tension has been broken by the surfactant this should asure that the film is wetted out uniformly by the alkaline Solution B.

Sandy

Jay DeFehr

28-Dec-2012, 09:30

There are always trade offs, for every alternative methodology, and for what you gain by two bath development, the trade off is the risk of uneven development, and a more complicated process. This is especially true for staining developers. None of the benefits of two bath development are compelling enough for me to switch from single bath development, but to each, his own.

sanking

28-Dec-2012, 11:52

Jay,

I agree that there are trade offs with two bath development.

For me the compelling benefit of two-bath development is the ability to limit highlight development in scenes of very high contrast. There are of course other ways to handle scenes of this type, but in my experience none are as fool proof as divided development.

And if one's work flow is built around scanning and printing digitally, or with some wet process via digital negatives, the slight risk of uneven development is to me a small price to pay, since small negative defects like this can normally be corrected easily in PS.

But in the end, what we photograph, the equipment we use, and what we do with the image, is a highly personal and subjective issue, and there are no rights and wrongs, only alterative paths. Of course, any time our paths fork from the norm there is some risk. In fact, if you were a pessimist that path would always been seen as the one that leads to destruction, as in El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths) of the great writer from the Argentines, Jorge Luis Borges.

Sandy

Jay DeFehr

28-Dec-2012, 12:17

Sandy, I agree. And for a true pessimist, all paths lead to destruction.

I'm just learning PS, and I would hate to have to even out uneven development in PS, but that's just me. I don't often spend much time on problem negatives, and move on to better ones, but I'm trying to improve my skills and make more negatives viable. For me, a single bath developer of suitable composition, with generous agitation, gives me the most consistently reliable results. I've had my fun with two bath development, and I don't begrudge anyone else the pleasure. My caveats are meant for those tempted to see two bath development as a panacea.

Ken Lee

28-Dec-2012, 12:47

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/DiafineWithPhotoFlo.jpg

Here's a test with a few drops of Photo Flo added to Solution A. There is no uneven development as far as I can tell, and no ill effects from the wetting agent.

I just love these test shots. Here is a building with a dark brown door in deep shade, next to some snow in full sunshine, along with blue sky with white clouds. I placed the dark brown doors on Zone IV and let the rest just go. Much of the scene should have been white, but even the snow is printable and the car looks normal, instead of the Zone VII where it would have ended up with normal development.

As usual, I had to add contrast and lower the shadow values a bit to give some snap to the image. With regular film I'd have to use a polarizer and/or yellow filter to get even a hope of detail in the sky, but here, no filter was used. If this was a movie production, big reflectors or lights would have been used to balance the extremes.

Jay DeFehr

28-Dec-2012, 12:55

Your sunny day has been transformed into a depressingly dull, overcast one. Victory?

Ken Lee

28-Dec-2012, 13:05

This was a test shot. With the same exposure and ordinary development, it would have looked more like the image below: even less of a victory perhaps.

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/DiafineWithPhotoFlo2.jpg

In non-test situations, the accommodation of high contrast can sometimes give pleasing results. Here's a shot made under a similar brightness range. Not the greatest photo of course, but I like it. The fact that it was developed in the same batch of developer, is also gratifying.

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/img013tc.jpg
Spectacles, 2012
Sinar P, 210mm Macro Sironar
4x5 TMY, Diafine

Jay DeFehr

28-Dec-2012, 13:18

Ken,

Maybe I sound sarcastic -- more tongue in cheek, I hope. Is there no way to make a suny day exposure look like a sunny day, without including blown highlights and washed out mid tones? I've seen this same treatment in most of your images, which probably means it's a choice, but I often read you as claiming victory over high SBR scenes that you render as what I consider to be dull and lifeless ones, and I know some others have the same reaction to your images, which is not a value judgement, just a personal response.

mdm

28-Dec-2012, 16:16

Jay DeFehr

28-Dec-2012, 17:34

I think Mr DeFehr is confusing a print or a web image with the negative. Shurely a detailed negative is a good thing to have because it allows you to print or scan or process the negative any way you like, but a negative with blown out highlights or blocked up shadows is severely limiting on a scanner.

I'm not confusing anything. I assume Ken presents his images on the web as he would like them to appear on the web. I imagine he presents his prints as he would like them to appear as prints. To do otherwise is senseless.

mdm

28-Dec-2012, 18:06

I could say a lot of stuff, but I wont except that you are now on my ignore list and you always will be.

Jay DeFehr

28-Dec-2012, 18:33

I could say a lot of stuff, but I wont except that you are now on my ignore list and you always will be.

For that? Wow! Sensitive.

Ken Lee

28-Dec-2012, 19:03

Gentlemen: Please be advised that our policy about discourteous behavior has changed: repeat offenders get banned permanently.

Jay DeFehr

28-Dec-2012, 19:21

Ken,

Was I discourteous? Not that I care at all about being banned, permanently or otherwise -- I don't -- but I'm curious about these kinds of interpretations.

JBelthoff

28-Dec-2012, 19:46

I think Mr DeFehr is confusing a successful test with an artists body of work. Ken, as I read the posts, was speaking of the successful test of his Diafine experiment and was happy with that success.

Ken, I really like the spectacles photo! As well as some of your other ones.

Jay DeFehr

28-Dec-2012, 21:08

John,

I'm not confusing that, either. It doesn't matter -- I meant no disrespect -- just discussing choices, but it seems some believe Ken's been insulted and needs defending. I hope Ken doesn't feel that way.

patrickjames

29-Dec-2012, 02:40

I don't make photographs like you Ken, but I sure do appreciate the way you make them.

I have tried various different two bath developers over the years and your results mirror my own. I still wet print so a bad negative is a bad negative. There is no way around it. Two bath developers seem to all do this from time to time with no rhyme or reason. I would still like to explore them further so maybe I will give surfactants a try. I was working on a Glycin/Metol two bath developer a couple of years ago that gave great tone but I gave up because of the occasional uneven development.

Ken Lee

29-Dec-2012, 09:05

Thank you :)

If you get back to your Glycin/Metol formula, I'm sure there would be more than a passing interest here among members.

Here's another subject with extremely high dynamic range: a black record under the lid of an old Victrola in a dimly lit room, with a reflection of light coming through the window. A 45 second exposure.

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/victrola-sqr.jpg
Victrola, 2012
Sinar P, 135mm uncoated Tessar
4x5 TMY, Diafine

Mark MacKenzie

29-Dec-2012, 09:37

Wow, very cool photo. It seems to amplify the "uncoated" look. The spectacles are a coated modern lens. I think its a great treatment and I'd like to see it in print instead of on a laptop...

RichardSperry

29-Dec-2012, 11:36

One of the traits of Diafine is that it is reusable. If you are adding Photo Flo to it, are you just tossing it after each use?

Ken Lee

29-Dec-2012, 12:31

No - I haven't tossed anything out. So far I have just returned the used developers (A & B) to their original 1-gallon bottles.

The next time I develop some sheets, I will add some more Photo Flo, but after that I will stop adding it. I plan to just keep using the original 1 gallon of each solution until something goes wrong.

Experimenting is part of the fun: using different lenses, formats and cameras can also help keep us in a beginner's frame of mind.

Kevin J. Kolosky

30-Dec-2012, 13:58

Ken

I would be interested in how you metered and planned the exposure for the Victrola photograph.

Ken Lee

30-Dec-2012, 16:01

I would be interested in how you metered and planned the exposure for the Victrola photograph.

Ordinarily - when using a truly divided developer - we can meter for the low values and not worry about the high values, but in this case the light was too dim to measure the low values. (Even though that old Tessar opens to f/4.5, it was very difficult to focus and compose under the dark cloth.)

The reflections on the record were bright enough to measure. Using a spot meter, I "placed" the reflections on Zone VI and figured that rest of the record would look normal. The metal arm of the victrola "fell" several stops higher - and would ordinarily be burned out - but I relied on Diafine to retain texture.

rdenney

30-Dec-2012, 20:05

Jay, having usable densities in the negative beats the pants off not having it. One can always increase contrast, especially when using a scanning/Photoshop workflow. But making unscannable densities scan usably is a bit more challenging.

The choice of what one does with those usable densities is a whole separate discussion, particularly with regards to test photos. I, for one, think Ken is a master of rendering subtle middle grays, which makes his work distinctive compared to my own soot and chalk. But as you say, to each his own.

Rick "who last used Diafine--incorrectly and disastrously--in, oh, maybe 1972 or so" Denney

Ken Lee

30-Dec-2012, 20:55

I confess that I'm still stuck on one of the assignments I was given back in 1971: study the effect of adjacent tones. As a result, I have often lost site of the potential inherent in more dramatic lighting.

sanking

30-Dec-2012, 21:20

Ordinarily - when using a truly divided developer - we can meter for the low values and not worry about the high values, but in this case the light was too dim to measure the low values. (Even though that old Tessar opens to f/4.5, it was very difficult to focus and compose under the dark cloth.)

The reflections on the record were bright enough to measure. Using a spot meter, I "placed" the reflections on Zone VI and figured that rest of the record would look normal. The metal arm of the victrola "fell" several stops higher - and would ordinarily be burned out - but I relied on Diafine to retain texture.

Thanks for the information about your metering procedure. And interesting that you are still thinking in zone terms even with a two bath developer.

Was it too dim in there to take an incident reading in the shadows?

Sandy

Jay DeFehr

30-Dec-2012, 21:37

Ken Lee

31-Dec-2012, 02:09

Was it too dim in there to take an incident reading in the shadows?

I'll have to try that going forward.

Kevin J. Kolosky

31-Dec-2012, 04:23

rdenney

31-Dec-2012, 05:45

Hi Rick!

Sorry to hear you've become a moderator here, but that's another subject.

I'm aware that lower than needed contrast is more malleable than higher than needed contrast, but that has nothing to do with my comments. Ken stated that he added contrast to his test image for presentation in this thread, and the image in question looks very much like the larger body of his work. It's reasonable to assume the image looks just as Ken wishes it to look, and not that it is simply raw material for some other interpretation. It's further reasonable to conclude that Ken enjoys seeking out very high SBR scenes and shoe horning them onto film by various processing techniques. I simply question whether this exercise is a means to an end, or an end in itself. If rendering a sunny day as an overcast one is Ken's intention, his methods are very effective, but why would he want to do that, except as an example of that particular technique? I know many here have expressed admiration for Ken's work, and I mean no disrespect, but I don't share that admiration, which is not to say that I'm right, and they're wrong, just that I don't share their opinion.

Jay, the point I'm making is that Ken's work is his work, and has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. You bringing up your disadmiration of his work, however respectfully, isn't really relevant. It's like me writing a requirements document for a project that is traceably related to what I intend to do with the product of that project, and then having someone who doesn't like those requirements tell me I don't really need them, instead of telling me how I can fulfill them.

As to my becoming a moderator, no apologies are necessary. (That was a joke, you can laugh.) Pity, maybe. (That was also a joke, though not quite as funny, perhaps.)

Rick "respectfully submitted" Denney

Ken Lee

31-Dec-2012, 06:10

Ken

quote(Even though that old Tessar opens to f/4.5, it was very difficult to focus and compose under the dark cloth.)quote

Nevertheless, it looks to be well worth it. That "old" uncoated Tessar produces a very lovely "look". For lack of a better word it looks very smooth. I am sure you went through all of the tests for the film and developer. I would be interested to also know what film speed you came up with for TMY using Diafine.

With empirical film speed testing in bright sunshine here (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?97694-Diafine-substitute-Metol-for-Hydroquinone&p=966984&viewfull=1#post966984), I got a speed of around 250, the same speed I get with other developers like Pyrocat HDC (normal and divided), D-23 (normal and divided) and D-76.

You might find the rest of that thread (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?97694-Diafine-substitute-Metol-for-Hydroquinone) interesting, for the excellent comments and advice given by other members.

I don't understand why the manufacturer claims such an increase in film speed. Perhaps their criteria are geared to small-format shooters and photo-journalistic requirements.

I'm not an expert, but it seems that one of the core value propositions of divided developers is not how they boost shadow values, but rather how they compress high values. They allow us to over-expose, not under-expose.

Many of these issues have already been discussed and illustrated at great length - in the context of Divided Pyrocat - in several earlier threads, like this thread (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?52913-Anybody-using-Pyrocat-HD-or-MC-as-a-Compensating-Developer) and this thread (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?62871-Divided-Procat-HD). I also refer you to Sandy King's 2008 article about divided developers in View Camera magazine, which can be downloaded by subscribers in PDF format.

So far in my testing of Diafine, I haven't found that it does anything better than Divided Pyrocat - except that Diafine can be re-used "indefinitely". Divided Pyrocat gives even finer grain and development takes place only in Solution B. I haven't made side-by-side comparisons, but my hunch is that Divided Pyrocat is even more controlling of high values than Diafine. If there were a Divided Pyrocat formula which worked indefinitely, I doubt I'd ever have gotten around to testing Diafine at all.

David Karp

31-Dec-2012, 11:41

Hi Ken,

I am coming to this late, but if you are not using a rotary device, perhaps try using a slosher. I have one that I made for up to six 4x5 negatives at at a time. Never had a problem when I was using Diafine, and none using Thornton's variant of DD-23. Using the slosher is almost like developing one sheet in a tray at a time. If I had a dedicated darkroom, it would probably be the only way I would develop film.

Ken Lee

31-Dec-2012, 12:55

Was it too dim in there to take an incident reading in the shadows?

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/Sekonic208.jpg

I returned to the scene and took shadow measurements with my (supposedly more modest) incident meter, a little Sekonic L-208 I carry as as my "backup" meter. It's lower limit is EV 3 (compared to the Pentax at EV 1), but because I was measuring the illumination directly (and not the reflections off the subject), there was enough light for a reading - even in the shadows - with a few EV's left over. Had the scene been several stops darker, I could have still made accurate measurements with this method. In a sense, the little Sekonic is more "sensitive" than the fancier spot meter... Oops.

As long as I double the film speed setting on the meter, the recommended exposure matches my more cumbersome spot measurements, exactly. I repeated the test on a few other similar scenes, and they all match - as you predicted :cool:

Ken Lee

6-Jan-2013, 06:16

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/diafinetruck2.jpg
Old Truck, 2013
Kodak 2D, 240mm Fujinon A
5x7 HP5+, Diafine

This time I just took an incident reading in what little shade was there. I checked with the spot meter, and everything was where it should be.

russyoung

13-Jan-2013, 15:28

With the caveat that it is 120 film (Acros) and not sheet, I have used Sandy's Diafine advice (from an ancient thread) with the Jobo set to slowest rotation for five or six years and have yet to see a problem with uneven development.

Ken Lee

13-Jan-2013, 16:29

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/binoculars.jpg
Antique Binoculars, 2013
Sinar P, 210mm Macro Sironar
4x5 TMY, Diafine

Metered per Sandy's "quick" method: a single incident reading for the shadows with the "bottom of the line" Sekonic, and ISO set to double the effective film speed. A 1-minute exposure, calculation of bellows and reciprocity compensation thanks to the ExpoDev iPhone app.

Developed with the same batch of developer: still working after 1 month.

These binoculars are decorated with jet-black leather and brass. The reflections on the brass show the single light source, a window. The lighting was at the lower limit of the meter. Had I used a spot meter, I'm not sure where I would have placed anything.