I'm about to experiment with this. Pyro HD 1:1.5:200, pre wash then put it in the fridge (likely 4-6 deg celsius), agitate twice a day (each 12 hours). Anyone tried this before may give me a starting point how many days should I leave it in the fridge? Film is Ultrafine 400 in 135.
Life = Love + Passion + Responsibility
My guess is that you'll produce a blank negative, most if not all developing agents are temperature sensitive, and already below 17-16degC or so, they will only have a fraction of their full activity..my guess there is a almost total stop at 4degC..have no access to my literature right now so I might be wrong..
Best,
Cor
Mortensen wrote about doing this. I believe he used a glycin developer. Let us know if you get anything useful.
Why?
make sure you take the bulb out.
won't the fridge motor coming on agitate it?
That was my initial thought as well. I've read some things about him and his development methods online recently; google should turn one or two things up. I don't think I came across specific developer recipes and development times. I do remember, however, reading about him leaving film in the developer for hours (put them in int he morning and take them out after lunch) or sometimes even days. This, as far as I know, was all at room temperature, and under his approach of 'exposing for the highlights and developing to completion'.Originally Posted by j.e.simmons
I agree with Cor that bringing down developer temperature to a few degrees above freezing will all but stall development. I'd guesstimate that you'd be looking at development times in the order of magnitude of a week. This introduces the issue of developer oxidation, which may (even at these temperatures) outpace the rate of development.
I wouldn't be surprised that after a period of experimentation, one would reach the conclusion that in order to make this work reliably, extensive adjustments to exposure as well as developer chemistry need to be made. Which poses the question that bigdog asked: why? And would it be worth the hassle?
In the toolbox of development methods, I wonder if there are benefits to be found that outweigh the inconvenience of such a long processing time, risks of uneven development and total failure due to inactive and/or oxidized developer chemistry. Not to mention emulsion defects resulting from leaving a fragile gelatin emulsion in a highly alkaline (depending on the developer used) environment for such an extended period of time.
John is right, Mortensen did publish his method in one of his books...
Some chems become inactive at lowered temps... (Hydroquonine becomes inactive at about 63deg F, so that's why your cold night/cold tray prints have no contrast...)
Also, if you dig through the Kodak special formulas, they had a very cold weather formula... I remember that there was the addition of glycol to prevent freezing <0 degree...
But a highly diluted developer very cold sure will take a while...
Steve K
The reason is simple: why not? It's fun, and I'm after some special effects, like very high acutance or strange tonality... due to the staining effect.
In my theory low temperature + high diluted developer is to slow down the oxidization process and prevent uneven development. Yes I worry about the developer become inactive, but this need an experiment anw.
Still waiting for someone who tried this before to chime in
Life = Love + Passion + Responsibility
I see no valid reason for putting the developer and film in the refrigerator. I have often used Mortensen's method of total development when called for. The best developer I know of for this is well used, 100+ sheets of 4x5, D-23. I could explain when and why it works, but I'll leave it to you to read Mortensen's books. It does not work well with fresh developer,or fast acting ones.
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