Summary Of Recent Work On Stand Development

[ic-racer]

producing more beautiful prints.

At least show the prints, that is all that matters.

[tundra]

At least show the prints, that is all that matters.

Sure, come on over ... after COVID

[David Schaller]

Thank you very much for this testing. Your findings are very useful to me, as I have standardized on Pyrocat HD, and have made some preliminary steps in the direction of EMA and semi-stand. I will try a few tweaks to my process based on your results, starting with a bit more agitation at the beginning, and perhaps using your dilution ratios, which are slightly different from mine. Thanks again for posting. There are many of us who appreciate this forum for sharing practical experiences rather than for getting into theoretical pissing contests.

[tundra]

As @ic-racer points out - the image is all that matters. I don't yet have a print, but here is a scan of a Semistand FP4+ negative. Please note that I have a really lousy old film scanner and this doesn't remotely do justice to the actual negative but it does serve to illustrate the ideas discussed here.

In full disclosure, I scanned the negative to be very low contrast to fully reveal what was in it. I then manipulated the HD curve digitally to - as best as I could - mimic how I will VC print it. I didn't bother to do any tuning like dodge/burn.

In the original scene, the SBR in the central shed area was only around 2 stops or so. The dark shadows were placed on III, but it put the foreground snow on the bottom of VIII. In other words, the overall scene SBR was normal to slightly large, but the core scene geometry had lousy local contrast - a perfect candidate for some sort of stand treatment.

Incidentally, the light that day was completely flat and omindirectional in the mid-day/early afternoon after a major snowstorm. An unmanipulated negative would have shown a big gray blob in the middle and bright snow.

N+ development would have blown the snow detail way up the H/D curve. Semistand processing gave this negative full shadow speed (which you cannot see in the scan, but there is plenty of detail there) and spread the mid-tones in the center subject very nicely, while holding the snow detail.

The print interpretation will benefit considerably when I split VC print it so - again - a lousy scan of the negative is only a very rough approximation of the final thing...




EDIT: See later in this thread for a scan of the final silver print for comparison.

[tundra]

Thank you very much for this testing. Your findings are very useful to me, as I have standardized on Pyrocat HD, and have made some preliminary steps in the direction of EMA and semi-stand. I will try a few tweaks to my process based on your results, starting with a bit more agitation at the beginning, and perhaps using your dilution ratios, which are slightly different from mine. Thanks again for posting. There are many of us who appreciate this forum for sharing practical experiences rather than for getting into theoretical pissing contests.

Do report your findings back in this thread. I'm anxious to hear what others are doing in this area as well.

Not-pissing-in-the-theoretical-winds-ly Yours,
tundra

[Jim Noel]

No, I didn't say that, nor was there any evidence of this. The developer in various dilutions easily lasted an hour. There are reports (not confirmed by me) of stand sessions going much longer than this.

Our ancestors used films or plates that had thicker emulsions making stand a more viable technique. Back in the day (say, in the Super XX era), there are stories of commercial labs doing dunk agitation and then leaving the film to sit overnight in tanks for so-called "complete development".

It is my sense that the developer is not the constraint here. Modern films are, and they are best served by Semistand or EMA. Stand appears to be a highly variable crap shoot with these films and offers nothing Semistand or EMA don't as best as I could tell

The camera department where I worked part time in the 1940's used extended development on all brands and speeds of roll film. Late in each day we hung all film from a large rack with a 2 oz weight at the bottom. The film was lowered into the vat of well used D-23 just prior to locking the door for the night. First thing the next morning the rack was raised and the film moved through stop bath and fixer, then washed and dried. Contact prints were made of each film strip. Rarely was there an unprintable image. The Saturday intake of film spent an additional 24 hours in the developer w/o harm.
I still use the process and used D-23 for certain exposures today. These, of course, are sheet film up to 7x17 and done in a tray.

[tundra]

The camera department where I worked part time in the 1940's used extended development on all brands and speeds of roll film. Late in each day we hung all film from a large rack with a 2 oz weight at the bottom. The film was lowered into the vat of well used D-23 just prior to locking the door for the night. First thing the next morning the rack was raised and the film moved through stop bath and fixer, then washed and dried. Contact prints were made of each film strip. Rarely was there an unprintable image. The Saturday intake of film spent an additional 24 hours in the developer w/o harm.
I still use the process and used D-23 for certain exposures today. These, of course, are sheet film up to 7x17 and done in a tray.

I'll bet that in that era you were processing thick emulsion films like Super XX that handled stand a lot better than modern films.

[paulbarden]

Bergger Pancro 400 processed in D-23 is beautiful.

[Jim Noel]

I'll bet that in that era you were processing thick emulsion films like Super XX that handled stand a lot better than modern films.

Yes, but I have used the same methods and developer on current FP4+ with good results.

[John Layton]

Jim, am I correct in seeing that you've had success with sheets in open trays?