Many thanks, Mohmad, for your kind words and for sharing your thoughts. Please allow me to respond on them:
Yes, I agree. The first developer should ideally contain a silver solvent, or alternatively a separate silver solvent process step should be performed before the bleach step. I think the choice between thiocyanate and thiosulfate is perhaps a personal one; why would you prefer thiocyanate?I find myself more inclined to use potassium thiocyanate instead of sodium thiosulfate, as it means more accurate results.
- I think that the idea that the first developer is the same as the second developer has proven to be a failure of that idea a lot,
- The first developer should contain potassium thiocyanate or sodium thiosulfate (I prefer the first), while the second developer does not contain this component.
I do not think the bleaching was insufficient. It was essentially complete, and this was easily verified visually since bleaching was done under normal light. Additionally, dichromate bleach is always very fast and effective in my experience.- The image still has a lot of silver, as the bleaching is not sufficient, (the time of bleaching is small or the focus of the bleach is weak or both reasons)
In the image shown, I turned on the room lights after the stop bath and kept them on for processing. Note that my room lights are very bright indeed and exposure to them will fully expose any film, no matter what speed, within a second or so. In a subsequent experiment I reduced the exposure by a controlled one-second exposure to my room light. The effect was identical. This suggests that the fogging exposure was complete in both instances.The second re-exposure was weak as I thought and relied only on completing the steps with room light (as I think), and this is not enough, the second re-exposure should be done in a concentrated manner and preferably chemical and not dependent on room lighting because re-exposure is using Room lighting will not result in equal and equal exposure in all parts of the film, and accordingly, the image will be a hybrid of negative and positive anonymously.
Yes, I would prefer a chemical fogging step as well. Sadly, I do not have any tin chloride on hand. I might give it a try with sepia toner, but this of course modifies the image tone and adds some density as well on top of the silver image alone.Regarding the re-exposure step.
I support the chemical method.
By adding one gram of tin chloride to the second developer.
As to your question on the equipment: it looks like a grafmatic 4x5" film holder. I have never used them, but as far as I understand, it is basically a standard 4x5" film holder with a little number dial that can be used to identify individual holders by exposing a number on each film sheet. I know that one or more people on this forums use these holders. I don't know in which cameras they may or may not fit. I mostly use Lisco Regal film holders.
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