Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
PC-Sulfite: A simple developer giving XTOL-quality
Hi folks, I'm a new contributor to this blog. Erik saw my work with ascorbate developers that I reported on apug.org, and gave me the honor of contributing here. Here is a useful developer that I discovered, and there are a couple more that I'm working on.
PC-Sulfite gives XTOL-like image-quality with D-23 simplicity. Well, almost as simple as D-23. If your motto is "simple is beautiful", you'll like PC-Sulfite. Here's the 1-liter formula:
I've tested this formula with Tmax-400 (TMY) and Tri-X (TX) using distilled water at 20C, which covers both conventional grain and T-grain films. I suspect this will work fine on all films, but test first. I've also compared this with test-strips of TMY developed in XTOL, and carefully examining the neg's through 22x loupes, I could scarcely see any difference between them. Same grain and shadow-detail.
Some warnings:
There's a long thread in apug.org (starting here: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum37/98430-improved-version-ds-10-ryuji-suzuki.html), and Photo Engineer (PE) encouraged me to remove borate from a formula I'm working on due to environmental restrictions. After doing so, and removing the propylene glycol carrier as well, this is all that was left. It's so simple that I didn't think it could work, but it works well. Here are some test-shots. This is a full-resolution crop developed in XTOL:
And here's a crop developed in PC-Sulfite:
It's hard to see any difference. However, viewing these images on another monitor with a higher gamma makes it clear that PC-Sulfite yields more shadow-detail than XTOL.
As a final test, I walked around my neighborhood taking boring pictures on Tri-X with an Olympus Trip-35. It was a relief to see beautiful frames when I pulled the reel out of the tank. Here's a full-resolution crop of one of my boring pictures:
And the entire 35mm frame:
I hope this simple developer works well for you also.
PC-Sulfite gives XTOL-like image-quality with D-23 simplicity. Well, almost as simple as D-23. If your motto is "simple is beautiful", you'll like PC-Sulfite. Here's the 1-liter formula:
Sodium sulfite ................ 90 gI use a 1% solution of phenidone in propylene glycol (PG) because phenidone is slow to dissolve in water.
Phenidone ...................... 0.15 g
Ascorbic acid ................. 2.8 g
Target pH = 8.2 (same as XTOL).
Add 15% to XTOL's time as a starting-point.
I've tested this formula with Tmax-400 (TMY) and Tri-X (TX) using distilled water at 20C, which covers both conventional grain and T-grain films. I suspect this will work fine on all films, but test first. I've also compared this with test-strips of TMY developed in XTOL, and carefully examining the neg's through 22x loupes, I could scarcely see any difference between them. Same grain and shadow-detail.
Some warnings:
- When mixing, dissolve the sulfite first, so it'll scavenge the oxygen that dissolved in the water.
- Use the developer shortly after mixing. PC-Sulfite contains no chelation/sequestration agents, so its shelf-life will probably be short, even if you use distilled water.
- The chemistry of PC-Sulfite is sufficiently different from XTOL that, for other films, times might vary significantly from the "add 15%" rule above. Test first.
- I haven't tried diluting it, but the pH of a sample of diluted PC-Sulfite matches that of diluted XTOL, so I'd expect it'll deliver similar results.
There's a long thread in apug.org (starting here: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum37/98430-improved-version-ds-10-ryuji-suzuki.html), and Photo Engineer (PE) encouraged me to remove borate from a formula I'm working on due to environmental restrictions. After doing so, and removing the propylene glycol carrier as well, this is all that was left. It's so simple that I didn't think it could work, but it works well. Here are some test-shots. This is a full-resolution crop developed in XTOL:
And here's a crop developed in PC-Sulfite:
It's hard to see any difference. However, viewing these images on another monitor with a higher gamma makes it clear that PC-Sulfite yields more shadow-detail than XTOL.
As a final test, I walked around my neighborhood taking boring pictures on Tri-X with an Olympus Trip-35. It was a relief to see beautiful frames when I pulled the reel out of the tank. Here's a full-resolution crop of one of my boring pictures:
And the entire 35mm frame:
I hope this simple developer works well for you also.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Liptonoles
We have been playing with tea lately. Not TEA which is used as an oxygen-free container for developing agents (see our instalment on PC-Glycol, which is made to much the same philosophy).
No we are concerned with tea, or thea as some put it, the drinking variety, the stuff we brew from small sachets from Lipton and Twinings. The idea is to substitute this instead of the nbasty coffe in Caffenol.
I have read that this could work, but the pictures I've seen previously has been like the early, weak US american recipes from Caffenol, low contrast, extremely thin negatives with all kinds of other errors on them too.
So my goal was from the outset to try this and come up with something better. I did this very simple, I brewed a large poit of very strong tea, 1 liter at rougly doubkle strength, compared to what Twinnings tell me.
They state on sachet per large cup of tea, I used 2 and scaled up to one litre solution. Per liter this came out as 8 sachets of Twinings passion fruit, mango and orange, or the leaves from those fruits.
Since this tea was the base of my brew, I did choose the name based on this : PASSIONOL.
I made a brew this way :
Tea, passion fruits , 750 ml
Soda 50 gram
Ascorbic acid 15 gram
top up volume to 1000 ml with the tea brew.
When I added soda to the tea brew, the color changed from a turbid yellow-brown to a clear black-brown, and the smell remained a sweet nice tea, unlike the nasty smell from caffenol.
I let the mix stand for ca 15 minutes, then added the ascorbic acid (vitamine C powder), this was accompanied with strong bubbling & frothing, just like caffenol, it seemed there was a good chance we
had something good here, as far as a developer goes.
So far I have published some details on this, the mix and reported results on Flickr, the Caffenol group, which is dedicated to all kinds of homebrew developers. However I never found time to publish pictures, it is my intention to do that here.
The Flickr post started other experimenters and we have recruited another compatriot to show us his results with ordinary tea, the Earl Gray brand, which is common all across the civilized world. He calls his product Grayanol as I understand and got the same results as me, his workj will also be shown on these pages.
Along the way I did test the ph and made clip tests on every step, this is interesting and an eyeopener. I got questioned on Flickr if the tea component actually did anything, the clip ytests answered that:
Clip test of tea plus soda alone gave little activity, only slightly grey film clips and only after a looong time.
Clip test of ascorbic acid and soda alone is standard operating procedure, well known from Caffenol, and is similar, it is weak but with a deeper black......
Clip test of both with soda does show the same as compared to Caffenol, good activity, ca 4 minutes gives deep, pitch black clips, much like Caffenol CH. I therefore did choose to give it a start time like C-CH as a test.
***************************************
Picture samples ; Liptonol Kodak Gold 100, triplet exposure test, developed at 16 minutes @ 20C.
Exposed box speed, + 1 stop, -1 stop developed 16 minutes @ 20C
Exposed at box speed no post processing.
Same as above contrast and saturation adjusted one step
********************************************************
Picture samples ; Liptonol Kodak Gold 100, triplet exposure test, developed at 13 minutes @ 20C.
Exposed box speed, + 1 stop, -1 stop developed 16 minutes @ 20C
Exposed at box speed no post processing.
Same as above contrast and saturation adjusted one step
*************************************************
Picture samples ; Liptonol Kodak Gold 100, triplet exposure test, developed at 12 minutes @ 20C.
Exposed box speed, + 1 stop, -1 stop developed 16 minutes @ 20C
***********************************************
Picture samples ; Liptonol Kodak Gold 100, triplet exposure test, developed at 20 minutes @ 20C.
Hopefully other workers will try Passionol, Greyanol and all other types of tea, following the procedure outlined here. I have already ascertained for myself that it works, and that it is *different* from ordinary Caffenol, different enough tio be interesting in its own right. Good Luck!
No we are concerned with tea, or thea as some put it, the drinking variety, the stuff we brew from small sachets from Lipton and Twinings. The idea is to substitute this instead of the nbasty coffe in Caffenol.
I have read that this could work, but the pictures I've seen previously has been like the early, weak US american recipes from Caffenol, low contrast, extremely thin negatives with all kinds of other errors on them too.
So my goal was from the outset to try this and come up with something better. I did this very simple, I brewed a large poit of very strong tea, 1 liter at rougly doubkle strength, compared to what Twinnings tell me.
They state on sachet per large cup of tea, I used 2 and scaled up to one litre solution. Per liter this came out as 8 sachets of Twinings passion fruit, mango and orange, or the leaves from those fruits.
Since this tea was the base of my brew, I did choose the name based on this : PASSIONOL.
I made a brew this way :
Tea, passion fruits , 750 ml
Soda 50 gram
Ascorbic acid 15 gram
top up volume to 1000 ml with the tea brew.
When I added soda to the tea brew, the color changed from a turbid yellow-brown to a clear black-brown, and the smell remained a sweet nice tea, unlike the nasty smell from caffenol.
I let the mix stand for ca 15 minutes, then added the ascorbic acid (vitamine C powder), this was accompanied with strong bubbling & frothing, just like caffenol, it seemed there was a good chance we
had something good here, as far as a developer goes.
So far I have published some details on this, the mix and reported results on Flickr, the Caffenol group, which is dedicated to all kinds of homebrew developers. However I never found time to publish pictures, it is my intention to do that here.
The Flickr post started other experimenters and we have recruited another compatriot to show us his results with ordinary tea, the Earl Gray brand, which is common all across the civilized world. He calls his product Grayanol as I understand and got the same results as me, his workj will also be shown on these pages.
Along the way I did test the ph and made clip tests on every step, this is interesting and an eyeopener. I got questioned on Flickr if the tea component actually did anything, the clip ytests answered that:
Clip test of tea plus soda alone gave little activity, only slightly grey film clips and only after a looong time.
Clip test of ascorbic acid and soda alone is standard operating procedure, well known from Caffenol, and is similar, it is weak but with a deeper black......
Clip test of both with soda does show the same as compared to Caffenol, good activity, ca 4 minutes gives deep, pitch black clips, much like Caffenol CH. I therefore did choose to give it a start time like C-CH as a test.
***************************************
Picture samples ; Liptonol Kodak Gold 100, triplet exposure test, developed at 16 minutes @ 20C.
Exposed box speed, + 1 stop, -1 stop developed 16 minutes @ 20C
Exposed at box speed no post processing.
Same as above contrast and saturation adjusted one step
********************************************************
Picture samples ; Liptonol Kodak Gold 100, triplet exposure test, developed at 13 minutes @ 20C.
Exposed box speed, + 1 stop, -1 stop developed 16 minutes @ 20C
Exposed at box speed no post processing.
Same as above contrast and saturation adjusted one step
*************************************************
Picture samples ; Liptonol Kodak Gold 100, triplet exposure test, developed at 12 minutes @ 20C.
Exposed box speed, + 1 stop, -1 stop developed 16 minutes @ 20C
***********************************************
Picture samples ; Liptonol Kodak Gold 100, triplet exposure test, developed at 20 minutes @ 20C.
Hopefully other workers will try Passionol, Greyanol and all other types of tea, following the procedure outlined here. I have already ascertained for myself that it works, and that it is *different* from ordinary Caffenol, different enough tio be interesting in its own right. Good Luck!
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