Traditional Soda-based recipes

I've been researching a little; how was developers, before developers was sold?

Back in the day people would buy glass plates or contact papers to the same size as their large negatives and make pictures. Since there was no photographers around in sparsely populated areas, people was supposed to do their own, and mix their own. Luckily since photography was invented and since people used a lot of what is now considered strange chemicals to do house chores, it was easy to find the basic chemicals. And there where druggists, or apotecharies who sold medicine, who quickly filled the need and supplied those special chemicals needed for film and paper development.

But where did they get the necessary recipes?  Dead simple, it was meticulously printed on every box for the glass plates or the photo paper.  In connection with a project for the local history chapter I've been scanning some old glass plate negatives. Some of those plates where still in their old boxes, and on the boxes was printed developer recipes.

Those I will share here.

The developers was soda based, because that was a common household chemical I believe, and used Metol, Hydroquinone or staining developers like Pyrogallol.  These was the early, stalwarth stuff they got by with, and frankly they didn't need extremely advanced stuff either, given the negative size they worked with.

Looking at the negatives and the scans I can see that when the old guys guessed exposure right, this worked very well for them, they got good developed negatives with good contrast and long tone scale with ample details in the shadows.

Since this was back in the pre-panchromatic days, this was done by tray development, and hence constant agitation, probably in a matter of minutes only.  These guys lived by the old adage "expose for the shadows, and develop for the highlights, and did so by inspecting each and every plate during development. This is probably why so few are hopelessly under-developed.

Fisrst a recipe on an old glass negative box :

Imperial Dry plate Company, Ltd of London

Here is offered two recipes and advice of how to use them for both under and over-exposure.

The Pyro-Soda developer is stated to be used for correct and full exposures, I think that translates to box ISO and plus one stop today.

The Standard developer i stated suitable to general snapshots and under-exposures, I think that translates to box speed and minus one stop today.

Or simply stated the Standard developer here is the more active, while the Pyro-Soda developer could possibly be a softer working, more fine grained recipe.

Measures is given in English and French measures which would be british and metric measures today and are equivalent.

Recipe,    Imperial Pyro-Soda

Dissolve chemicals in the order given

 

Stock solution

Potassium metabisulphite  10  gram

Pyrogallic Acid                  83  gram

Potassium bromide            13  gram

Water to    1000 ml

     

From this stock solution one mixes

Part 1

Stock Solution                            150 ml

Water (boiled or distilled)    to   1000 ml 

Part 2

Sodium Sulphite                         100 gram

Sodium carbonate                       100 gram

Water (boiled or distilled)  to    1000 ml

In use  mix one part 1 with one part 2. For underexposure increase part 2, for overexposure increase part 1.

Metric measures translates to these british measures :

Stock solution

Potassium metabisulphite 50 grain

Pyrogallic Acid 1 oz

Potassium bromide 60 grain

Water to 22 oz

From this stock solution one mixes

Part 1

Stock Solution 3 oz

Water (boiled or distilled) to 20 oz

Part 2

Sodium Sulphite 2 oz

Sodium carbonate 2 oz
Water (boiled or distilled) to 20 oz

In use mix one part 1 with one part 2. For underexposure increase part 2, for overexposure increase part 1.

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Personally I think this could be translated to caffenol, if one replaces the Pyrogallic acid with Instant Coffe and tries that, but at this point this is pure speculation.

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Recipe  Imperial Standard
Dissolve chemicals in the order given


Part 1
Metol                                      5 gram
Potassium Metabisulphite       14 gram
Pyrogallic Acid                        6 gram
Potassium bromide                  2 gram
Water (boiled or distilled) to   1000 ml
              
Part 2
Sodium Carbonate                  200 gram
Water (boiled or distilled) to   1000 ml
In use mix one part 1 with one part 2


Metric measures translates to these british measures :

Part 1

Metol                                  45 grain
Potassium Metabisulphite   120 grain
Pyrogallic Acid                    55 grain
Potassium bromide              20 grain
Water (boiled or distilled) to  20 oz

Part 2
Sodium Carbonate                    4 oz
Water (boiled or distilled) to     20 oz

In use mix one part 1 with one part 2


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Personally I think this could be translated to caffenol, if one replaces the Pyrogallic acid with Instant Coffe  and replaces Metol with ascorbic acid, and tries that, but at this point this is pure speculation.



If one chooses to try this, make a note that the standard recipe when translated to Caffeine, stores better than the pyro-soda recipe, because the ascorbic acid in part 1 protects the instant coffe from oxydation. But also note that instant coffe as always is the weak link in all the Caffeine recipes, coffe is no chemical, it is a wildly variating mixtore of substances that we have no control over, that contains degradable foodstuffs and those will quickly go sour as all coffe drinkers know.

However this trip back a century in time or so is a valuable insight into how they did things back in the days, soda based developer is nothing new, on the contrary they once was the base and foundation that photography was built upon. These developers also was what guys like Patric Gainer was looking at, no doubt, when the alternative developers first surfaced some 20 years ago.

In closing a quick look at the fixer mentioned here :

Acid Fixer solution :

Sodium Hyposulphite            500 gram

Potassium metabisulphite         60 gram
Water (boiled or distilled)  to 2500 ml

Metric measures translates to these british measures :


Sodium Hyposulphite     1 lb
Potassium metabisulphite  2 oz
Water (boiled or distilled)  50 oz,

Since a soda based developer combined with an acid fixer can give rise to spots in the emulsion, at least the soda from the developer needs to be watered out by 3 changes of plain water as a stop bath, instead of a traditional stop bath.

Note a plain, non-acidic fixer can be made simply by not adding metrabisulphite, this might be preferred



More will follow