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> Article, your thoughts please |
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#11
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How do I know which stock developers make high contrast negatives, low contrast negatives good mid tone separation negatives? Surely almost any developer can be made to increase or decrease contrast by dilution, temperature, agitation or development time or a combination of any of the latter. I understand that some developers made up with pyro are said to be compensating developers but how can you tell what a developer will do from just looking at its formula?
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"Tea is surely the king of all drinks. It helps against the cold, it helps against the heat,against discomfort and sickness, against weariness and weakness". Heinrich Harrer. |
#12
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I agree that a lot of visual evidential content was missing such as examples of prints from each of his scenarios and what made things worse was that he gave no evidence of how much compensating developers could change a negative compared to non compensating.
I am not a "technical" person but how did he work out what constituted either kind of developer However if I understood him correctly the bottom line seemed to be that you examined the scene and then decided which kind of a negative you needed to get you the print you needed for whatever you decided was right for that scene Assuming this works in terms of choice of developer then isn't this the classic of one sheet of film at a time each one being developed in a tailor-made developer. So unless you have LF or have say 3 135 film cameras and short bulk loaded cassettes or a med format with say 3 or 4 backs then the whole thing is nigh impossible without a massive waste of film ? All of the above pre-supposes that what he has said works and now we are back to needing evidence which wasn't given Mike |
#13
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Interestingly, I found this current article hard to read and gave up quickly, but I have followed and read other posts this person has made about Lith printing and Lith developer formulas, with no problem. I'm not quite sure what that says about the author and the way they write but also the way I am able to read easily some articles by the same author, but then struggle with other articles...? Terry S |
#14
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Well, yes, clearly you will need to adjust exposure time as you dial in more or less contrast from whichever end you are working, but my process is to decide on the contrast based on the highlight detail - get the highlights where I want them and then look at what the blacks are doing and adjust contrast from there.
I confess it never occurred to me to do it from the other side: starting at the shadows. That just seems counter-intuitive to me, but I'm sure that's just the result of doing it from the highlights for so long. I'll have to give it a try and see if my brain explodes from the shock Cheers, Bob. |
#15
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__________________
"Tea is surely the king of all drinks. It helps against the cold, it helps against the heat,against discomfort and sickness, against weariness and weakness". Heinrich Harrer. |
#16
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> How do I know which stock developers make high contrast negatives, low contrast negatives ...
Developers usual contain three agents: - the developing agent (e.g. Metol) - a redox partner (e.g. HQ) - an alkali (e.g. sodium carbonate, "washing soda") - oxidation protection, usual sulfite All developing agents work in alkaline environment. Their activity increases if the pH increases. That means, the contrast of the developer increases with stronger alkali. weak alkali: sulfite alone, borate, baking soda (not stable) medium alkali: washing soda strong alkali: hydroxide In reality, things are slightly more complicated because there is not an alkali alone but a buffering systeme. |
#17
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Quote:
__________________
"Tea is surely the king of all drinks. It helps against the cold, it helps against the heat,against discomfort and sickness, against weariness and weakness". Heinrich Harrer. |
#18
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Of course, the reducing agent play an important role. Rodinal has a pH of 11 or 12 (hydroxide-corbonate-buffer) but gives much finer grain than a typical paper developer, which is a Metol/HQ-washing soda type. |
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