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Old 10th June 2011, 06:43 PM
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StuartR StuartR is offline
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Default Neofin Blue

I find myself an infrequent mono film developer these days, with most of my film effort in transparency. Consequently I find that I am either throwing away most of a batch of ID11 or using Rodinal, (now the latest incarnation). I have been looking at Tetenal Neofin Blue as a possibility. Would this produce a finer grain than Rodinal with 100asa film? I presume the keeping qualities are good, being in individual one shot bottles. Have any members had experience of this developer in comparison to Rodinal? I am really looking for a fine grain developer, available in small quantities that will last forever; wishful thinking perhaps.
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Old 10th June 2011, 08:19 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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I have no idea about Neofin Blue but in your circumstances you might want to have a look at the thread in which dsallen has said that his father might be able to offer his own two part dev for sale if there was enough interest.

It might meet your requirements

Mike
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Old 10th June 2011, 08:21 PM
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Miha Miha is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StuartR View Post
Would this produce a finer grain than Rodinal with 100asa film?
Yes, and sharper too. Expect full speed and long developing times with fast films

Quote:
Originally Posted by StuartR View Post
I presume the keeping qualities are good, being in individual one shot bottles.
The keeping qualities are excellent. I have successfully developed a roll of TMX in neofin red purchased at least 10 years ago. The developer was coffee brown and even left some stain on the negs but we are talking extremes here.
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Old 11th June 2011, 06:17 AM
Paulographic Paulographic is online now
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Yes, and sharper too. Expect full speed and long developing times with fast films

The keeping qualities are excellent. I have successfully developed a roll of TMX in neofin red purchased at least 10 years ago. The developer was coffee brown and even left some stain on the negs but we are talking extremes here.
I've a pack of Neofin Red I don't want. No idea how old but I acquired it in 2005 from a retirement sale, the shopkeeper giving me a bag full of assorted unsold chemic.
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Old 11th June 2011, 08:59 AM
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I've a pack of Neofin Red I don't want. No idea how old but I acquired it in 2005 from a retirement sale, the shopkeeper giving me a bag full of assorted unsold chemic.
I used to use Neofin Red a lot in the 1980s - PM sent.

As for Neofin Blue, I've always been a fan and still use it today - whenever I'm not using a PMK-type developer that is.
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Old 11th June 2011, 02:28 PM
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Many thanks for the info. I shall get some Neofin and give it a go.
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Old 13th June 2011, 12:34 PM
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Agree with MIHA, also used Ultrafin Plus last year and was very pleased with results.
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Old 18th July 2011, 05:19 PM
timor timor is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StuartR View Post
I have been looking at Tetenal Neofin Blue as a possibility. Would this produce a finer grain than Rodinal with 100asa film? I presume the keeping qualities are good, being in individual one shot bottles. Have any members had experience of this developer in comparison to Rodinal? I am really looking for a fine grain developer, available in small quantities that will last forever; wishful thinking perhaps.
Neofin Blue is basically a Beutler formula. No fine grain, but low contrast. If mixed at home extremely cheap to. Very good keeping qualities. Grain will be similar to Rodinal but: Tmax 100 (perfect combination) and Delta 100 grain smaller then from Rodinal. APX100, PX, FP4+ grain coarser then from Rodinal. In all cases better acutance then Rodinal. Rodinal is worse with T-grain films.
Barry Thornton writes:
OLD! THE ORIGINAL BEUTLER DEVELOPER

After the war, the first thin emulsion films began to emerge, originally from Adox. Leica users, again pushing technique forward, discovered that very slow versions of these films could be used for their fine grain. However, they tended to be very contrasty, and a compensating developer was needed to tame this. At the same time it was discovered that the acutance could be stepped up to give very high definition in these films with enhanced edge effects with specially designed developers. The king of these developers was the formula introduced by Willi Beutler which reduced the amount of developing agent and increasing the alkalinity of the accelerator. This gave very high edge effects indeed and controlled overall contrast simultaneously. An added advantage was that film speed with these slow emulsions was increased - usually by about half a stop. Because the developing agent and alkali activator are stored separately, then mixed just before use, the storage life is again very long. All the film and developer manufacturers soon made thin emulsion slow films and similar high definition developers.

Over the years, film grain size in medium and fast films reduced, and the need for the ultra slow films receded. However, the intoduction of special grain films like T-Max 100 and Delta 100, gave the same fine grain as the previous ultra slow films, but they also gave some of the same problems in sudden drop-out of shadows, for instance, as the previous contrasty slow films. Many non-special grain films too evolved to have 'straight line' characteristic curves where shadow drop-out could easily occur with automatic exposure cameras in contrasty lighting conditions. The special grain films had ultra-fine grain and resolution, but their apparent sharpness sometimes did not match that of high acutance traditional thin emulsion films.

Suddenly, the Beutler formula made sense again. Just try it with T-Max 100 for instance to see what it can do for crisp definition, full utilisation of film speed and easy printability. Available direct from Fine Print with very detailed instructions in an A+B, *1.5 litre* each, pack.

There is a point in trying Neofine Blue.
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