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  #11  
Old 26th August 2020, 06:10 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Originally Posted by Terry S View Post
Thanks again Svend and Mike.

I do use a set of calibrated stainless steel spoons for my chemical measuring, and they are kept away from another set for use in the kitchen only.

When I get a mo, I'll try measuring all the chemicals in the formula with the spoons and then weigh the chemicals on a sensitive set of scales that I've also got, and see if the amounts differ at all.

What ever happens, I don't understand why the first film would come out fine and then the second one, developed only a day or two later, came out so thin? And of course the same happening to a new bottle of Rodinal?

I'll update when done.

Terry S

Terry, did you ever figure this one out? I'm curious what the cause was, if you got to the bottom of it.
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  #12  
Old 28th August 2020, 12:19 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Terry, did you ever figure this one out? I'm curious what the cause was, if you got to the bottom of it.
Hi Svend, well I've done a number of tests and think I have found the answer.

To get there, I mixed up from chemicals, two new individual one litre batches using the teaspoon formula; one made with metol and one with phenidone.

I then developed 6 frames in each batch, at 1 + 1, from a roll of HP5+, a day after the developers were made. I did this as it has pointed out to me that the developers are a bit over active for about this length of time. The film had repeated exposures of the same scene on, doing one correct exposure, followed by 1 f-stop under and 1 f-stop over, for the whole length of the 36 exposure film, specifically to use for tests. The results were fine and having just got some ph test strips, a reading was made, which showed them both to be ph 8.

I then left the developers for at least 4 days, as I had previously done with the initial developer that almost died on me. Again both test strips came out fine with the new developers and the ph remained the same.

A further test was done on a much smaller lengths of film, with a small amount of neat solution, of the bad and the two new developers on separate lengths of film. As expected the two new solutions worked, whilst the first mix did nothing at all.

The last thing I did was to test the ph of the first / bad developer, and found the ph to be 7.

Now although I believed that I had put the first developer stock solution in a made for chemicals bottle, that had previously been used for developer, I can only assume that I got this wrong and that fixer had previously been stored in it and some fixer had been absorbed into the plastic bottle and then released into the new developer solution.

So from now on, I will only reuse bottles that have the old label on, so that I know I am refilling bottles that held the same liquid previously, before I take the old label off and replace it with a new one. I have also read that some people fill all empty bottles with a solution of washing soda, to 'neutralise' previous solutions. I am in two minds about this and think I will stick to my method about the labels above.

As for my dead Rodinal, which stopped working after just one film, I took two more small bits of film and put drops of neat solution on them. The new one as expected went black almost immediately, whilst the bad one did nothing, even after leaving it for some time. A ph test was done and both were the same at ph 13, when neat or diluted with water. So for the Rodinal, I just don't know why that died on me and having searched the internet, it appears I am not alone. I am now keeping the bottle, just in the hope that one day I may find the manufacturer and that they take some for analysis.

Well, the bottom line is that I now feel much more confident in making up future solutions of the teaspoon formula ID11 / D76, to develop my films in. The test lengths by the way, were good punchy ones and I'll be following it through, to see what the grain is like with the two different brews.

Phew! Now that was a long message to type, but I do at least now know to be more careful with chemical bottles, if nothing else.

Terry S
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  #13  
Old 28th August 2020, 06:04 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Hi Terry,

Wow, that's a lot of testing. And thanks for posting back here. I must say your experience raised a wee bit of doubt in my mind about the reliability of the teaspoon method, even though I have made up and used at least a dozen such batches over the years without problems. Very reassuring that this test showed your method was sound, as long as other good practices are followed (i.e. reliable, repeatable measurements; proper storage; etc.).

You don't mention cross-checking your spoon measurements with a good electronic scale or balance. Did you happen to follow up on that?

As for Rodinal, sorry, can't help you with that. I've only ever bought one bottle (APH09) and probably won't buy it again. Not because of issues with it -- it's still working fine, even with dark brown colour and crystals -- but I just prefer the image quality I get from other developers.

I hope you have more confidence in using this quick teaspoon method of mixing developers. I think it's great -- very quick to do, very inexpensive, and the results are excellent.

PS -- re. grain with homebrew D76 and HP5, I love it! Crisp, sharp grain; punchy tonality; deep mid tones and shadows. One of my favourite combos now. I use it 1+1 only, as you do, and would never go to 1+3 as it would lose the tonal guts.
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Last edited by Svend; 28th August 2020 at 06:08 PM.
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  #14  
Old 29th August 2020, 02:14 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Originally Posted by Svend View Post
Hi Terry,
Wow, that's a lot of testing. And thanks for posting back here. I must say your experience raised a wee bit of doubt in my mind about the reliability of the teaspoon method, even though I have made up and used at least a dozen such batches over the years without problems.

You don't mention cross-checking your spoon measurements with a good electronic scale or balance. Did you happen to follow up on that?

I hope you have more confidence in using this quick teaspoon method of mixing developers.

PS -- re. grain with homebrew D76 and HP5, I love it! Crisp, sharp grain; punchy tonality; deep mid tones and shadows.
Hi again Svend, yes it was a lot of testing, but I enjoyed doing it and it put my mind at rest once I'd realised where the problem was and that none of my chemicals had gone off / oxidised.

The tests also showed that if one was careful (bottle wise mainly) and measured accurately with some 'proper' measuring spoons, the teaspoon formula is easy and spot on.

As it happens, my Nova is currently warming up in my 15c darkroom at the end of the garden at the moment. When up to temperature, I'm going to do a couple of prints from the negative strips to compare the use of metol in one and phenidone in the other, to see if there is any difference in the grain and general look, for just looking at the negative strips with the naked eye, they look exactly the same. I'm also wondering about the contrast as they look very punchy, but I might have to reduce the development times by about 10% or so, but we'll see after the printing.

And as for weighing the chemicals, I have just done so and the figures make interesting reading...

Metol: 1/2 teaspoon = 1.6 grammes (In formula = 2.0 g)
Sodium sulfite: 4 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon = 65.3 g (I.f = 100.0 g)
Hydroquinone: 1 1/2 teaspoons = 4.1 g (I.f. = 5.0 g)
Borax 1/2 teaspoon = 3.0 g (I.f. = 2.0 g)

I've only done a quick calculation in my head, but they don't all divide or multiply by the same amount, if I'm correct.

Now I don't know the origin of the teaspoon formula, but after my testing, I am more than happy with the simplicity of it and it works for me, but the above figures I find interesting. Maybe as a final test in the near future, I will make up a batch using the grammes formula and then compare the negative strip / test prints once more.

Terry S
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  #15  
Old 30th August 2020, 01:53 AM
Svend Svend is offline
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Interesting is right

From the weighing of your spoon measures it looks like everything is about 20% shy of the grams recipe, except for borax which is +50%. That's a pretty significant inaccuracy. It looks like you have two problems going on.... along with the little bottle oops, your measures are quite a bit off. It would be worth adjusting the spoon measures to match the gram Rx.

This makes me wonder about my own results with this method. My first couple of batches done this way was D76 was just tossed together with uncalibrated spoons. The results were very good, but grainier than expected (but not objectionably so). Tonality was great though -- lots of guts. I'm pretty sure subsequent batches were all Perceptol using calibrated, adjusted spoon measures, and I didn't do D76 again since then (I was given a bunch of old packets of the real stuff so used those instead). The Perceptol films were excellent. Next time I mix up some D76 this way I will adjust the spoon recipe to calibrate to the grams needed.

Hope this will continue to give you good negs!
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  #16  
Old 30th August 2020, 12:54 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Default Your times for HP5+ at ISO 400 in D76 / ID11 at 1:1

Quote:
Originally Posted by Svend View Post
From the weighing of your spoon measures it looks like everything is about 20% shy of the grams recipe, except for borax which is +50%. That's a pretty significant inaccuracy. It looks like you have two problems going on.... along with the little bottle oops, your measures are quite a bit off. It would be worth adjusting the spoon measures to match the gram Rx.

This makes me wonder about my own results with this method. My first couple of batches done this way was D76 was just tossed together with uncalibrated spoons. The results were very good, but grainier than expected (but not objectionably so). Next time I mix up some D76 this way I will adjust the spoon recipe to calibrate to the grams needed.
Thanks again for the comments Svend and yes, I agree with the approximate percentages that you mention.

I feel happy with the spoons though and will continue to use them, as it is easier than weighing the chemicals and maybe the gram formula initially was made using extra fresh chemicals and maybe ours have lost or absorbed some moisture over time, thus changing the quantities - I don't know?!?

I have just looked up borax though, in 'The darkroom cookbook'. It says that it is used, 'As a mild alkali accelerator in fine-grain developers and those of low activity', which may explain, partially at least, the dense highlights in the negatives which I talk about below.

Anyway, I did some test strips and one straight 10 x 8 print yesterday, using a 'correctly' exposed frame, of HP5+ that was developed in the phenidone D76 / ID11. The overall look of the print was good, with really fine grain, a good tonal range and good shadow detail through to black. Now I'm sure I could get a better print with some burning in of a large concrete patio area, that fills the majority of the foreground, which has come out pure white, even when using a grade 1 filter, something that I've never needed to do in the past. Next time in the darkroom, I will try a grade 0 filter, which I didn't realise that I have, having bought the 'Educational filter set' directly from Ilford - this contains just full grades from 0 to 5, but is substantially cheaper than a full set of graded filter sheets. Until this morning and upon checking, I only thought that I had only replaced grades 1 to 5.

During my next printing session, I will also try printing another 'correctly' exposed frame, of HP5+, but one that was developed in the metol D76 / ID11. I initially thought that there shouldn't be any difference between the two negatives, but just reading the passage about phenidone, in 'The darkroom cookbook', I am now not so sure.

To quote, 'Phenidone can be substituted for metol. There is evidence that as a substitute for metol it causes a true increase in film speed.'

An interesting bit of reading, but it doesn't say how much of an increase in film speed one should expect. But, this could account for the blocked up highlights and I feel I may have to do one or two more film test strips, lowering the development time to both -10% and -20% in the phenidone developer to find out, if I intend using it over or alongside the metol formula.

So as a final question at the moment, does anyone other that Svend and I use these teaspoon formulas and if so which development figures do you use? I have used The digital truth' figures so far, exposing the HP5+ at the box speed of ISO 400, and then developing it in the D76 / Id11 formula at a 1 + 1 dilution, for 13 minutes.

Terry S
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  #17  
Old 2nd September 2020, 03:04 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Originally Posted by Terry S View Post
I did... one straight 10 x 8 print yesterday, using a 'correctly' exposed frame, of HP5+ that was developed in the phenidone D76 / ID11. The overall look of the print was good, with really fine grain, a good tonal range and good shadow detail through to black.

During my next printing session, I will also try printing another 'correctly' exposed frame, of HP5+, but one that was developed in the metol D76 / ID11.

...in 'The darkroom cookbook'...

To quote, 'Phenidone can be substituted for metol. There is evidence that as a substitute for metol it causes a true increase in film speed.'

Terry S
Okay, hopefully this last email should tie up all of my findings.

I have now made one further 10 x 8 print, with the negative developed in phenidone, using only a grade 0 filter. With just a little bit of burning in of the denser foreground area, by 3/5 f stops, using my RH Designs timer, I made a test print that I was very happy with, with as mentioned previously, with fine grain and a good range of tones, from white through to black.

Thinking about it a bit more, I have now come up with a reasonable reason as to why the phenidone developed negatives, were a bit denser than the metol ones and in turn required a softer filter and more exposure than I usually use.

The metol D76 / ID11 formula uses 2 grammes of metol, and only 10% of this amount is needed with the phenidone formula i.e. 0.2 grammes.

My calibrated digital scales gives measurements up to 1/10 or 0.1 of one gramme. So when measuring 0.2 grammes of phenidone, I could actually still get a reading of 0.2 grammes, right up to 0.29 grammes, before the display goes over to 0.3 grammes, i.e. I could have easily have put close to an extra 50% of the amount required (being 0.09 grammes) into the developer without knowing. This would quite easily have given me denser negatives than what I was expecting with the 1:1 dilution at 20C.

Having now read further, the entry for phenidone in 'The darkroom cookbook', I have found that it gives a way to obtain small amounts of it, as I needed for the developer I made. Basically by making a stronger solution of it, with a more manageable amount of weighed phenidone, it can then be diluted down to give the smaller amount required.

And finally onto the negatives developed in the D76 / ID11 metol formula. From one of the correctly exposed negatives from the range that I took, I got an identical print to the one made above with phenidone, but this time using a grade 2 filter and with a much smaller amount of extra time of burning in required.

With the correct amount of phenidone in any further batches of this formula, I would expect identical looking negatives and I'm not sure if an adjustment to the ISO film speed would need to be done... but hey, that's another test for another day.

So from all of this, I am now very happy to use either of these teaspoon formulas in the future, across all formats of HP5+, with the time of 13 minutes at 20C, as on 'The digital truth' website. I can only presume other films would develop into great negatives as well, but my general go to film is Ilford's Hp5+.

I hope this all makes sense and if it is of some use to at least one other person than myself, it has all been worth while.

Terry S

PS Oh, and in reply to the original title with the first post, NO! my metol is not dead after all.

Last edited by Terry S; 2nd September 2020 at 03:08 PM.
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  #18  
Old 2nd September 2020, 04:24 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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A broad brush conclusion, Terry or maybe in fact an accurate conclusion is that the teaspoon formula works fine because there is a wide margin of actual weight that still delivers decent results

I suspect that in an awful lot of cases the margins in all manner of processing is greater than some want to believe.

On another site when someone describes a colour film problem there are always those whose stock reply centres around the temperature as the issue even if the temperature was even slightly outside the sacred range of more than 0.2 degrees less or more than the 37.8C

OK I admit this is one of my bees-in-a-bonnet things but so often people seem to want to attach too much weight to absolute accuracy where plenty of evidence suggests that this is not the be-all-and-end-all.

Mike
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  #19  
Old 5th September 2020, 01:58 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Originally Posted by Mike O'Pray View Post
A broad brush conclusion, Terry or maybe in fact an accurate conclusion is that the teaspoon formula works fine because there is a wide margin of actual weight that still delivers decent results

I suspect that in an awful lot of cases the margins in all manner of processing is greater than some want to believe.

Mike
I think you are probably totally right with these comments Mike.

For a while now I have been browsing through books and online, looking at various formulas, but especially developers for film and paper.

And yes, they are all very similar with just a tweak here, maybe a gram more here etc. etc. and then put out under a new name.

So when you say, 'because there is a wide margin of actual weight that still delivers decent results', I totally agree, but it's still interesting that the teaspoon formulas are called something similar to something else, whilst containing values of measurement that are totally different. But I suppose the bottom line is that they produce similar results, so get grouped in with a formula of a particular name.

Now, just out of interest, I am going to see how the teaspoon formula of paper developer D72, which I've used recently and really liked, compares weight wise, when put next to the actual weighed formula.

Terry S
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  #20  
Old 5th September 2020, 05:57 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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And I meant to ask, having had no success by Googling it.

Does anyone know the date and name of the person who came up with the teaspoon formulas, like the D76 / ID11 and the D72 ones, both of which I have used recently and like?

I'm curious if they have done anything else and what their background is.

And finally, does anyone know of any other teaspoon formulas in photographic use?

Terry S
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