Two bath developing with water ?

[alexz]

Digging in some 7-8 years old photo magazines I stumbled upon B&W article discussing some kind of old B&W stuff processing and they mentioned there that probably that material would benefit from two bath development such as talking the regular (menuf. recommended ?) dev. time at 20 deg.C, developing in the tank for a half of that time, then draining the developer, filling in water at 2-3 deg. C warmer and letting the rest of time for nearly stationary development (with weak agitation from time to time)...

I would imagine that kind of recipe might be useful for high-contrast films that tend to brnt highlits rapidly. Thus cutting the actual developer time may preserethe highlights frmo intensive processing yet the sligtly warmer water bath still allows some weak processing, aka "cooking" the highlights for teh rest of dev. time on slower "flames"....

Does that really makes sense ?

 

[Tom A]

This a trick that was often used with large format. If you shot something were the contrast was more than the film could cope with. You used your stock developer and did 1/3 of the time, the transfered the film to atill water bath for 2 minutes, back in the developer for another 1/3 of time, back into the still water bath, back to developer for the balance of time - possibly with a last water bath. It did expand the latitude and gave you great detailed highlights and still retained shadow details.
With 35 mm I would suggest two tanks, one with the developer and one with water (same temperature). First immerse the film for 25% of the time in the developer, agitate as normal, pull the film out and into the still water tank for a couple of minutes, back into the developer etc until time is up. It is important that you do not agitate in the water bath as the whole effect is to allow shadowdetails to continue to develop and highlights (where the developer is exhauseted) to reamain undisturbed.
It does work, but I would recommend that you shoot some high contrast tests (beach or brightly lit city scapes) and test. I found that older, thicker, emulsions worked better as they will hold more developer.

 

[Xmas]

Alex
There are two techniques
Use a two bath dev, first bath dev 2nd bath activator e.g. the alkali
Use a water bath, dilute dev for less time than normal, long interval in water.
As Tom A says it worked with older thick emulsions, the effects with modern film will need experiment.
I normally use rodinal 1:100 -20% dev time remainder water bath, and 50% speed.
Sill lose shadow details, high lights normally ok.
Noel

 

[alexz]

Tom, by your suggested technique for 35mm, perhaps I can get by single tank and just dump the developer into capacity, fill in (nito tank) a water, then drain the water and re-fill with the developer from the capacity, etc... ? That will avoid the necessity of two tanks and transferring the film between them....what do you think ?

Noel, do you mean you use Rodinal at 1:100 keeping it in teh developer 80% of the nominal time then the rest 20% of the time in the water ? rating your film 50%% of its nominal ISO ?

 

[Xmas]

Alexz

Confirmed, but see below.
Before I used the water bath technique, I still rated the film 1 stop slower, 400 Asa at 200 asa, etc. I still used the 1:100

The wise say only change one parameter my next planned variation is to dev for normal time and still water bath for 20% (extra), hoping for better shadow details...

The problem is it is difficult to judge as the pictures I take are not of fixed sceanes or contrasts.

Noel

 

[Tom A]

The problem with using pouring out and in tecnique for two bath is that you set up ""cavitation" along the film. When you just lift the reels and dip it in water you wash off less developer than if you pour and re-pour the water. It might work, but I have not tried it that way. I do have a large supply of Paterson tanks (at least a dozen) and I just line them up in the sink. Everytime I go to a cameraswap or fleamarket I keep my eyes open for 5 reel Paterson tanks and reels (about 100 of these!). Occasionally I have large quantities of film to run, after a trip mostly, and as the Paterson reels take at least 24-36 hours to dry - this way i can always find dry ones.
The ideal way of doing water bath is the "basket". This is a stainless steel basket that was used in color processing. I think it was made by either King Concept or Kinderman. You plonked your reels into it and dipped it in the a tank full of developer and agitated by lifting it up (or if you were fancy - a nitrogen burst agitator). This worked very well for water bath, but it needs a lot of developer (4 liters) and unless you have the space it covers too much of the sink or work table surface. You also drip a lot of stuff on everything! I had a system like that years ago when I was doing a lot of color stuff. Got rid of it in 80's and shoot only black white since!

 

[Tom A]

Noel, your problem with loss of shadow using Rodinal 1:100 can be traced to the facy that the developer is exhausted. I suspect that very little is happening those last 3-4 minutes in the 1:100 bath.
I have tried it with stand developing for 60 and 90 minutes and gotten better results. You do the usual shake and agitate for 15 minutes and then leave it sitting for 45 to 75 minutes. Whatever developer is left will slowly gnaw away at the shadows! If it is a very contrasty scene (6-7 stops) you can also try 1:150 ( with Tech Pan 1:200} and leave it for the duration of a movie on a DVD (maybe not War and Peace - just an average 90-110 minute flick).

 

[alexz]

So, to summary up the things, I can consider such kind of technique for a predominantly contrasty scene (say, 6-8 stops spread). However, with 35mm roll, having a various kinds of stuff shot on that roll, would it be wise to follow this way in order to save high-contrast frame ? Should I expect the other frames featured by normal contrast range to make through underdeveloped ?

 

[Xmas]

Tom A
I do accept I'm not getting good results.
Typical basic time I use is 30 minutes (memory), or whatever is recommended for the films to hand, spin it up for 30 seconds agitate at 5 mins and 10 minutes and leave it, for remainder, I use Delta 100, Kod or Fugi tab equivalents - mainly, sometimes 400 asa tabulars, - sometimes I can only get conventionals, FP4, HP5.
The water bath was to tame the highlights, even when I dont waterbath I seem to need to increase exposure from box speed.
I can try x2 factor beyond reccomended time to see what happens, dig processing or multigrade can rescue many problems, my highlights are normally ok. I did not think the water bath would make a big difference to the highlights, I was hoping it would allow more shadow detail.
The other plan is to use up the 680 meters of Agfa bulk I have, to reduce variation among the mixture of film I currently use.
Noel

 

[alexz]

BTW, Tom, just like Noel I'd consider water bath mainly to restrain highlights rather then slowly recovering shadows. Perhaps though in this kind of processing, the highlights are indeed restrained most, but also there is some weak shadows processing goes on...

 

[Tom A]

Noel, maybe you should try Beutler for the Agfa. It seems to work very well and it does give me decent shadows and , if I am careful with the exposures, details in the highlights.
The one developer i am trying out at the moment is a modified D23/D76 split bath. It was concocted by David Vestal and it seems to work well with the APX. Hmm, 680 meters, thats more than my APX stock which is only about 160 meters at the moment. I got a couple of cans of the APX 400S from a friend in UK, 160 ft on polyesther base. Interesting film but quite grainy. You can barely make out a perpetrator on the neg or scan.

 

[Xmas]

Tom A
Thanks a lot.
I'll try your first suggestion first, the stand in Rodinal for long time.
Ive got lots of Rodinal to use up, unless I use it for drain cleaning.
Noel

 

[Tom A]

Noel, its a pity to clear the drains with rodinal. All the little fishes in the river will develop weak highlights and strange colors! they will also have this urge to swim towards alkaline plants for a fix!

 

[Xmas]

Tom A

We do use NaOH here for clearing drains.
Rodinal keeps so well, if I use other delelopers they go off.

Noel