Opinions on stand development

[Whateverist]

What are everyone's feelings on stand development?

I've tried it out to see what the fuss is about and have been getting some interesting results. It's also very very cheap and can be done from the comfort of a couch while watching a movie, remembering to give the tank a stir every other commercial break.

Mainly, though, I found it a good way to salvage film when I really don't have much of a clue on how to develop it properly. Adox CMS II being a good example: I can't for the life of me make it work properly with normal development but let it soak in a 30+1 dilution and presto, useable negatives.

(attached image: HP5+ exposed for 320, 150 minutes in DDX 1+30, stirred every half hour)

 

[mfogiel]

Stand development is done mainly to achieve two results:
- compensating development ( with possibly some speed enhancement)
- edge effects to enhance the acuity
If you scan, in theory it should work very nicely. The problem is, I've never been able to produce a uniform result with such development - the least I had to agitate was every 3 minutes minimum. In order to verify your results, you should expose the first frame out of focus against a uniform background to check for the symptoms.
P.S. I would use rather some non solvent developer with CMS, like HC 110, Rodinal or Acurol.

 

[oftheherd]

CMS II has a recommended developer, of course more expensive than things like Rodinol or HC 110.

Rodinal is also good for films of unknown age or ASA.

DDX 1:30 for 150 minutes? I wouldn't have guessed, but you have a njce photo there. Hoe is the grain?

 

[Colin Corneau]

I tried it once, IIRC 1:100 Rodinal for 2 hours - agitate for first minute, then at one hour then dump.

It worked very well (on FP4+) and what I noticed was it evened out a high contrast scene pretty nicely -- shadowy interior and a bright window were closer than if I used my normal regiment...is this common?

 

[rybolt]

Forgive my ignorance but don't you get a fair amount of emulsion swelling with times like that? In the dim old days the rule was to use the shortest amount of acceptable time in any bath. That didn't mean that you should develop for 4 minutes and fix for 5 but it did mean that you probably shouldn't wash the film for two hours.
Just curious where this process came from. We always used to joke that if one person started a rumor that they were getting very fine grain by adding lemon koolaid to their stop bath SOMEONE was going to try it.

 

[FrankS]

I tried it once, IIRC 1:100 Rodinal for 2 hours - agitate for first minute, then at one hour then dump.

It worked very well (on FP4+) and what I noticed was it evened out a high contrast scene pretty nicely -- shadowy interior and a bright window were closer than if I used my normal regiment...is this common?

Yes it is .

 

[Ko.Fe.]

No feelings, stand developing works well with developers supporting it.
One I know and it worked for me is known commonly as RODINAL.

 

[Fixcinater]

I've settled on semi-stand with 1:100 HC110 straight from syrup concentrate. Scans well, grain isn't nutty at least with slower emulsions, and it's dead easy.

I generally go 1hr with 15 seconds to start, one swirl or inversion every 15 mins, but if I want to maximize shadow detail (say, shots from a dark bar), I'll let it stew with the same swirl/inversion for 2 hrs.

 

[tyrone.s]

Nice image Whateverist. What's the shelf life of HC110 after it's opened?

Rodinal seemed to be the developer of choice for stand around here on RFF at one point.

Rodinal is certainly cheap, works well for stand and after being opened it's shelf life can last for years. As noted above by an earlier respondent, stand developing has compensating qualities that can help even out the exposure range - the limited amount of developer develops the highs (which mostly consumes the active developer) but the residual solutions continues to develop shadow detail until complete exhaustion of the developer.

With Rodinal the idea seems to be to use very little agitation to reduce grain. Rodinal at full strength is grainy (being originally 'developed' well before 35mm negatives were in use), but stand dev at high dilutions can work around this to some extent (whilst preserving accutance - or apparent sharpness of the negative).

As you noted stand developing is very cheap, and the regime of developing whilst watching TV is hard to beat. From memory there are arguments about how important one or two hours is because with 300mls at something like 1:100, there's unlikely to be any working developer left well before the one hour mark. When mixing at 1:100 dilutions I always mixed 4:400 mls minimum to make sure that I had enough developer to actually develop a roll. Then there are the inevitable differences of opinion 1:100 or 1+100. I don't think it matters at these dilutions.

The most I ever developed was 5 rolls in a 5 reel tank all at different speeds and times. I've never had a roll fail to develop with stand.

Stand developing seems better with slower speed films, say 100asa and under.


A link here that provides good info here is:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=927796&postcount=47

It provides a nice overview of one person's workflow and good examples of sample images.

 

[FrankS]

HC-110 has a very long shelf life at full strength just like rodinal. With fast 400 speed film, HC-110 gives finer grain than rodinal. I mix it 1:100, 15ml in 1500ml tank for 5 rolls of 135, or 3 rolls of 120. (There is no practical difference between that and 15ml in 1485ml.)

 

[Trius]

Forgive my ignorance but don't you get a fair amount of emulsion swelling with times like that? In the dim old days the rule was to use the shortest amount of acceptable time in any bath. That didn't mean that you should develop for 4 minutes and fix for 5 but it did mean that you probably shouldn't wash the film for two hours.
Just curious where this process came from. We always used to joke that if one person started a rumor that they were getting very fine grain by adding lemon koolaid to their stop bath SOMEONE was going to try it.

I don't think modern emulsions swell much, at least at these times - I will be corrected if I am wrong.

The lemon Kool-Ade doesn't work.

 

[Whateverist]

P.S. I would use rather some non solvent developer with CMS, like HC 110, Rodinal or Acurol.

I would too, but I happened to have a bit of DDX left in the bottle.

Hoe is the grain?

Middling. Not great, but good enough. I'll post a 100% crop when I get back home.

 

[charjohncarter]

Like mfogiel says, consistent result that may or may not be repeatable. Unless you (like mfogiel says) need compensating development it is an inconsistent endeavor. But if you have to try it use HC-110 to lessen the chance of streaking.

 

[colyn]

I prefer semi-stand with Rodinal.

I've had good luck with slow speed films but fair to poor results with high speed films above 400asa.

 

[Mablo]

The main problem as I see it is that people usually start their b&w developing history with stand dev because it's so d***ed easy to do. They get low contrast greyish negatives which they interpret as excellent because they've never seen anything better. It's frustrating to witness the same sad story over and over again.

 

[Sid836]

+1 to what Mablo said. Stand development isn't really worth it. You get thin negatives, you have absolutely no control over contrast and those strange halos at the dark/light boundaries.

Btw, most people that do stand development think that they can develop a film with just 3.5ml of developer in say 350ml water for a 1+100 Rodinal stand for example. This is wrong! When the film/developer maker says that you need at least 10ml of developer to fully develop your film that calls in the case of Rodinal 1+100 for 1100ml of solution. Hence their thin negatives.

 

[Bill Clark]

On another recent thread I put this up to help:

http://jbhildebrand.com/2011/tutorials/workflow-tutorial-2-stand-development-with-rodinal/

My experience has been very good with stand development. Low ASA (ISO) films work best for me.

 

[ferider]

On another recent thread I put this up to help:

http://jbhildebrand.com/2011/tutorials/workflow-tutorial-2-stand-development-with-rodinal/

Actually, this is bad article spreading wrong information. Stand development should not be applied with the same recipe for any film with any sensitivity - think about it: that would mean you don't need to measure exposure anymore. Since exhaustion based, with stand, one needs to vary quantity of developer, depending on sensitivity, not dilution.

In any case, like many, I started using stand, got some good results, but now do mostly standard, manufacture recommended recipes; results are more predictable, and less chance of bromide drag. A straight Rodinal 1:50 recipe gives so much better results, even grain is less pronounced than 1:100 stand.

Roland.

 

[Bill Clark]

I looked at the article and, perhaps in error, that if a 100 ASA film is exposed at 100 ASA and, say, a 400 ASA film was exposed at 400 ASA, stand dvelopment time at 1 plus 100 would be the same. That has been my experience; however, I develop only 1 roll at a time!

Haven't tried push exposure and stand developing. Will have to try it to see if it works. But I don't use push or pull anymore. I can change speed easily with digital!

From my experience, the lower ASA films seems to work best with stand dveloping.

 

[ferider]

I looked at the article and, perhaps in error, that if a 100 ASA film is exposed at 100 ASA and, say, a 400 ASA film was exposed at 400 ASA, stand dvelopment time at 1 plus 100 would be the same. That has been my experience; however, I develop only 1 roll at a time!

And that is correct for some films, Bill. Each film has a nominal sensitivity, for which normal stand works. For example, you can develop APX 100 @ 100 and TMY-2 400 @ 400 in the same tank. But you can't include, say, Neopan 1600 @ 1600, since Neopan 1600 has a nominal sensitivity of around 650 (?). To develop the Neopan @ 1600, you would need to add some Rodinal.

With the article, I'm objecting to this:

Take that one step further, if you can soup a roll of Tri-X 100, and a roll of the same film pushed two stops in the same tank… that means you can actually change what ISO you shoot at mid roll. I’ll repeat that; you are no longer bound by one of the biggest advantages digital has over film, you can change ISO on the fly.

That's plain wrong, and not helpful to somebody starting out with B+W development.

Roland.