Sodium Sulfate with D-76 for fine grain results

[Dinosaur 2525]

It is quite clear that to achieve fine grain results for B&W films higher than ISO 32, using HC-110 or Rodinal will give you the desired effect. Injecting Sodium Sulfite into the solution only chews away at the grain structure which will give you the illusion of a finer grain, but you will sacrifice in edge sharpness upon enlarging to printed image. If you look at the grain structure of B&W films, even processes in Kodak D-76, once adding Sodium Sulfite as a sharpening chemical to say... TriX or 400+ ISO films, you only get a softening effect as the grain itself gets rounded at the corners. Fact!

 

[Dan]

Not sure about the logic involved, stating that Rodinal will achieve fine grain on films with higher ISOs than 32. How did you come to this conclusion?

 

[ddutchison2]

It's always been D76 for finer grain, D76 1:1 for sharper grain.

 

[BernardL]

It is quite clear that to achieve fine grain results for B&W films higher than ISO 32, using HC-110 or Rodinal will give you the desired effect.

Like, 400-TX in Rodinal??
One of my math professors used to say : "don't say it's obvious, just prove it"

And... sulfate or sulfite? I'm confused.

 

[Dinosaur 2525]

Gentlemen, I stand corrected, or a auto correct attempted to do that for me...it is clearly Sulfate over Sulfite.. That out of the way, my point is that super fine grain films such as Panatomic X ( ISO 32) and others that develop well in liquid concentrates such as Rodinal or HC-110 do not need a injection of sodium sulfate to produce a finer looking grain. Higher ISO films such as Tri X 400 or pushed we have used the above concentrates and even D-76 only to find that added sodium sulfate clearly chews the edges off the grain structure under magnification giving the illusion of a sharper image when viewed at a distance. The key to a super sharp image is to keep the grain as tightly held as possible. Keeping the emulsion below 70F is a good start. Try chilling your developers in the mid 60F range, ideally 65-68F with minimal agitation and you will be amazed.

 

[Freakscene]

Sodium sulfate will do nothing in a developer except slow it down.

The finest grain you will get with fast film is using an ascorbate developer and a pH of 8-8.5. This is what led Kodak to formulate Xtol. The RMS of Tri-X in Xtol is significantly lower than in any standard developer at an equivalent speed. Take a look at The Genesis of Xtol, Dick Dickerson and Silvia Zawadski (Photo Techniques Magazine, Vol. 20, No. 5, 1999, p. 62), US Patent 5,853,964 and The Film Developing Cookbook.

There is sulfite in Xtol, but Adox’s XT-3 develops film essentially identically and is substantially lower in sulfite. You don’t need a solvent to get fine grain, just a developer that develops with fine grain.

 

[Dogman]

It's sulfite.

My standard developer for Tri-X in the 1970s was Rodinal in a solution of sodium sulfite 1:75. Shadow detail was excellent and the grain was sharp and fine. Nothing I used later looked as good to me. But I'm talking about film when it had lots of silver, well water and a thermometer that had questionable accuracy. Still, the negatives printed beautifully on a conderser enlarger using No.3 Kodabromide or Portriga Rapid paper--neither of which are still available.

Today I shoot digital.



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[Dinosaur 2525]

Sodium sulfate will do nothing in a developer except slow it down.

The finest grain you will get with fast film is using an ascorbate developer and a pH of 8-8.5. This is what led Kodak to formulating Xtol. The RMS of Tri-X in Xtol is significantly lower than in any standard developer at an equivalent speed. Take a look at The Genesis of Xtol, Dick Dickerson and Silvia Zawadski (Photo Techniques Magazine, Vol. 20, No. 5, 1999, p. 62), US Patent 5,853,964 and The Film Developing Cookbook.

There is sulfite in Xtol, but Adox’s XT-3 develops film essentially identically and is substantially lower in sulfite. You don’t need a solvent to get fine grain, just a developer that develops with fine grain.

Exactly... we agree on this! It is a Developing Cookbook. I was trained by Kodak through the US Navy in their intelligence division to achieve high resolution results on everything we shot...I was the photographic lab tech aboard the USS Enterprise during her days. We ran more film through our on board lab than a 1 hour photo would do in a week..lol.. Stories to tell...

 

[DownUnder]

It's sulfite.

My standard developer for Tri-X in the 1970s was Rodinal in a solution of sodium sulfite 1:75. Shadow detail was excellent and the grain was sharp and fine. Nothing I used later looked as good to me. But I'm talking about film when it had lots of silver, well water and a thermometer that had questionable accuracy. Still, the negatives printed beautifully on a conderser enlarger using No.3 Kodabromide or Portriga Rapid paper--neither of which are still available.

Today I shoot digital.



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Huh. I used this combo in the 1980s. Processed everything in Rodinal, which I accepted as the perfect dev.

Early 1990s I dug out all those negatives for a stock agency photo submission. And found so much grain in (mostly) my faster films, nothing was saleable. For me a costly lesson, expensively learned.

I went back to D76/ID11 1-1 and have had no problems since. I like my negatives on the light side as for my needs using higher grade paper than 2 produces a soot-whitewash effect. Prints intended for reproduction need a lot of nice gray mid-tones.

Lighter negatives also scan better - I was an early convert to scanning as I disliked time spent printing in the darkroom, so I got into it years before it became the done thing. Initially with prosumer scanners and later when Plustek came out with its superb line of 35mm scanners, I bought the first available model. But that's another story.

Sulfate, sulphite, sulphide, whatever - tinkering too much with home-brewed film developers is, to my mind, a recipe for disaster. It's sensible to check what Steve Anchell has to say about any given developer, and guide yourself accordingly.

 

[x-ray]

I used 100g of Sodium Sulfite in 1:100 Rodinal for 14 minutes with OLD Tri-X. New TX is totally different and I’ve never been able to get any decent results. My 1:100 with Sodium Sulfite gave excellent results and was my standard for 35mm TX.

D76 already contains a lot of sodium sulfite so I wouldn’t add any.

Sodium Sulfite is a solvent and preservative. One negative aspect of using it is it dissolves silver from the neg and is redeposited giving a veil or false non image forming density to some areas. It can serve to block highlights.

For many years now I’ve used Rodinal for fine grain film only and used HC110 B for all other films with a couple of exceptions. I find HC110 B to produce excellent sharp, full scale negs with open shadows and highlights.

When I learned Kodak was changing HC110 I bought a supply that should last the rest of my life and have enough Rodinsl to do the same. So I’ve not tried the new HC110.

 

[Freakscene]

I used 100g of Sodium Sulfite in 1:100 Rodinal for 14 minutes with OLD Tri-X. New TX is totally different and I’ve never been able to get any decent results. My 1:100 with Sodium Sulfite gave excellent results and was my standard for 35mm TX.

D76 already contains a lot of sodium sulfite so I wouldn’t add any.

Sodium Sulfite is a solvent and preservative. One negative aspect of using it is it dissolves silver from the neg and is redeposited giving a veil or false non image forming density to some areas. It can serve to block highlights.

For many years now I’ve used Rodinal for fine grain film only and used HC110 B for all other films with a couple of exceptions. I find HC110 B to produce excellent sharp, full scale negs with open shadows and highlights.

When I learned Kodak was changing HC110 I bought a supply that should last the rest of my life and have enough Rodinsl to do the same. So I’ve not tried the new HC110.

Sulfite dissolves silver but with modern films, even if there is enough sulfite to etch the silver, it does not redeposit. Plating out happens when an oxidant turns enough of the image silver into silver ions that they then migrate to the surface of the emulsion and there is sufficient concentration of both silver and a reducing agent for the silver ions to be reduced back to metallic silver again. Plating out is almost impossible to achieve with modern films. They are too physically thin and the silver migrates out of the emulsion before it redeposits. It is one of the reasons that modern films are sharper than old ones.

If you like the ‘plated out’ look, TMY in very dilute TMax developer (Kodak only has times for 1+4, but you can dilute it a _lot_ more than that) looks similar. Rotary development helps with the look a lot.