[rollei_list] Re: Idle Musings on Darkroom Chemistry, B&W

Let me add my 2c to this interesting thread. My most favorite and almost
exclusive developer for 120 and 4x5 films is Barry Thornton's 2 bath
formula, a metol based compensating developer. Barry started with
Stoeckler's and Ansel's D23 formulas and modified them slightly for modern
emulsions. It is very cheap (I mix the solutions at home, the chemicals are
cheap and easy to buy online), it lasts forever, it is not time and
temperature sensitive; and produces very nice and even results with good
details in shades without blowing out highlights. For those who don't mind
using 2 bath developers, this is an interesting alternative to Diafine.

http://www.awh-imaging.co.uk/barrythornton/2bath.htm

Petr



On 7/24/07, Gene Johnson <genej2ster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


My favorite developer is a homebrew that was developed by Patrick
Gainer and tweaked by a bunch of folks on a BW list I was on.  My
particular iteration is a concentrate of Phenidone, Ascorbic acid, and
KBr (originally in propylene glycol, but I use car antifreeze!), that
is diluted at time of use with water, borax, and sodium carbonate.
oneThe working solution is one shot. Anyway, if anyone wants the
recipe I'll provide it, but I've had great luck with it for a long
time.  The concentrate seems to last forever, and the results are Xtol
like.

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