Richard Knoppow wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Daneliuk" <tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 4:24 PM > Subject: [pure-silver] Film In Dektol > > >> Last week I needed to do a quick test on a bulk film loader I've owned >> for years but never used before (I almost never shoot 35mm). I loaded >> a 10 exposure cartridge of Ultra 400 (which I'd also never used) and >> exposed it at ASA 200. However, I didn't much feel like doing my normal >> film development since my sink was full of trays for print processing at >> the time. So ... I decided that, for my purposes, I could just develop >> it in Dektol. I dug around and found a suggestion of 90 seconds @ 68F >> so that's what I did. >> >> I just finished making a print from this and I'm really surprised. >> I figured that the Dektol would be overkill, really grainy, and generally >> just wrong for the film. I was, um ... wrong. The print looks *really* >> good - at least technically - it was just a test shot of no particular >> artistic merit. The grain is very restrained and the acuity - at least >> at 8x10 - is more than adequate. With *very* careful exposure and >> processing, I've gotted usable 11x14s from 35mm, but this makes me want >> to experiment more to see what I might be able to get out of Dektol. >> >> So, what say ye? Have any of you gotten good film results with Dektol? >> Am I just getting better-than-expected results because Ultrafine 400 is >> some magic emulsion heretofore unknown to me? >> -- > > Many years ago, when newspapers still used large format film it was > common to develop film in print developer. This was usually Kodak D-72, > about the same as Dektol. The reason was simply that one didn't need two > set ups for film and prints. The film used was nearly always > orthochromatic so the common red safelights worked for it as well as > paper. Kodak used to give developing recommendations for D-72 for press > films. The main problem with it is that its so active that the > developing times tend to be very short. It should be used in trays with > constant agitation to avoid uneven development. Actually, the short > development time was an advantage in press work. > Dektol is probably not the ideal film developer but its no grainier > than Rodinal, maybe less. > c.1943 development recommendations for press films were: > Dilute 1:1, with no agitation develop about five minutes. With agitation > for about four minutes. For less contrast dilute 1:2. > There are charts showing development time vs: gamma and temperature > for several films of the time. The gammas are generally much higher than > would be used now, i.e., greater than 1 where modern negatives are > usually developed to gammas of around 0.6 to 0.8. Development times are > around 90 seconds to three minutes. Keep in mind that many older films > required substantially longer development times than modern films. > I wonder if the shorter dev times contribute to less visible grain. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim Daneliuk tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/ ============================================================================================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.