I was napping and am now having coffee so my brain is
probably not fully on.
The overcast pic looks fine but the street picture shows some
blown out highlights on the house across the street. Maybe an
artifact of the scanner. You can tell immediately from the
negatives. Otherwise tone rendition look pretty good on both.
I have to look up D-96 but it seems to my memory its a
conventional developer similar to D-76. Cinestill's formula may
be a monobath based on it.
I was somewhat surprized by Bob Shanebrook's remarks. I
assume Kodak did some research on monobaths which found them
inferior. I don't know if Grant Haist worked on monobaths when he
was with Kodak Labs of if this was all private work. In any case,
I am sure others there would have investigated the processes.
Shanebrook is someone whose remarks must be given a lot of weight.
I don't know if Haist's book on monobaths is available at a
reasonable price, he privately reprinted "Modern Photographic
Processing", I got my copy directly from him. Both books are
worth having but may be expensive now, I have not looked.
Surge marks and bromide drag come from completely different
things. Surge marks are from accelerated and uneven atitation,
commonly flow through perforations and from the structure of
developing tanks. Bromide drag is from inadequate agitation with
certain developers where the developer reaction products are not
moved away from the strong development centers (highlights) fast
enough and where they either increase or decrease development
significantly. The only time I've gotten them is the case I
mentioned of processing in print drums with Rodinal. There is no
sideways agitation in these drums. You must take the drums off
the roller and agitate them sideways a couple of times a minute
ortherwise the reaction products keep being run back and forth
across the high density areas that produce them. Sprocket hole
surge marks are a problem with motion picture processing. They
were a scourge for early sound film development because the sound
track is adjacent to one row of perforations (in 35mm film) so
they are affected by the periodic unevenness of development there
causing a 96 Hz modulation of the sound track. I think the
eventual cure was going to "impingement" agitation, essentially a
sort of spray.
I've written more than I meant to.
On 5/11/2020 10:24 AM, Dana Myers wrote:
On 5/10/2020 7:00 PM, `Richard Knoppow wrote:
This is really very good looking. Congratulations on trying the monobath. You may want to find copies of Grant Haist's book on monobath processing and his general text "Modern Photographic Processing". (by memory, I may not have that exactly right).
Many thanks - honestly, I was a bit surprised at the results. I mean, reading the
description just sounds too good to be true. But, the negs look great - if I was
printing on #2 paper, they might be just right, but I prefer a little lower contrast
for the scanner.
You know that monobaths must be concocted for the particular film. It is mostly experimental. Haist claims superior quality for it.
I've not read Haist's book on this topic. D-96 is the Kodak-recommended developer
for Eastman 5222; I assume that CineStill's Df96 is concocted specifically for this
film, and it certainly looks great. CineStill does suggest other films in the soup,
with the note about 2x processing time for Delta/T-Max fixing, but I haven't tried
this yet. I'm fond of TMY in Xtol 1+1, I dunno if I want a new girlfriend :-)
I am not familiar with Eastman 5222 but in the past used the motion picture version of Plus-X, which I liked very much. If the IE 250 is Eastman's speed you should be aware that B&W cine film is measured by a somewhat different method than is used for still film. I have the still film ISO standard but not the motion picture film standard. However, I think the speed is slower than would be given by the still film ISO speed to insure good shadow detail.
I habitually set my camera 1/3-stop slower than box speed (negative film) but this time
I thought, oh, try the suggested EI. So I metered it at EI 250 and shadows pretty good,
though I didn't attempt any densitometry.
Datasheet:
https://www.kodak.com/Kodak/uploadedFiles/Motion/Products/Camera_Films/5222/Resources/5222_ti0299.pdf
I can't advise about agitation for monobath but I've found with sheet film in either Nikor tanks or in rotary processors the developer makes a big difference. For the Nikor tank I used 10 second every minute since I found 5 seconds every 30 second produced surge marks. For the drum processor on sheet film I found the continuous agitation of the print roller caused problems with bromide steaks when using Rodinal. It seems to me it did not with D-76. Depends on the sensitivity of the developer to bromide. Something else may be happening with the monobath.
CineStill's FAQ addresses this:
Q: What's the difference between "Bromide Drag" and "Surge Marks"?
A: Bromide drag lines are a byproduct of development with no agitation. High concentrations of bromide is produced around the perforations and overexposed areas. Without agitation it slowly slides down the surface of the film, inhibiting development and creating drag lines. Surge marks look similar but are cause from the opposite, over-aggressive agitation. Surge marks will appear as lines going the same direction as your agitation. Bromide drag will appear as vertical lines because they are caused by gravity.
https://cinestillfilm.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions#q28
What I saw was clearly bromide drag from the sprockets; just one side, and got wider as they
went on. Hence, I'm going to agitate half as much, twice as often.
If you took outdoor pix I would love to see them. What you posted has wonderful tone rendition and appears to be very sharp. Haist talks about monobaths given very sharp results but not exaggerated edge effects.
Snapshot taken in overcast from my car window:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pbqwPVaJjFmDxzyszoCIUG3A0DdJ_YI0
This is a completely forgettable snapshot from my front porch in contrasty mid-morning
light:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=14MkiAQqb4dWPdmGy3zb-_IXiNbrzeOJq
Other than auto-exposure in the scanner, I did no adjustment. I'd like a little
lower contrast in the scanner but this would probably print pretty easily on #2.
Monobath is a very ignored process, thank you for giving it a practical trial.
Honestly, I poured the soup into the tank thinking "here goes nothing".
73,
Dana K6JQ
