I am interested in using highly dilute developers (HC-110 / Rodinal, at dilutions of 1:100 or more) with sheet film in order to obtain a long smooth tonal range that successfully controls highlights. I recognise that this means very long development times - does anyone have a table of development times for this approach that I could use as an initial guide? I mainly use Tri-X, but might use FP4 for this purpose.

-- fw (finneganswake@altavista.net), September 05, 1999

Answers

For what it's worth, I routinely use HC-110 in 1:31 and 1:63 dilution for developments from N to N-3, sometimes normally and sometimes in conjunction with a water bath for a more compensating effect. My times for Tri-X Professional sheet film follow (this is an imported table with semicolons between the columns. Hopefully, hitting enter a few times between lines will result in each line of the original table having its own line here in the post, if not, you'll have to interpolate. Sorry, but I can't ever seem to get any formatting to transfer to this BB).

DEVELOPMENT;E.I.;DEVELOPER;DILUTION;TIME/CYCLES;(200C)

N-3 ;ISO 100;H2O bath**;4 cycles; 20/100sec

N-2 ;ISO 125;H2O bath**;4 cycles; 30/90sec

N-2 (alternative);ISO 125;HC-110 1:63;5 minutes

N-1;ISO 200;HC-110 1:63;7 minutes

N (alternative);ISO 250;HC-110 1:63;9 minutes

**Water bath development consists of a dip in the developer with agitation for the amount of time given first, followed by a rest in a bath of water only without agitation. The idea being that the developer exhausts itself quickly in the regions of high density and keeps working for a longer time proportionally in the areas of lower density thus giving a compensation effect. Notice that I use HC-110 and a normal dilution of 1:31 for this. I find the compensation effect greater with this method than with dilute developer alone. Hope this helps a little. Regards, ;^D)

-- Doremus Scudder (ScudderLandreth@compuserve.com), September 06, 1999.

Thank you, Doremus, for your advice. Have you ever used a two bath approach for "N" subjects?

-- fw (finneganswake@altavista.net), September 06, 1999.

No, I never have. Shadow detail seems to be adequate and the highlights contrastier with conventional development. Compensating techniques are used to preserve film speed and shadow detail when compressing contrast and is usually not needed with normal subjects. However, It should be possible to use the water-bath method for something approximating Normal development by simply increasing the number of cycles. I would expect the highlights to be a bit less separated in comparison to conventional development and the film to maybe be even a shade faster. Try it out! Regards, ;^D)

-- Doremus Scudder (ScudderLandreth@compuserve.com), September 08, 1999.

tri-x @ 400 or so... probably closer to 250, as i tend to up open.

rodinal 1:50 at 68 degrees

one minute agitation, 9 minutes standing, 1 minute agitation, 9 standing. total 20 minutes.

good compression for southern california harsh light.

ciao

erik

-- erik (erikcarlhanson@hotmail.com), February 13, 2002.