The Darkroom Cookbook Forum

There are two cryptic posts from you on the Darkroom Cookbook Forum. As we have had problems with people on this site purporting to be darkroom workers who in fact were not, would you please identify yourself, a web site would be good, and explain what you mean by your posts.

Thank you.

Heiz, What is this about?

The Beers formula was being used to alter contrast on graded paper since Ansel was wearing knee pants. I have seen it published in numerous older texts but not one of them has been written by Dr. Beers, they are all simply reproductions of his formula. And you are correct, they may not be the origin...

My response to this post was slightly rushed last night. What I failed to mention is that Beers formula has been around for a very long time, and was in use when I began my career in 1970. In the 1983 version of The Print, Ansel Adams mentions it in three places in the text and provides the formula ...

I, too, was a great fan of FG-7.

The formula was proprietary and Edwal never published it. Someone at Edwal did give me a version that they said was authentic, but the formula did not make much sense to me. It is published in one of the earlier versions of the DCB.

Saludos, Jesus. If it is simply the formula you're after you can also find it on page 282-283 of DCB4 or p. 287 of DCB3, as payral suggests. There are two VC paper developers of which I am aware. Dr. Beers formula is the most well known and the one I learned in the '70s. The other is Kodak D-64, whi...

Great images, John, and ones you'll cherish for years to come, grain and all.

What could I use instead to dissolve Phenidone? Phenidone does not dissolve readily in water, but is relatively easy to dissolve in distilled water at a temperature of about 175F/80C. It is readily soluble in solutions of alkali bisulfites and carbonates. This allows it to be readily incorporated i...

I read in The Film Developing Cookbook about adding Sodium Chloride to D-23. Do you have any additional thoughts about doing so? I read somewhere (Large Format Forum perhaps?) that D-23 + Sodium Chloride is essentially Ilford's Perceptol. Don't know if that is valid though. Perceptol is one of the ...

Crawley's classic FX 37 formula uses 0.5 g of Phenidone. It is far easier to measure out 50 ml of the 1% solution to use in a liter of FX 37 than trying to accurately weigh 0.5 g each time. I've just been corrected by Bill Troop on this. Rather than trying to paraphrase what he said here is what he...

Darkroom Mike. Probably Enlarging and Printing would have been a better place for this, Darkroom Mike. But hey, who cares? We're just a bunch of guys and gals trying to share what we know. You've listed the three most commonly used percentage solutions. These are the three I list in the DCB. Edwal u...

BZT is most commonly used to reduce fog in high pH developers that contain Phenidone. That said, I can think of no practical reason not to at least try it in a test batch. It's action will be greater than that of bromide. Normally you would start with 1/10 the solution concentration of bromide, but ...

I have some, too. Good stuff. I use black barrier plastic over my windows. I purchased it from a builder's supply, about $20 for a 10' x 50' roll. Attach it to a 1x1" or 2x2" wooden frame. Hang the frame from two or more nails, screws, etc. placed just above your window (inside or out). St...

On reading the formula #28 Mytol on p.244 [the same is valid for the formula #26 of the 3rd Ed. on p. 218) there is a footnote about dissolving the Phenidone in methyl hydrate. I would say "methanol" or methyl alcohol, right? The formula and nomenclature is as Paul Lewis submitted. Paul i...

Great tip, Jesús, Thank you.

Sounds like you're breaking new ground, Jeremy. Please keep us posted on how it goes.

OOPS! The footnote should read:

Caution: Dissolve the sodium hydroxide in a small volume of water in a separate container before adding it to the solution of the other constituents.

Running water stop bath, one minute.

This is not an Agfa process.

Thank you.

It came as a surprise to me when I first learned how much money, worldwide, was in machine processing of FB prints. Agfa, Ilford, and Kodak were cutting each others throats to win the largest share. The rise of RC was a direct result of the MP industry. FB sales to machine labs paled by comparison b...

Thank you, Mike. Yes, the enlarger went to Tom Brophy in Brooklyn, one of our forum members.

Polysulfide does ... something, but it depends on the process and materials. For example, Alexandra Opie, the head of photography at Willamette University, uses polysulfide as an integral part of her tintype process. Alexandra's tintypes are about the best I have ever seen. As far as paper, the issu...

Were I to develop a roll of Pan F+ in FX 1 I, too, would consult the digital truth massive dev chart. I find the times are not always correct for my methods, but they always get me within a few minutes - and I ONLY develop test rolls until I have determined the correct time, either through printing ...

Omar, you have mentioned "automatic" development previously. To be honest, I don't know what you mean by that. Your method of agitation is also one that is new to me. That doesn't mean it's not good, it's just not familiar. With that said, if it's working for you then I would assume that y...

Could you illustrate with a practical example? Maybe the constrains could be: * developer FX-1, * exposure 5 seconds * focal f/32, * Ilford PAN F+. Increase exposure by opening the lens to f/22 OR leave the f/stop at f/32 and increase the exposure to 10 - 12 seconds (but not both). Decrease develop...