# A Breathless And Brief Introduction To Stand Development
## Before We Get Started ...
**WARNING**: What follows is for the *advanced darkroom practitioner*.
It is not for beginners and people should be well
acquainted with safety and good darkroom practices.
Pyro, in it's various forms, is TOXIC and should be
handled with the utmost care and protection of eyes,
hands, clothing, in well ventilated settings. You
should be using a good lab apron or coat, nitrile
gloves, eye protection, and a lab grade respirator mask.
If you do not already have a least one film/developer
combination "dialed in", don't bother with any of this.
**ABOUT DILUTION NOTATION**: There is some inconsistency in how
dilution is represented across
manufacturers documentation and the
relevant literature. For example, Kodak
typically uses "1:2" to mean "One part of
the developer added to two parts water."
Ilford likes to use "1+2" to mean the
same thing. I've used both here interchangeably.
**UPDATES TO THIS DOCUMENT**: Please note that I periodically update
this document with new findings. If
you've already read it in the past, you
can skip to the [Updates](#updates)
section at the end of this document.
Many of these Updates change the
recommendations in the original text, so
reading them is a good idea.
## Precis
Low- or no agitation "stand" techniques have been around since
the beginning of photography. These techniques are controversial
among very fine photographers. I set out to test this for myself.
**The Short Version**: True stand development (no agitation after
initial) does not work reliably with modern films. Infrequent
agitation can be made to work reliably and produces useful results
... at least for me.
## tl;dr
Oh, you're one of those impatient types, eh? Here is the short form.
High dilution, low agitation works fine if you:
* Minimize contact between the film and its support structure. That
means pinch style hangers for sheet film or using stainless steel
reels for rollfilm. Avoid framed sheet film hangers or plastic
sheet film contraptions like the Yankee system. Avoid plastic, or
high-walled rollfilm reels. Use Nikor stainless steel reels for
rollfilm to minimize film contact.
* Get the film off the bottom of the tank so gravity can pull away
development byproducts. That means hanging sheet films horizontally
using pinch style hangers. It means inverting a funnel in a double
height tank to suspend a stainless rollfilm reel well above the
bottom.
* Whether you do semistand or EMA, you need a good, vigorous
agitation at the beginning. 2 minutes for semistand or 90 seconds
for EMA seems to be about right.
* As of this writing (5/2024), it looks like higher dilution with EMA
is preferrable to lower dilution with semistand for normal or long
Subject Brightness Ranges - at least with Pyrocat-HD. I've found
that semistand with Pyrocat-HD, even at 1.5:1:250 still jacks up the
contrast too much. EMA for an hour with three agitations (90
seconds initial, 10 seconds at 21 & 41 minutes) at 1.5:1:300 seems
to work better. At this dilution, you'll get about 1/3 stop less
than box ASA speeds. (See the [Updates](#updates) section for
other ideas.)
* When faced with a low contrast or short Subject Brightness range, a
lower dilution semistand (1.5:1:250) for an hour seems to work best.
Begin with 2 minutes agitation and one 15 second midpoint agitation
at 31 minutes. At this dilution, you should pretty much get box ASA
speeds.
## Introduction
I've been a black and white silver photographer for over four decades.
In that time, I've worked with a large number of films and developers,
eventually settling down on a few combinations that worked well for
me. In every case, I managed time and temperature and agitated the
film according to the developer manufacturer's instructions.
Recently, I became aware of a newish staining developer called "Pyrocat-HD",
invented by Sandy King. This developer has a great many claimed
virtues among them:
* Semi compensating in the highlights with VC papers
* Tight grain comparable to PMK Pyro
* Much lower sensitivity to oxidation effects than PMK Pyro
* Much less fussy about agitation than PMK Pyro
* Produces negatives that work well for both traditional silver and alternative printing processes
This monograph is *not* about Pyrocat-HD, although much of the testing
was done with it. Pyrocat-HD turned out to be a gateway drug to my
learning about "stand" or "still" development. This is an an old
technique used by some of the masters like Atget. Today's modern
masters like Sandy King and Steve Sherman are making use of variations
of stand development to great advantage. But, in the words of Sandy
King, "It is fraught with danger". The technique is tricky and prone
to failing rather horribly. So ... **don't try this with pictures
that matter to you without making backup negatives.** I promise you're
going to mess some of them up.
Be aware that the discussion of still development techniques launches
all kinds of religious debates. This is particularly true on the
internet, where everyone is an expert. I got interested in this
because some very fine photographers make good use of it. On the other
hand, some very fine photographers think it is nonsense.
There are also people out there claiming this is THE best way to develop
everything. These people, in particular, are just ... wrong. Still
development *may* have a place in your workflow if you have the
patience to learn how do it repeatably *and* have subjects that would
benefit from this *and* you are using formats and film that will work
this way.
## Why Bother?
When stand (or one of its variants) works, it gives you negatives of
great apparent accutance, full box ASA speed and - this was most
important to me - a way to increase mid-tone contrast without blowing
out the highlights. It is mid-tone contrast that gives prints that
"snap" we're always looking for. David Kachel has a very good
commentary on this:
[http://davidkachel.com/wpNewDK/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/PrimacyOfLocalContrast.pdf](http://davidkachel.com/wpNewDK/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/PrimacyOfLocalContrast.pdf)
For example, I recently shot a scene in which the darkest shadows were
on Zone III, and the brightest highlights (snow) were well into Zone
VIII. Depending on how you do exposure control, this is either normal
development or slight N-. The problem is that the dominant geometry
in the scene was a bunch of boards that - at best - showed a Subject
Brightness Range of about 3 stops. This was the most important part of
the scene but, I was stuck with two bad choices:
- Normal, or worse still, contracted development would shove all these
tones together to produce low local contrast in the mid-tones.
i.e., A picture that held the entire tonal range, but boring because
the primary image geometry had low local contrast.
- But if I did N+ development to improve middle tone contrast there
was good chance the snow highlights would blow out to Zone IX or X.
Because Pyrocat-HD is a semi-compensating developer, I likely would
have been able to burn through this *if* I could control the burn
geometry properly.
This is where a form of stand saved the day. By developing the negative
using stand techniques, I was able to get full box film speed in the shadows,
jack up the mid-tone contrast, and preserve the highlights from getting
pushed up too far.
When reading about stand development, you'll run into a lot of
discussion of "edge effects". These occur as a byproduct of the way
stand works chemically, especially when using Pyro staining
developers. The edge effects show up as a line in a transition
between a light and dark subject. In the extreme case, it can
actually manifest itself as a "halo" behind the transition. (This is
one of the reasons you don't want to overdo stand development.) This
edge effect is perceived by the human eye as higher sharpness. It's
sort of an illusion, but it's a useful one. (For those of you who do
digital post processing, this is approximately the chemical equivalent
of an unsharp mask.)
It's worth mentioning that there are other approaches to the problem
of holding highlights while expanding mid-tone contrast. You can use
a lower contrast or "compensating" developer like D-23. This is
a very simple and inexpensive 2-component developer you can easily
mix yourself.
David Kachel - no fan of stand processing but a superb contributor to
this craft - has a novel technique called "SLIMT". In a negative with
really bright top zones, he adjusts for shadow and mid-tones as
necessary, *and then mildly bleaches the negative* during the pre-soak
phase prior to development. It's a novel technique and uses minimal
chemistry. I plan to also explore this at some point as well:
[http://davidkachel.com/wpNewDK/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SLIMTs_Practical_Application.pdf](http://davidkachel.com/wpNewDK/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SLIMTs_Practical_Application.pdf)
## So How Does It Work?
Stand techniques depend on a basic property of how film develops -
*The highlights develop much faster than the shadows.* One Kodak
engineer was heard to say that "Development ends after 3 minutes, the
rest of the time is spent increasing contrast." This is just another
way of saying the same thing.
As the highlights develop, they exhaust the developer around them much
faster than the shadow areas do. In other words, the brighter the
object - say white snow - the quicker it will exhaust the nearby
developer. The darker the object - say a shadow - the slower it will
exhaust. Mid-Tones live, well, somewhere in the middle.
For those of you with a technical bent, I highly recommend a careful
reading of this explanation of film behavior by David Kachel:
[http://davidkachel.com/wpNewDK/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/HowFilmWorks.pdf](http://davidkachel.com/wpNewDK/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/HowFilmWorks.pdf)
Normally, we don't notice this because *we agitate regularly* thereby
replenishing the supply for fresh developer everywhere, most
especially the highlights that have "run out of" useful developer.
Stand development exploits this by ... *not agitating at all or very
little*. Highlights are allowed to exhaust because they develop
quickly and don't really need more developer. But by letting the film
sit in a really dilute developer solution for a looooooong time
without agitation, the shadows continue to develop and so do the mid
tones. This means we are:
* Fully developing the shadows (getting full box speed ASA)
* Raising the H/D contrast curve for the mid-tones
* Doing little to the highest tones
In effect, stand techniques add two other things we can control about
how we develop film. In addition to time and temperature, we now add
developer dilution and frequency/duration of agitation as development
controls.
It's worth mentioning that this is super tricky to get right. In
the words of a retired Kodak film engineer, "Kodak did not consider
still development in formulating its films. It is not a recommended
practice." That's right, it's not. And you're not supposed to
tune your stock Ford engine to produce more horsepower either. It
is not recommended by the manufacturer ;)
## What's The Downside?
As film develops, it produces chemical byproducts like bromides that
we usually don't notice because ... we're agitating regularly. This
serves to "wash away" these byproducts with fresh developer. But when
you stand develop, these byproducts can come to rest on your negative
and interfere with the development. This results in streaks and marks
on your negatives and can be entirely ruinous to the process. That's
why the Great Yellow Father, Kodak, recommended so strongly against
this approach. This mess is often referred to as "bromide drag".
All manner of techniques exist to avoid these problems, with varying degrees
of success. Among them include:
* Developing and standing negatives in open trays
* Using specialty tubes made of PVC plumber's pipe to hold the negative during standing
* Using minimal contact hangers to hold the film during standing
~~Formally and properly, stand development should be done with the
negatives laying flat in a tray or the equivalent. They should *stand
laying down* not hanging vertically in a tank.~~
(This turns out to not be such a great idea. See [Updates](#updates)
section at the end of this document for more commentary on tray processing.)
It's also worth noting that the photographers who pioneered this
approach a hundred plus years ago were using very different films and
plates. Modern thin films do have more a propensity for bromide drag
than their grandfather films did.
Still, this can be conquered and - at least in my view - should be in the
arsenal of tools for any advanced monochrome silver photographer.
## Terminology
There are many references to this sort of development in the literature
and the terminology isn't used consistently. For our purposes we'll
define things as follows:
* **Normal Development** - Using developer at recommended dilutions and
agitating regularly once or twice a minute.
* **Stand Development** - Using highly dilute developer, agitating
vigorously for the first 1-2 minutes and then just letting the film
sit untouched in the developer for 45-60 minutes or even more.
* **Semistand Development** - Using highly dilute developer, agitating
vigorously for the first 1-2 minutes, and then once again for 10-15
seconds at the development halfway point. So, for a 60 min stand,
we'd agitate at the 30 min mark.
* **Extreme Minimal Agitation (EMA)** (Attributed to Steve
Sherman). Using highly dilute developer, agitating for the first 1-2
minutes, and then again for 10-15 seconds at 2 or 3 evenly spaced
intervals for the remaining time. Say we initially agitate for 2
minutes and want a total development time 30 minutes. We could
split up the remaining 28 minutes into three intervals and do 10-15
second agitations at 9 minutes, 16 minutes, and 23 minutes.
Semistand and EMA were conceived to overcome the nasty development
artifacts (artefacts if you live in the UK ;) like bromide drag. The
occasional short agitation during stand development reduces the
likelihood you'll see these gremlins appear in your negatives.
Surprisingly, I discovered that even the single midpoint agitation of
a semistand development can increase apparent contrast and - in the
case of Pyrocat-HD - level of stain (as well as Film Base Plus
Fog). So each of these techniques has a place.
## How Did I Test?
I exposed and developed a variety of films using all four of the
development techniques above. As I did so (and failed more often than
not) I began to do my down "dialing it" of what worked and what did
not.
* For all cases, I used Pyrocat-HD as the developer at a nominal
68F/20C.
I should mention that I designed and built my own
temperature-sensitive timer to keep temperature considerations out
of mind in the darkroom. You can find the details here:
[https://gitbucket.tundraware.com/tundra/devtimer](https://gitbucket.tundraware.com/tundra/devtimer)
This is certainly not a requirement and you can do ordinary
time/temperature corrections as usual in your own work.
* Pyrocat-HD is a developer mixed from two stock solutions. Dilution
is expressed as `Part A : Part B : Water`. For Normal development,
dilution was `1:1:100`. For the various stand tests, dilution
was either `1.5:1:150` or `1.5:1:200`.
* Developer and fixer were mixed with distilled water.
* 4x5 films tested included Kodak TXT, Agfapan APX 100, and Ilford
FP4+. Not every film was tested with every agitation method, but
across all film types, the tests covered stand, semistand, and
extreme minimal agitation.
* I tested 120 Ilford FP4 as well as 35mm Tri-X and Agfapan APX 100.
Both formats were tested using semistand in open half-gallon tanks
with Nikor stainless developing reels.
* Development was in open tanks and - in a few cases - a Yankee 4x5
tank with insert.
* A variety of different film suspension systems were tried including
Kodak "framed" film hangars, a Yankee 4x5 tank, and a "frameless"
Kodak film hanger.
* Film was presoaked for 5 minutes in running water to wash off the
anti-halation layer and prepare the emulsion to accept developer.
It's not clear this is entirely necessary with open tanks but it
does no harm.
## What I Have Discovered
First of all, these are **my** findings, built on my workflow and darkroom
technique. These are intended to be guideposts, not definitive rules. They
are intended to be a starting point for you to explore, not some final
word in how to do this stuff. Every statement below should be read
to say "In my case ..."
* Stand development is *really* fussy about how the film is held in
the developer. Framed hangers and the Yankee tank insert all showed
bromide drag effects in varying and unpredictable ways. My theory -
which I cannot prove - is that turbulent effects and developer
trapping are taking place along- and under the hangar frames/insert
supports and promoting bromide drag.
* Semistand development is at lower risk of this, but still shows
some evidence of bromide drag with framed hangers and tank inserts.
* For this reason, all my sheet film is now hung using old frameless
Kodak hangers. They have minimal points of contact with the film.
A likely viable alternative here would be a dental X-ray film clip.
In either case, having more than one sheet in the tank will be
tricky to agitate because there is no frame to keep it in place.
Patience is your friend here.
How good is this? I was able to get a perfect negative with stand
development (no agitation during stand period) using these hangers.
* Well... *almost* perfect. The negative shows just a slight hint of
bromide drag. It is at the end of that negative that was at the
bottom of the tank - exactly where gravity would land it. The exact
same scene exposed identically but processed with EMA and semistand
do not show this artifact.
* In short, *I was unable to consistently get stand processing to
produce artifact-free negatives*. So, even with better film
suspension, at least one midpoint agitation is a really good idea.
This is confirmed in discussions with other photographers doing this
sort of thing, even in trays. (Almost) no one is getting decent
results with pure stand. The issue here isn't that stand doesn't
work. The issue is that stand doesn't work **consistently**.
As a practical matter, there is no reason to do stand over semistand
or EMA. Both of the latter techniques give good results.
* I did some testing with 35mm and 120 on stainless steel reels, but
dunked into open 4x5 tanks rather than the usual daylight tanks
favored by small format shooters. As expected, Normal development
worked fine. To my surprise, semistand was OK as well. I was
expecting bromide drag problems because of the way the reels support
the film. Again, I think strong initial agitation helped here.
I've also noticed a considerable difference of reel spacing from
different manufacturers. If you are going to do 35mm or 120 this
way, I'd stick with the old Nikor reels. They're a bit expensive
but widely available on eBay. I'd also recommend doing these
smaller formats in an open tank, rather than the smaller stainless
tanks that are normally used with these. Why? Because you'll get
more developer around the film no matter what the agitation model.
It does mean working in the dark, though. Under no circumstance
would I use the adjustable plastic reels sometimes found in cheaper
kit. The ridges for holding the film in place are tall and inhibit
smooth developer flow. Using this just begs for bromide drag
problems.
* Stand and semistand did best with the `1.5:1:200` dilution. EMA did
best with the `1.5:1:150` dilutions. This makes sense, since EMA
times tend to be a lot shorter than true stand development and more
dilute developers will take longer to act on the shadows.
* Both stand and semistand really need 45-60 minutes to fully do their
jobs.
* Both stand and semistand need a full 2 minutes of initial agitation
and it needs to be "vigorous". Again, I suspect - but cannot prove -
that really kicking the development off hard at the beginning reduces
the likelihood of bromide drag later.
* EMA was fine with only 90 seconds of more normal initial agitation.
* The single agitation introduced at the midpoint in semistand
development seems to noticeably reduce the risk of bromide
drag.
* The single agitation introduced by semistand development seems to
increase overall contrast and density as compared to a no-agitation
stand period. It's not night and day, but given that doing this
reduces the risk of bromide drag, it's probably the preferred long
stand technique and this extra contrast has to be considered.
* Given a normal dilution of `1:1:100` and an EMA dilution of `1.5:1:150`,
I found that a good first order guess for EMA development time was
to double my Normal development time with 2 or 3 equally spaced
agitations during the stand time.
* You can do contrast control with EMA much like you do with Normal
development - increase- or decrease overall time. With stand and
semistand, it's a bit more difficult because you really want that
long development time to fill in the shadows and crank up the mid-tones.
I've not tried it, but changing developer dilution is likely a better
tactic for these development methods.
* You can overdo this. If you have a scene that already has good
mid-tone local contrast, these techniques can give you a cartoon-like
local contrast expansion.
* All the stand techniques gave me full box speed ASA for every film
I tried.
* You have to be merciless to "expose for the shadows" properly. If
you underexpose, nothing can save you. You cannot develop content
that isn't present in the negative. If you overexpose, you will get
the entire tonal range of the image sliding up the H/D curve in ugly
ways with stand techniques. In this regard, exposure control and
ASA management is much more demanding than most conventional
film-developer Normal development methods.
## Is It Worth It?
Yes, in certain cases. Low- or no agitation development is slow and
finicky. But, it really shines when you want to emphasize mid-tone
local contrast, but have a competing highlight that would get blown
out (or hard to print) if you just did N+ Development.
More generally, these techniques are great when you need to get
maximum shadow detail, but reign in highlight placement.
Stand techniques also work nicely when you want to get best apparent
sharpness on subjects that show a lot of bright-to-dark transition
lines - for example, articulated rock faces.
Think of stand as another arrow in your quiver. You won't always use it, but
it can be a really nice enhancement to your arsenal of tools.
I **strongly** recommend that, if you're going to try this, take at
least two exposures (on separate sheets or rolls) of every scene
you care about. Try one with stand techniques, and have a backup you
can process normally if needed.
## When Should You NOT Use These Techniques?
With over a year's experience under my belt at this point, and having
tested many film/developer combinations across a variety of subjects,
I've concluded that Semistand/EMA is a superior development
strategy for many things. It yields full box ASA, protects the
highlights from blowing out, and gives you snappy midtone local
constrast.
However, there are some subjects that don't respond really well to
this. The increased midtone contrast can look gritty and get almost a
cartoon like quality to it. Specifically, when an image has a
textured surface that already has noteworthy local contrast, the image
can become unrealistically harsh.
This is especially true with very high acutance films like Efke PL100M
or Adox CMS 100 II. When the actuance of the film is combined with the
edge effects of extended development, you can get a kind of comic book
or graphic arts effect. It's subtle but very real, though it might be
useful as an aesthetic tool.
The worst offender here is EMA. The repeated agitations drives up
edge effects far more so than does the 1 midpoint agitation of
Semistand. Given a subject with a lot of midtone texture and local
contrast, you might prefer Semistand with a film like Shanghai GP3 or
Agfapan APX 100. Of course, conventional development is always a
thought if the dynamic range of the scene can be properly managed.
## Long Term Findings
(As Of 12-19-2023)
With the benefit of several years experience behind me at this point,
I took the time to critically review many silver prints made from
negatives developed either with semistand or EMA. Not all of these
were great images, but they were products of many experiments
with film, developer, agitation, and dilution:
* Semistand works well for most normal and even short SBR scenes.
* EMA is indicated when you have very flat mid-tone contrast, but
using it for normal SBRs can crank up the contrast in ways I do not
love, so it needs to be applied with restraint. Even in flat
lighting, too much agitation or not enough dilution can *really*
crank up mid-tone contrast in unpleasant (to me, anyway) ways.
* *You Can Overdo A Good Thing Part 1*: Using EMA on highly textured
subjects can lead to a kind of gritty graphics art look that might
be an interesting aesthetic for some things but is overkill for
most.
* *You Can Overdo A Good Thing Part 2*: High dilution does enhance
sharpness but it does so at the expense of visible grain. This is
not an issue for large format, and - depending on film - can be
managed for rollfilm, but it's a killer for 35mm (unless you like
that "sandy" Rodinal look).
* Long SBRs present a challenge. If you develop conventionally using
N- discipline, you'll hold the whole dynamic range, but almost
always at the expense of contracting mid-tone contrast. You can use
semistand or even EMA to both hold down the highlights and keep
mid-tone contrast where it should be, BUT, you have to dilute more
for this to work properly on the highlights. This can cause he
aforementioned grain visiblity problem. This is a place where
Pyrocat-HD is quite helpful because the stain helps to mask grain
visibility.
* There are alternatives here that I have yet to explore: SLIMT, two
bath, and highly compensating developers all leap to mind.
## Updates
New findings since the document first went live can be found below.
### Update 6-3-2021: Very Old Film
Since this was first written, I've done a fair bit of testing using low
agitation with very old, expired film. So far, I've discovered
several things worth noting:
* Old Kodak Tri-X (expired 7/1993) takes semistand processing
in Pyrocat-HD perfectly, shows full speed, and has no noteable fog.
* Very old Kodak Plus-X (expired 11/1974) is another matter. It shows
horrible bromide drag at the hanger suspension locations - even
using the most minimal support.
Whether this is the nature of this film or its age isn't clear. I
have to do further testing with other Plus-X vintages. What is
clear is that this is definitely induced by the Pyrocat-HD. When I
took the same film/scene and semistand processed it in D-23 1:1 for
60 minutes, I got perfect negatives that actually showed slightly
better film speed than the Pyrocat-HD negs.
### Update 8-29-2021: Very VERY Old Film
I was interested in seeing how this worked with really old film
and explore just how "old" was too old:
* So, I shot some sheets of 2x3 Kodak Super-XX (expired 1/1961).
That's right, this film has been out of date for over *60 years*. I
used both Pyrocat-HD 1.5:1:200 and D-23 1:1 to semistand process a
couple of these negatives.
* The results? Perfectly printable negatives. The Pyrocat produced a
bit more negative fog, but noticably less visible grain. The D-23
produced a "cleaner" negative, but had a lot more grain. It's worth
noting that Super-XX was always a rather grainy film and was pretty
much replaced by Tri-X in short order, particularly for smaller
formats. Both developers produced the full box ASA 200.
* Unsurprisingly, there were non-development artifacts due to the
physical deterioration of the film. The sheets were stuck together
a bit in the box and I did see some mottling on the non-emulsion
side of the film. This resulted in some spots in the final negative.
* All-in-all this demonstrates several things. First of all,
"reasonably" out-of-date film can pretty much be used as if it were
new. Secondly, semistand processing may offer a path for rescuing
"found" old films.
### Update 12-18-2021: Low Agitation With Super-Dilute HC-110
I wanted to see how super-dilute HC-110 behaved when agitated
minimally. Officially, the Kodak datasheet stops at 1:79 (Dilution
F). But I wanted to see if very high dilution and minimal agitation
worked well with this well regarded staple of the darkroom.
For this test, I exposed a 120 roll of Arista 100 at ASA 100. The
film reel was elevated from the bottom of a Kodak 1/2 gal rubber tank
with a stopper to try to keep it away from any residual bromide
byproducts.
1/2 gallon of HC-110 was diluted 1:128. The film was prewashed for 3
minutes then placed in the developer. It was initially agitated
continuously for 2 minutes and then left to stand. At 31 minutes,
another 15 seconds of agitation was applied. The film was removed
from developer at 60 minutes and fixed/washed as usual.
Findings:
* The film developed nicely with no evidence of bromide drag and hit
full box ASA as one might expect.
* Compared to Pyrocat-HD negatives, there seems to so very slightly more
grain (not surprising) compared to other ASA 100 films. However, I've
not processed Arista 100 rollfilm in Pyrocat-HD so it could also just
be how the film is made.
* The biggest thing I noticed is that super-dilute HC-110 has some
highlight compensating effect but it is noticeably less pronounced
than Pyrocat-HD. I'd guess this is because of the lack of staining
effect.
One of the test scenes has deep shadows in a building directly
illuminated by late afternoon sun. There was probably something
like a 13-15 stop subject brighness range. Pyrocat-HD would have
handled those highlights just fine, but the super-dilute HC-110
yielded a thick, dense negative. It WAS printable and there WAS
detail in the highlights, so the highlight exhaustion inherent in
low agitation development definitely came into play. It just wasn't
as pronounced a correction as I am used to. (It made the negative
super fun to print with 100 seconds of soft light required to punch
through the highlight density.)
Although this will never be my own daily driver, it could be useful
for teaching low agitation.
As an aside, HC-110 and D-76 have very similar behaviours. It might
be fun to try super dilute D-76 some time.
### Update 1-9-2022: What About Tray Processing?
When I first started on this journey, the common wisdom was that
laying sheets of film flat in a tray was one of the preferred ways to
do low agitation development.
After extensive fiddling around and some limited attempts at doing
tray processing, I recommend NOT doing this for several reasons:
* It is very difficult to tray process multiple sheets without
scratching them.
* Practially speaking, you cannot stack negatives in a tray for low
agitation. Each sheet's emulsion needs to be in full contact with
the developer for the shadows to fully develop.
* My testing strongly suggests that gravity plays a significant role
in draining away development byproducts. I've not tested this, but
I question whether laying a sheet of film face down will have enough
gravitational effect to pull the byproducts to the bottom of the
tray. Perhaps this would work with a deep tray and lots of
developer, but this seems like a clumsy way to deal with the issue.
In short, tray stand processing may work, but it's clumsy and
unnecessary. For best results, just use minimal suspension to hang
the film vertically well above the bottom of the tank.
### Update 4-3-2022: Old Tri-X 220 Rollfilm
I acquired some old TXP 220 that had expired 8/1992. After the good
successes seen with old sheet film, I was anxious to see how ancient
rollfilm would work in (semi)stand development.
The first roll was processed in 9 month old D-23 1:1 with an initial 3
minutes agitation (stand) for a total time of 60 min. The film showed
streaking, blotchiness, and some discoloration. The streaking was most
prominent in the first few exposures.
Suspecting the developer and possible bromide drag, I did a second
roll in fresh D-23 1:1 with an initial 2 minutes agitation with
another 15 seconds at 31 minutes (semistand). The film showed no
blotchiness or discoloration. Again, there was a thin horizontal line
across parts of the center of exposures 1 and 2.
Both rolls were exposed at ASA 320. The shadow detail suggests that
the film pretty much hit full box speed, as is common with (semi)stand
development. In neither case was there significant fog and the
negatives are quite printable.
I am at a loss to explain the lines/streaking the in early exposures.
Each roll was shot on a different camera, so that's not the issue.
One possibility is that the film is mechanically compromised for
having been wound on the spool for 30 years. But I'd expect this sort
of problem to most pronounced on the last exposures which are wrapped
on a much tigher diameter near the center of the spool.
Another possibility is that - in both rolls - the first few exposures
were wrapped close to the inner core of the development reel and this
somehow contributed to the problem. Bear in mind that 220 reels are
way larger than 120 reels and film is approximately twice as long.
Finally, it may be that the label/paper that holds the roll tightly
closed when manufacured somehow compromised the first few
images. Recall that - unlike 120 film - 220 only has a paper leader
and trailer, there is no paper along the length of the film. This was
necessary to make 220 film fit in the same dimensions as 120 rolls.
As manufactured, the tight leader is wrapped around the reel above the
first few exposures.
In short, the defect here looks much less like bromide drag or bad
processing. It looks like a mechanical artifact with film that's
been left rolled up tight for 30 years.
Since the film is quite usable and I have a few rolls left, I'll just
avoid shooting anything of consequence in the first few frames.
### Update 4-24-2022: More On The Use Of Reels
Per a prior update, there is (at least in my experience) compelling
evidence that you reduce the risk of bromide drag when you let gravity
pull away the development artifacts from the film. With reels, this
means suspending them off the bottom of the tank ~~a bit~~ a fair
distance.
After some further testing, it's pretty clear that the reels need
to be well above the bottom of the tank. The bromide artifacts
seem to sink there and you want the film well clear of them. I'd
suggest finding a way to suspend your reels so that the lowest
part of the reel is 1-2 inches off the bottom of the tank.
I've been using the faucet adapter that comes with the Kodak Tray
Siphon to do this. I stick the narrow end into the bottom of the reel
and slide the lift rod through it. This raises the reel off the tank
floor about 1 1/2 inches or so. You could also probably use a small
inverted funnel to do this. ~~Another possibility would be to get an
appropriate sized rubber stopper and drill a hole through it to make
room for the lift rod.~~ I found that the usual rubber stopper does
not lift the reel off the bottom of the tank enough to consistently
avoid bromide artifacts on the bottom edge of the film.
### Update 8-5-2023 (Corrected 1-2-2024): Super Dilute D-23
D-23 is easy to make and is often used when you need to control a
very long Subject Brightness Range. That's because it's a so-called
"compensating" developer that nicely reins in the highlights.
**NOTE**: Ignore rumors you may have heard that D-23 is a "low
contrast" developer. It will deliver the contrast you want
based on how you work with it.
I've gotten very good results with D-23 stock as well as 1:1 when doing
semistand and EMA development. But I wanted to push the dilution
envelope a bit. Why? D-23 is a "solvent" developer made of only
Metol and Sodium Sulfite. The Metol is the development agent
and the Sodium Sulfite acts as a preservative and produces the
required alkalinity for the developer to work properly.
In normal dilutions, the high contentration of ~~Metol~~ Sodium
Sulfite "chews away" at the grain. That's the "solvent" effect. This
helps keep the grain under control, but it does so at the expense of
absolute sharpness.
By diluting beyond the recommended amount, we reduce the amount of
Sodium Sulfite in the working developer so there is less of that
solvent effect and the negative is rendered more sharply.
Up to dilutions of about 1:4, I got consistently good results from
semistand with D-23. Beyond that, though, the reduction in the amount
of Sodium Sulfite in solution also reduces developer alkalinity to the
point that the developer stops working well.
Someone on the UK Large Format forum suggested that I try D-23 at a
1:9 dilution but add 0.5 grams/liter of lye (Sodium Hydroxide) to the
mix to kick up the alkalinity. This works just great - you get super
sharp negatives with this scheme. HOWEVER, you won't want to do this
with smaller format/grainer films. For example, 35mm Kodak Double-X
done this way produced really grainy negatives reminiscent of highly
dilute Rodinol.
**WARNING**: Be careful handling lye. It will burn skin, cause
damage to eyes, and so on. As always, use sensible
lab techniques and wear protection in the darkroom.
Lye added to liquid is exothermic and can generate
a lot of heat, so be careful and take your time.
Using highly dilute D-23 without the lye might also be a way
to handle situations where extreme contraction is called for -
i.e., Scenes with huge SBRs.
I also tried this with DK-50 at 1:5 and got less wonderful results.
It certainly worked, but I didn't like how the tonal range got
handled. The negatives came out sharp but sort of harsh looking. I
think the culprit may be the Hydroquinone in DK-50, but I'm not sure.
I didn't test it as thoroughly as I did D-23, so it might just be a
lack of understanding on my part.
### Update 12-16-2023: Using A Conventional Daylight Tank For Rollfilm
Periodically going into a darkened darkroom to agitate film in an open
tank is inconvenient. For sheet film, it's sort of the easiest way to
do it, unless you want to resort to making your own light tight tubes
in the manner of someone like Steve Sherman. Either way, you want to
keep the film off the bottom of the container and have minimal contact
between the film and it's support mechanis. For this reason, I
continue to open tank process sheet film and suspend it with Kodak #6
hangers.
For 35mm and rollfilm, it's appealing to be able to do this in a
conventional Nikor style daylight tank. The issue is that you still
have to suspend the film above the bottom of the tank to reduce the
risk of bromide drag.
Someone suggested the idea of using an empty reel at the bottom of the
tank, and loading the reel with film on top of it. I tried this with
35mm and got ... lots of streaking along the edge of the film closest
to the empty reel below it. This supports the hypothesis that too
much material in the way tends to trap used developer and produce
bromide byproducts. So no, an empty reel to hold the film off the
bottom is not recommended.
Next, I tried a small inverted funnel in the tank. This lifts the reel
off the bottom of the tank, with nothing immediately below the loaded
reel's film wind layers. This worked great, and is now how I do 35mm
EMA and semistand.
I have not tried this with 120 rollfilm, but I suspect I'd get similar
results and for the same reasons.
### Update 9-19-2024: Kodak Double X And Standing Development
After a lot of testing (100s of shots), I have concluded that Kodak
Double X does not like highly dilute developers like PMK Pyro and
Pyrocat-HD (either that, or it doesn't like Pyro, I don't know).
And... it *really* hates standing development with Pyrocat-HD.
Doing so yields very grainy results with gritty looking midtones.
For Double X, I've found the following to work much better:
* If you want to do semistand, use D-23 1+3 for 30min with one
midpoint agitation.
* For conventional development, use HC-110B for 6min or
D-76 1+1 for 7.5 min.
Of these, the D-76 gave best tonality and minimal grain, though the other two
were close. Standing in D-23 gives excellent results with minimal grain and
has the benefit of compensating the highlights and expanding the midtones.
Some combination of Double X, high dilution, and long standing times
makes the results ugly and I would advise against it.
### Update 09-27-2024: Rethinking EMA Times And Dilutions
The original EMA recommendations in this document called for highly
dilute development for an hour with intermittent agitation throughout.
After more testing, I determined that this still has a tendency
to overdevelop (blow out) the highlights.
A possibly better way to approach EMA - and one more in line with what
others have documented for EMA - is to simply reduce overall time and
increase frequency of agitation.
For example, I got very good results with 35mm Plus-X using Pyrocat-HD
5:3:500 with an initial 90 seconds agitation and 5 seconds at the 7,
14, and 21 minute marks, ending development at 28 minutes. This
seemed to control the highlights well and promoted strong edge effects.
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