Digital BW, The Print

> 
> 
> Mark, I used to develop my TX 400 roll film in a 1:100 solution and loved the
> look.  With 
> the JOBO tanks, I was worried that the reduced volume of solution would risk
> exhaustion 
> of the developer, so that fear, combined with the shorter processing time, led
> me to the 1:
> 25 solution instead.  Rodinal is so cheap that cost never moved me one way or
> another.  
> Do you suppose that a 1:100 solution will contain enough Rodinal, at the
> reduced liquid 
> volumes of the JOBO system, to do its job?
> 
> Again, I don't mean to be seeming to create trafffic for my humble web page,
> but if you go 
> to it, all of the 4x5 sheets scanned and posted there were souped in a 1:25
> Rodinal 
> solution in JOBO tanks.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Sanders McNew
> www.mcnew.net
> 

There is no crime in developing flim in near exhausted soup.
I think if it as kind of a built in semi water bath in a way.
If you start getting too much diachronic fog which wont print out than
that¹s when it becomes a problem.
Or it¹s just not building up enough contrast and adding time doesn't help.
That means you¹re running your film in not near dead but dead dead soup.
So you¹ve got too much dilution going on.
I don¹t think you¹ll have that problem with Rodinal.
Or traditional MQ or Phenidone Q developers.
You get it with Xtol if you just go too far.
Pyro maybe I may have heard.

I presoak when I run my film in a traditional metal hand held tank with
agitation on the minute.
When I don¹t I get problems. Gremlins sneak in pretty quick.
Ever since I started doing E4 and then thought it made sense for black and
white as well.
But then could never go back to starting dry.
Kodak told you do so when Tmax came out but I learned to ignore them.
I presoak or soon regret it.

My feeling is with a Jobo you just set it and go do something else anyway so
why not have it be 20 30 minutes or more?
When I stand there agitating I forget why I¹m there.
I think I¹m in Star Wars zooming through some galaxy.
And can¹t remember if I¹m fixing or stopping going into hyper drive.
So I try to match my soup times with my attention span.
Which is about 18 minutes.

Sorry for intertwining star wars with star trek metaphors.
It¹s blasphemy I know but outer space is outer space at 3 AM.
Its the Kingons against the Wookies.

Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/





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