i have learned an interesting way of developing b/w film.
first of all, you don’t need to buy a developer, like d76 or rodinal. you can make a better developer yourself. (:
for that you need: solution number zero:
- Sodium sulfate, 100 gr. (btw, in English “Natrium”, which is “Natrium” in German, Russian and Armenian is called Sodium fore some reason!)
- Metol, 5 gr.
Dilute this in one litre of water.
solution number one:
- Borax, 10 gr in 1 litre of water.
Keep the film for 7 minutes in the first solution, then 7 minutes in the second solution. if you feel you need more details in shadows, then keep up to 15 minutes for the second time.
what is important, and what distinguishes this process, from d76 is that you never can “spoil” the negative. whatever ISO is it, however long you keep the film in the fluids, it will “expose” what is on the film, but it won’t go beyond that. I even got to know how does that work chemically, but i cannot explain that myself.
this solution is also known as Kodak D23, or “hungry development”.
By the way, you don’t need to buy a “Stop bath” solution as well. Just get %5 solution of Acetic Acid and dilute it in one litre of water. That’s your stop bath. (:
For instance, this one works very well:
Also, it is possible to get a fixer from the med lab, which works with x-rays processing, but i haven’t learnt that yet. (:
#photography #photo #developer #development #d76 #d23 #black_and_white #black-and-white #bw #negative