Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/09/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Tue, 2004-03-23 at 19:12, Don Dory wrote: > Feli, > It goes without saying that A&I used an automated system so time and > temperature were within about 0.1 degree. Of course. > My experience has been > however, that unless your temperatures vary many degrees between > solutions then the apparent grain will not change much. It's not so much the processing part where I suspect big temperature differences. All of my chemicals are stored at room temperature, which here in sunny California puts them at about the right place. I suspect that a much bigger problem is the washing temperature. I keep reading that cold water will cause the grain to clump together, so as of lately I have been trying to keep the flow at about 70-75 F, instead of just using straight cold water. > > As to the smoothness, does the grain look a little melted under a loop? > If there are no crisp edges then they were using a solvent developer > like Microdol-X. FG-7 can also give a smoother grain structure than > D-76 and is commonly used in commercial labs. Yes, in these negs the grain has been disolved, but the images are still quite sharp. Not Rodinal sharp, but sharp. > My experience with Xtol and Tri-X does give a finer grain than D-76 but > the grain is still very evident. I like the Tri-X grain, but somehow I've been getting a little too much of it. > If you really want to get to the bottom of it, why don't you ask A&I > what they used? Bingo. That was my next step. I have been thinking about switching to something like Divided D76, which may give me more consistent results. That or maybe I'll attempt to brew up a few gallons of that mystery soup 777....;-) > Don > dorysrus@mindspring.com