Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/06/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I think it's supposed to be basic chemistry. Lots of fresh developer on the highlights prevents "highlight exhaustion" yielding higher contrast negs. Similarly, constant agitation prevents a subtler effect of relative developer exhaustion on dark/light boundaries, particularly with non-solvent developers, decreasing accutance (and thus perceived sharpness). You can get good/great accutance with more dilute developers and less agitation. For both of these reasons, with HC-110 (and Rodinal with a few slower films), I like more dilute soups and rather intermitent and minimal agitation. A lower contrast negative is also favored by my Nikon Coolscan, and I just like the look of a "sharp negative". I still have to crank up the dilution on Rodinal to 1:100 and HC-110 beyond (H), but I imagine I'll get around to that. I wonder if what you're seeing with XTOL in your Jobo tank is more sodium sulfite sloshing around with greater grain solvency effects. Dunno, just pure speculation. BTW, after you get going, you might find "The Film Developers Cookbook" a good read. Fascinating stuff, especially when you can start to relate it to one's own experimentations and results. Scott I wonder if the Richard wrote: > Thanks for all the info. Certainly the pictures look nice and smooth. > > I am still looking for the magic formula for my workflow though - Jobo > and scan. One thing I notice is that conventional wisdom can be off. > For example, almost all sites mention that Jobo's constant agitation > would increase contrast and lower sharpness. I have tried 5-6 > different films in Xtol soup, and while I see lowering of sharpness > (or may be it's just me), I definitely do not see higher contrast > pictures, unless it's Tri-X pushed to 800. > > At 08:18 AM 6/14/2005, Chris Saganich wrote: > >> .... At first my results were shaky due to processing issues. The >> results were bad enough to send me onto other developers for a full >> year, then I came back and discovered that less agitation was the >> key.... > > > // richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, > please use richard at imagecraft.com) > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information