Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>>>For the b&w compensating developers, I still like the Nikor tanks and reels with very consistent and controlled inversions<<< None of our Contributing Editors can detect a "compensating" effect with any modern film using any technique, including water bath, in controlled scientific experiments. IOW you can get "compensating" techniques to work, but they provide results that are essentially indistinguishable from non-compensating techniques in controlled trials--meaning, there may be a slight difference, but it's within experimental error and you can't tell the prints apart. Intermittent agitation does yield a bit more edge effect with some films, and more dilute developers typically provide better sharpness. But there is no "compensating" shadow development going on with thin-emulsion films as far as we can tell. If anyone believes they can prove that there is, I'd guess there's an article in it if they're interested. But the proofs need to be ironclad. - --Mike J. (_PHOTO Techniques_ magazine)