Silver Alchemy - Xtol Plus Rodinal Part II

Overheard on the street: "My dad say I should remarry him"
Kodak Tri-x developed 5min. Xtol 1:2 and then 4 min. Xtol 1:2 + Rodinal 1:115 25c

This is a short update on my original article of adding Rodinal to Xtol. I have been adding Rodinal to Xtol to good effect since 2010.

So why change now? With a purchase of a higher resolution 35mm scanner I'm finding that I want even more control both of the grain and of the compensation in the shadow areas. While I can do it by controlling the ratio of Rodinal to Xtol it becomes a bit tricky to manage all parameters especially when it comes to temperature compensation.

In the last few months through a series of experiments I have come up with this variation on my original method which gives both good results and fine control.

Set up the dilution ratio of Xtol as normal.  I try to keep the normal developing times between 7 to  no more than 16 minutes. For the last 4 minutes I pour the xtol into a container that has had rodinal added, then pour it back onto the film and then develop the remaining 4 minutes.

Mohawk In Support Of Maggie's: The Toronto Sex Workers Action Project
Same roll as above

Still Mine
Kodak Kodak TMAX 400 developed: 5min. Xtol 1:1.125 and 4 min. Xtol 1:1.125 + Rodinal 1:115 at 22c  

Fresh Air
Fomapan Action 200 developed: 5min. Xtol 1:1.125 and 4 min. Xtol 1:1.125 + Rodinal 1:115 at 20c

Straight Out Of The Camera (SOOC) Photograph Of The Year (POY)

What does straight out of the camera actually mean?

 For most categories of art or non professional photography all this talk of purity and "SOOC" is bull! I especially hate some film or in some cases digital photographers  that say things like "This is straight out of the camera, I don't believe in altering the image" or some such nonsense. What do they think showing an image on the screen is besides an alteration, and believe me there is nothing natural about scanning or the guts of a DSLR.  Read here for another take. 

On my part I consider the taking of the photograph the most important part and what comes later just window dressing.

The Shaw-Pellegrin Controversy Around The Photographer Of The Year Awards

This year there seems to be a lot more then the usual controversy over this year's World Press selections for photograph of the year.

www.designboom.com/art/world-press-photo-2013-image-alter...

nppa.org/node/36604

www.theverge.com/2013/2/20/4009724/photo-contest-winner-c...

www.petapixel.com/2013/02/19/why-do-photo-contest-winners...

Everybody loves a real life soap opera. This is a failure of the editing process for photojournalism, what ever happened to fact checking?

Not to side with Pellegrin but his I'm a blogger not a reporter reasoning is some what of a cop-out while his hiding behind being a critic might be a more valid reason.

I think the bigger picture is the partial lack of standards for the POY organization. It's not as though this is the Oscars but it is looking more and more like show business. Hopefully next year might be different:

lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/prize-winning-photos-an...

It's not as though there aren't any standards for "SOOC" at least for reporters. It's a pity that the POY didn't know about them until after the 2012 awards:

Interesting that the last photo in the above article wouldn't even pass:

A handbook of Reuters journalism
A guide to standards, style and operations

Photoshop and how to use it
Photoshop is a highly sophisticated image manipulation programme. We use only a tiny part of its potential capability to format our pictures, crop and size them and balance the tone and colour. For us it is a presentational tool. The rules are – no additions or deletions, no misleading the viewer by manipulation of the tonal and colour balance to disguise elements of an image or to change the context.

Reporter

I will leave you with some famous quotes:

“To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer's craft”

“You see something happening and you bang away at it. Either you get what you saw or you get something else-- and whichever is better you print.”

“The photograph should be more interesting or more beautiful than what was photographed.”

“The photo is a thing in itself. And that's what still photography is all about.”

Blood On Their Hands

Analog As Opposed To Digital

Why do many film photographers get upset with the term analog photography?

Analog or it's British cousin  analogue is just another example of the ever changing language of technical babble. You don't have to like it, but once it is in the common vernacular the game is over and you are stuck with the label at least for a generation or two.. Maybe in another 50 years it won't be analogue or digital, but rather antique photography or maybe a non quantum 2d recording (NQ2R for short).

If the analogy to electronics doesn't appeal to you then you might want to consider the original more general pre-electronics era meaning of similar to or proportional to as being more appropriate to photography.  Actually that makes a lot of sense as a photograph could be seen as a proportional projection of the original scene.

More serious misnomers exist for example how about using the Sloth a South American animal as a model for one of the seven deadly sins? The sloth slow metabolic rate is a survival trait and does not deserve to be called a deadly sin.

Neon Sign, New Building And Falling Steam

But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion?

Photography Year 2012 In Review

2012 Was The Year Of The Dragon

Gone Walkabout Up Country As Almost No Snow In Toronto

Toronto Islands  In January

The Diffusion Of Occupy Toronto Into The Collective Memory 

Trying Out a Couple of New For Me Medium Format Cameras

From The Mamiya RZ67

Hasselblad 500cm

In and Around the Streets Of Toronto

A Couple Of Double Exposures For Old Times Sake

In And Around The Streets Of Paris

Some Portraits And Modeling

Some Countryside

The Year Wouldn't Be Complete Without Some Strangeness 

Some more 2012 picks

Developing Film And Water Spots

Following on from my blog posting titled Odds and Ends In B&W Film Development I  thought I would continue with the topic of the final rinse.

Final Rinse Update - In the past I had spots now none:

The final rinse is 3 minutes in distilled water; After the 3 minutes I  then add 1 drop of Edwards LFN wetting agent.; Shake really well for 5   seconds, wait  until any foam dies down; Then remove film from liquid. Shake off excess water and hang to dry.

Absolutely no spots!

Notes:

The distilled water adds  about $0.15 per roll but it seems to be worth it, The trick seems to be prior to adding the wetting agent leave the film in the distilled water for long enough to dilute (replace) any of the tap water in the emulsion.

Over washing and washing the film like a raccoon can do irreparable damage to the emulsion.

Obviously if you get white spots with tap water you need distilled for the final rinse if you don't get them then you don't.. And of course negatives without white spots and drying marks are better than those that have them.

I did an experiment watching under a microscope one drop of distilled water and one drop of my tap water dry on a microscope slide. Absolutely no observable difference! So why use distilled water? Distilled water removes most minerals from the film gelatin layer so it doesn't come to the surface later and cause water marks when it drys. The final rinse must be long enough for the gelatin to become in equilibrium with the rinse water. The reason I reuse the same "distilled" water from the final rinse for the photo flow or wetting agent stage is that I want the water within the gelatin to be in equilibrium with the water that has the wetting agent. This and a short cycle time with good agitation keeps the wetting agent surfactant mostly on the surface where it belongs. It's all about chemistry, surface chemistry, diffusion and equilibrium.

Why not dishwashing soap instead of a wetting agent? Because it's a false economy and they contains impurities, contaminants that could cause problems. Wetting agents designed for film do not have the extra impurities that are added to dish water soaps and are only a couple of pennies per film.

Tip: 

Sometimes I find stuff floating in my developer or fixer, to remove pore the liquid through a small fine stainless sieve used for cooking. Don't forget to rinse the sieve after using to prevent corrosion.

Drying

 I recently I brought an old Kindermann Rapid dryer. I then taped a dust and pollen filter over the fan air inlet so for a total cost of $20 I can now have dry, dust and spot free film ready to scan within 45 minutes of development.

There are many DIY dryers out there on the web including those made with garment bags. This MacGyver like method although I haven't tried it yet, it looks brilliant!

Warning

Depending on your water the use of distilled water may be dangerous overkill. A friend of mine after many years of no problem started to have problems with spots this went on with the spots getting worse over the year, Finally he gave me a spotted frame which under a microscope showed fine surface crazing all over with the spots caused by more severe surface damage rather than by left over chemical residue. With the proof he finally followed my advice and used the Ilford method of rinsing. Suddenly no problems! His problems started when in his own words "Someone told me I should rinse more so I started to rinse more and the more I rinsed the bigger the problem so I added more rinsing aid and more distilled water. Ended up rinsing  like a Raccoon." 

References

Why Is Water The Universal Solvent
Diffusion
Surfactant