As I understand it, in my "senior-moment/curmugdeonly" brain, the higher
dilution results in a more "gentle" action that has advantages for acutance,
less grain clumping, etc. There IS a balance between this and wet time...
nothing is free. Fine grain developers such as Microphen and Microdol achieved
their affect by silver solvent action. Fine grain, yes, but reduced acutance
and perhaps reduced tonal separation. The tradeoff was acceptable and
reasonable to some, but not to me. A chaque son gout.
In addition, Mironchuk talks about higher activity resulting in greater
contrast in the highlights. I suppose this is the same as reduced tonal
separation. In any event, I have always been fond of Rondinal and HC-110.
They seemed to provide me with qualities in negatives that, while sometimes
hard to describe, were superior to those of D-76, etc.
I had a similar predilection for Amidol for prints. A PITA to work with
(especially very long times in the tray), but results that were not achievable
with Dektol and its clones. (When I did use Dektol, it was 1:3, not the
standard 1:2.)
Earl
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 8/3/2004 at 7:20 AM Chris Barker wrote:
>Thanks for that Earl. I might give HC-110 a go once I have finished my
>Rodinal. Mr Mironchuk's writing style is more polemic than didactic
>and there is a contradiction: why go for a dilute developer for longer
>wet time when he is trying to reduce wet time? His views on agitation
>are interesting; I always try to use the manufacturer's recommendation
>and the time I agitated less I had rather streaky results ...
>
>Chris
>
>On 3 Aug 2004, at 3:33, Earl Dunbar wrote:
>
>>
>> Nils:
>>
>> See this site for thoughts on temperature and agitation. It's
>> specific to HC-110, but should hold true for Rodinal, too. The idea
>> behind a higher temperature (and a non-hardening fix, which works
>> faster) is that it lessens wet time. The more wet time, the swelling
>> of the emulsion and clumping of grain.
>>
>> http://www.mironchuk.com/HC-110.html
>>
>> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>>
>> On 7/29/2004 at 12:10 PM Nils Frohberg wrote:
><|_:-)_|>
>
>C M I Barker
>Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
>
>+44 (0)7092 251126
>ftog at threeshoes.co.uk
>http://www.threeshoes.co.uk
>http://homepage.mac.com/zuiko
>... a nascent photo library.
>
>
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