E.L.. Shapiro wrote:
This is interesting and if it is actually practicable, it does go against a theory I have adhered to for many years when using film. My practice for fine gran and maximized acutance was to cut down on wet time, avoid emulsion shock due to temperature differentials and process with "clinical" care as to agitation, hypo clearing and drying. Although I did employ the zone system, this particular methodology was not part of the original method. I learned it form photographer Mike Tatum, back in the early 70s. He was offering workshops in fine gran darkroom procedures, sponsored by the Honeywell folks when they were importing Pentax cameras and produced a line of stainless steel processing tanks.
Mike was routinely applying the zone system to 35mm photography and producing large prints with the quality of medium format and even close to 4x5 quality. The theory of mixing chemistry with distilled water, minimizing wet time, monitoring the pH of stop baths, not using over concentrated fixers or avoiding over-immersion in stop and clearing baths were to negate a minor degree of reticulation (emulsion shifting) that occurs by not observing theses important precautions. It proved to make the difference in tight grain structure, and significantly more sharpness.
As far as film speed- I seldom pushed beyond 1200 with film like Tri-x and went to 100 with Panatomic-X. I use a number of different developers- Acufine, Ethol UFG, and a few home brews and an altered D-76 formula. Pyro- for portraiture! I had mixed up a few "dynamite" formulas and use compensating developers with auto-stop characteristics.
NOW, for black cat in a coalmine at midnight" situations, I did push more. I could get away up to 3200 (on Tri-X) with in low scene contrasts. Once I got to 3200+, especially in contrasty lighting, shadow detail began to suffer and grain became more problematic. If I ever had to go to 12,800, nowadays, I think I would stick to digital and live with whatever noise resulted.
You mention care in mixing. Does that refer to sequence of chemicals and mixing technique- care as to not causing too much aeration or over-saturation etc. or danger due to chemicals of a hazardous, toxic or highly corrosive nature?
A 1.5 hour developing time might entail a hardener such as Potassium Alum that I used in the past in high temperature circumstances- theses were tropical developer formulas.
I suppose there is still a niche market for traditional darkroom chemistry of a new and different kind. Somewhere in my "achieves" I may still have my Photo-Lab Index with all kinds of exotic formulas and there was a "Cookbook" produced by Ilford .There is an outfit called the Photographers Formulary, they stock some off- beat stuff, antiquated formulas for special toners etc. Nowadays they still sell a nice line of darkroom chemicals. Check them out- you may get some ideas for packaging and marketing etc. I don't remember anythg for pushing to 12,800- coud be unique. Manufacturing, packaging and promotion may require quite an investment- good to do the marketing research first!
Good luck!
This is interesting and if it is actually practica... (
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