scg3

Here's a question for, uh, MATURE photographers: Did you ever hear of a "soup" called Von-L film developer from the Mon Blanc Chemical Company of Ft. Wayne, IN? I encountered it in the 1950s as a child. It made some tempting but unlikely claims: you could shoot Panatomic-X at ASA 500 and Tri-X at ASA 10,000! Since I didn't believe the claims even at that tender age, I never tried it and I wonder if anyone out there did. Of course, those were the days of speed-boosting soups like Promicrol, UFG, Acufine, Diafine, PDQ and many others but Von-L must have lead the field in unlikely claims. Just wondering, now that today's digitals actually deliver Von-L speeds albeit by quite different methods!

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I've never heard of that one. I did, by mistake, develop a roll of Tri-X once and found it to appear extremely over exposed. Instead of simply throwing the roll away, I looked at it carefully. Yup, it looked horribly overexposed. I retraced my steps and found the mistake I had made in grabbing the wrong bottle of what I thought was my usual developer.

I then decided to test various developing times and found a suitable one that rendered very useable, court evidence use, negatives. As for ASA/ISO, hard to say. My exposure meter only went to 6400. I simply used a "standard" shutter speed/f-stop for what I needed and that was it. That mistake came in handy later when asked by a local police officer to photograph something. Then, subsequent to that, I worked regularly for a private investigator.
--Bob

gastech1949 Loc: Imperial Beach, CA.

Used to use diafine with tri-X at 2400 with great results. Even printed 16x20 from 35mm film with very little grain. Think it is still available. Didn't have to worry about time and temp

twowindsbear

What was the contents of that 'wrong vottle?'

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Yup- I remember it well! I'm old enough to remember the era when everyone was interested in shooting "a black cat in a coalmine at midnight" with a hand held camera and at apertures small enough to enable some depth of field- and fine grain too! Talk about having you cake and eating it too! So... all the chemical folks came up wit there own version of "DYNAMITE- this Von stuff, Ethol UFG, Acufine and more- some stuff out of Germany claiming to be "NITROGLYCERIN". Some were compensating developers that automatically quit acting in the highlights, thus allowing the shadow to continue building.

I did find that Acufine and Ethol UFG woked well with Panatomic-X at (ASA) ISO 100, Tri-X did nicely at 800-1200 and after that, usually there was lack of shadow detail in high contrast situations and more grain. Extended developing times, increase wet time also exacerbated the gran due to moderate reticulation. Royal-X Pan in Acufine at ISO 6400 looked like line copy with grain the size of mothballs! Nothing worse that a dense flat negative- you needed Houdini to pull a decent print.

Full frame digital camera with high IOS settings- 3200- even 6400 are pretty decent as to noise- folks take it for granted nowadays, especially if the never had to push film to incredulous speeds.

I don't even know why so many photographer are so preoccupied with shooting in low light. Where are the shooting- at night in a war zone? Are the doing forensic surveillance, undercover in dark allies. Nowadays most sports venues are well lighted. I can see it for certin kids of photojournalism, street photography, shooting in dimly lighted places etc.

Speaking of nostalgia- anyone remember the first Canon rangefinder camera with a f/.95- Yes! it was fast but had the resolution of a shot glass and ZERO depth of field. Yes, you could shoot a black cat in a coalmine at midnight as long as the cat stood still and if you focused on its eyes, its ears would be out of focus- forget about its tail! I did have an f/1.0 Noctolux for old my Leica M-3- it was a little better. The lens was so big that it got in the way of the viewfinder!

I remember TOTAL DARKNESS was required in the film darkroom- now everyone wants to shoot in it!

scg3

When I bought a late neighbor's huge camera collection to sell on eBay (it paid for my new kitchen!) I sold several f/0.95 Canon lenses. They sold fast and for excellent prices though I doubt any of the buyers actually used them. However, someplace on the 'net I ran across a story of someone adapting one of these lenses to digital and finding great happiness with the results so there's no accounting for taste. As for shooting in low light, for a newspaper photographer like me it's often necessary. Just a few days ago I had to shoot Christmas-illuminated homes from a moving boat with my Canon 6D. At ISO 10,000 -- Von-L speed -- I only got 1/200 at f/2.8. I needed that speed!

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

I can't recall exactly which brand but someone is still producing a .95- possibly Canon maybe Leitz?

I don't really mind grain- in some instances it has a appropriate look. I found by watching my processing temperature- keeping it consistent from one bath to the next, not over immersing in clearing agent,cutting down on wet time as much as possible and avoiding forced heat drying of film all keeps the grain at a minimum and tight.

IS0 10,000- not from the film days! But in digital it not only possible but not too noisy- considering!

scg3

Fortunately, newspaper reproduction hides a multitude of technical glitches and ISO 10,000 looks just fine. Whew!

aellman Loc: Boston MA

If you Google "Von-L film developer," you'll find a number of articles that may interest you. >Alan

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

You can still buy f/0.95 lenses for Micro 4/3 cameras. Voigtlander makes FOUR: a 10.5 (21mm FF equivalent), a 17.5 (35mm FF equivalent), a 25 (50mm FF equivalent), and a 42.5 (85mm FF equivalent). Of course, they have the equivalent depth of field of FF counterpart lenses set about two apertures smaller.

These Voigtlanders are VERY popular with independent filmmakers using the Lumix GH series cameras, or Black Magic Cinema cameras. They are manual focus only, with manual step-less aperture control as well. They are not cheap — $800 to $1100 USD. I've tried the 25mm... It can be used wide open with creamy, dreamy results. By f/1.4, it is tack sharp. Despite shallow depth of field, there are no focus accuracy issues on Micro 4/3 mirrorless cameras.

https://www.voigtlaender.de/lenses/mft/?lang=en

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

As for Von-L film developer, I never heard of it.

I used Tri-X and Acufine in the '60s and '70s for low-light sports. If it was good enough for White House press photographers, it was good enough for me.

I later switched to Ilford HP5 souped in Microphen. Still later, I used T-Max 400 in T-Max Developer, with occasional rolls of P3200 (ISO 1000 film you pushed to 3200) thrown in.

Thankfully, we now have digital!

Zenmonkey

All you film lovers out there...check out Tim Layton's.. Darkroom Underground
www.timlaytonfineart.com

crazylarry

I worked at a camera store in Elkhart, IN during some of my teenage years in '49 - '52. I do remember the Von-L developer on the shelves having few customers using it. I had a 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 Speed graphic that the owner let me use. Used Microdol in my sheet film tank. Those were the years. I have converted some of those pics by scanning. Some not bad, for about 70 years old. Digital sure easier for an old man. Long live the DSLR.