Topic: Mixing end of bottle developers

[LEAFotography]

I'm fairly new to developing, but found myself with a couple of 'end of bottle' ml of Silvermax and Paranol S.

There wasn't enough of either to make up 300ml, but enough if used together to develop a roll of FP4+ "nothing important"...and it seems to have come out fine judging from the look of the negatives (maybe a little more contrast than expected).

Has anyone any experience of doing this with these or other developing fluids. And are there any mixes which absolutely need to be avoided?

I'm really interested to hear from folks here, thanks.

[Francois]

Well, it depends if you want consistency or not.
I think pretty much all developers can be mixed since they all pretty much contain the same active ingredients. But the results are going to be random at best.

I personally would stay away from mixing brown developer. Even if it's still somewhat good, it would be marginal at best.

[Indofunk]

I would think it would be difficult to determine the proper dilution to use. For example, you have 50mL of D76, meant to be used at 1:1, and 5mL of HC110 which you want to use at 1:31 ... but that'll only give you 255mL, so if you add the extra 45mL water, which dilution does it affect, what's the actual concentration of the developer molecules swimming in the water, and if you're supposed to develop D76 for 10 min and HC110 for 8min, do you just average them to 9min, or since there's more HC110 swimming around than D76 is it actually more like 8:20 or something? (this math is actually making me excited to try a real life version 🤣 of course, those who know me know that I'm not overly concerned with consistency, so that goes along with Francois' comment 😉)

[LEAFotography]

I would think it would be difficult to determine the proper dilution to use. For example, you have 50mL of D76, meant to be used at 1:1, and 5mL of HC110 which you want to use at 1:31 ... but that'll only give you 255mL, so if you add the extra 45mL water, which dilution does it affect, what's the actual concentration of the developer molecules swimming in the water, and if you're supposed to develop D76 for 10 min and HC110 for 8min, do you just average them to 9min, or since there's more HC110 swimming around than D76 is it actually more like 8:20 or something? (this math is actually making me excited to try a real life version 🤣 of course, those who know me know that I'm not overly concerned with consistency, so that goes along with Francois' comment 😉)

Thanks for addressing my question, both of you!

The situation was similar to the above, but I thought of it in terms of trying to get a full strength solution of 300ml for FP4+. I had 8ml of the Silvermax left, but needed 12ml for a 1:24 dilution, so considered that as 2/3 or 200ml...and I had 5ml of Paranol S, and needed 4ml for a 1:25 dilution making up the remaining 100ml. The Silvermax time was for 8 mins, and the Paranol S was 11 mins, so I went with 9m30s in the end.

Though these were both "end of bottle" remains I'd been using that anti-oxidising spray as I've been working through the developers over the past month to try and keep them, so I judged them as fresh-ish. I won't fret over that wasted 1ml of Paranol S though  :')

I'm not sure of the underlying chemistry of developers, and was mindful of those warnings I used to see on bottles of domestic detergents saying "don't mix this with that". But I thought the worst that might happen was that the mix would work against itself (inhibit development) or potentiate the mix so that I just over-develop the film...or create a stench so bad that the neighbours think I died a few weeks ago

The negatives came out fine, and I should be able to shrink and post a scan for the weekend thread by tomorrow!

If there's no term for this already, I'll dub this waste-reduction process as Franken-dev just for fun

[Indofunk]

I support the term Frankendev 😂

[Francois]

I know of one recipe that involves mixing two developers that is used to maximize grain. From memory it's called Supersauce. I'd have to check my formulary for the details.

[Adam Doe]

I would think it would be difficult to determine the proper dilution to use. For example, you have 50mL of D76, meant to be used at 1:1, and 5mL of HC110 which you want to use at 1:31 ... but that'll only give you 255mL, so if you add the extra 45mL water, which dilution does it affect, what's the actual concentration of the developer molecules swimming in the water, and if you're supposed to develop D76 for 10 min and HC110 for 8min, do you just average them to 9min, or since there's more HC110 swimming around than D76 is it actually more like 8:20 or something? (this math is actually making me excited to try a real life version 🤣 of course, those who know me know that I'm not overly concerned with consistency, so that goes along with Francois' comment 😉)

You are treading so close to a flower foul 

[Francois]

I think I'm going to get a foul for this recipe :

Super Soup
This process was designed to get optimal film speed for pinhole photography. It combines multiple developers to get the developing characteristics of multiple agents. No processing time is given but considering the dilutions and developing agents presents, it can be assumed that all exposed silver will be developed.

SOLUTION:

Kodak Dektol (1+9)	970 ml
Kodak HC-110 (pure)	30 ml
Ascorbic Acid	4 g
Sodium Carbonate	2 teaspoons

   
The quantities need not be exact considering the concentrations present.

[LEAFotography]

Thanks for digging that out Francois!

I think my brain is reaching its expiry date! I read that recipe two times, and read that it was to produce "maximum grain" so I mulled it over a while, wondering what images I could make that would benefit from "maximum grain", and did some other things, and then came  back and read it again 😂

So that's the idea then, using "multiple developers to get the developing characteristics of multiple agents"!'ll try this again I think, the next time I have two different developers on the go...but I can't now get that idea out of my head about what might produce maximum grain, haha!

The Silvermax and Paranol S seem to have worked well together, or at least not done anything odd. Here's one from Frankendev A, and I'll post a couple of others in the weekend thread.

[Francois]

There's loads of ways to get the chunkiest grain possible. This is just one of them.
I have a whole bunch of procedures for that.

[LEAFotography]

There's loads of ways to get the chunkiest grain possible. This is just one of them.
I have a whole bunch of procedures for that.

I'm super intrigued now!

I've been re-reading the 'features' of the developers I want to try next (Microphen, ID-11, and Perceptol) and they claim to promote fine/extra fine grain characteristics. My basic understanding is that higher iso, long ago expired films are often more grainy regardless of the developer. I've wondered whether a more concentrated developing solution (1:25 vs !:50) might increase grain size because of the rapidity of the development, but not been able to see this in my scans, nor with a loupe. Similarly developing with warmer temperatures shortens developing time, so does this increase grain size too? Does anyone have suggestions for developers, or mixes, including any of the caffenol/beerinol ones that increase graininess of films in the 50-160 iso range? Or pointer for an article? I'd like to play around with some combinations.

My advanced apologies for my 'kid in a sweet shop' but I'm finding developing great fun

[LEAFotography]

And just like that I've gone from being a 199 post, two camera 120...to a 200 post, three camera peel apart  

[Francois]

Yeah, developing film is basically a fight to keep grain to a minimum.
Cold temperatures will help tame grain. So does using dilute developers. And so does erring to the side of slight overexposure.
Thing is that high temperatures and very active developers tend to raise contrast. Underexposure reduces the amount of exposed grains, so since you basically eliminate shadow detail, you have to crank the contrast up to get usable results.

All commercial developers are a combination of multiple developing agents. What makes the big difference is the balance between them and other agents.
So mixing developers to get finer grains won't work. But mixing them to get a lot of silver developed does.

If you want to see something really out of this world, take some Tri-X in 35mm format; expose it at EI3200 and develop for 6 minutes at 21°C. Use the dilution that' suggested for paper.
That's an old reporter trick from the 70's. If you print it on grade 5 you should get really thick grain and high contrast. In the UK they used to do the same with HP5 and PQ Universal.

[LEAFotography]

Yeah, developing film is basically a fight to keep grain to a minimum.
Cold temperatures will help tame grain. So does using dilute developers. And so does erring to the side of slight overexposure.
Thing is that high temperatures and very active developers tend to raise contrast. Underexposure reduces the amount of exposed grains, so since you basically eliminate shadow detail, you have to crank the contrast up to get usable results.

All commercial developers are a combination of multiple developing agents. What makes the big difference is the balance between them and other agents.
So mixing developers to get finer grains won't work. But mixing them to get a lot of silver developed does.

If you want to see something really out of this world, take some Tri-X in 35mm format; expose it at EI3200 and develop for 6 minutes at 21°C. Use the dilution that' suggested for paper.
That's an old reporter trick from the 70's. If you print it on grade 5 you should get really thick grain and high contrast. In the UK they used to do the same with HP5 and PQ Universal.

That's wonderful, thank you!

By chance, yesterday I shot a roll of Delta 400 rated at 1600 and this seems to have pronounced grain (indoor and outdoor shots below). The indoors one is probably a little underexposed also, given the writing and diagram are on plain white paper.

It will be a few more months before I can make prints - we're converting a friend's cellar to use as a darkroom with sockets, and good ventilation.  And I've re-read the chapters on developing and developers in Steve Anschell's Cookbook, and they make a lot more sense now I'm actually developing (was a bit abstract before).

[Francois]

You're welcome.
Also, any Minox film in the 400 ISO range will produce baseball sized grain since it's so enlarged.