Fomapan R 100 reversal with D19 anyone?

[Alessandro Serrao]

No, I'm referring to C41 films that have Carey-Lea colloidal silver layer. These include most color films and also BW400CN but not XP2 Super. T

That's the yellow filter layer.
Fomapan R 100 hasn't any carey-lea layer.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

That's the yellow filter layer.
Fomapan R 100 hasn't any carey-lea layer.

Where did I say it has one? Just like the Carey-Lea layer of C41 films, the silver AHU layer in Foma-R can be handled by David's method IMO. Do you see any technical obstacle?

P.s. I've given the link to David's method in one of previous posts in this thread.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

Do you see any technical obstacle?

I think it's not feasible but I never tried myself.
Maybe using the bleach as a first step, even before the developer...

 

[Lachlan Young]

Whatever Foma R100's anti-hal layer is composed of, it doesn't clear when run through a conventional dev/stop/fix regime. It does look a little like a long expired C-41 film's mask - ie brownish & foggy. In comparison, Silvermax - which uses an opaque dye - clears completely. Foma's solution is likely because their dye synthesis/ available choice (or cost) is not able to provide as cost effective a solution.

Many of the more modern C-41 films (Portra etc) use a dye layer instead of the CLS layer as a filter.

And the warning about the permanganate bleach following a KSCN containing developer relates to the bleach liberating HCN from the developer carryover - much more of a risk in industrial volumes, but something to be avoided. Thus the move to DTOD, thiosulphates and polyglycols. That said, it may well be that the structure of Foma R100 is such that it doesn't require significant developer solvency to successfully develop all the silver in the emulsion.

 

[mohmad khatab]

direct viewing is not what slides are for!

But the formula has worked for other categories of films.
It worked with Ilford Pan 100 - and also with Astrom, it might need some timing measures (plus or minus a few seconds), but overall, the formula worked for other preparations.

I would have liked any colleague who says that this method will not work or that formula will cause such-and-such, he must come up with evidence and proof through practical experience and not through (sayings of that and such-and-such company guidelines) ,,
Practical experience is the best proof: other than that, any words that are for me have no place for parsing.
- As long as the issue has become a contentious issue and there are many views and predictions, here it is necessary to resort to practical experiences, as it is the point of separation in the matter.
I am conducting an experiment, and I strive and spend some money on practical experiences instead of relying on theoretical opinions, sayings, and guidelines.
- My professor, Mr. Rodolfo of Austria. I was discussing with him an issue that I wanted to try the operation (AP41) ,, and I told him that I had seen in a dream (a dream) or (a vision) stating that this operation will succeed ,,
- The teacher at the beginning of the matter was not enthusiastic about this formula and said that it is an old formula for an outdated process that was designed for a specific time and emulsion and was designed to work at lower temperatures ,,
This was also the opinion of Mr. PE a few weeks before his death.
But I was determined to go ahead and test that formula, and I believed in my vision and my intuition.

The result of that process is with Fuji Valvia Roll 100 Fresh. Results with attachments.
- When the teacher saw these results, he told me: I am proud of you, because you believed in yourself and your instincts, and these are the descriptions of the hardworking researcher.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

I would have liked any colleague who says that this method will not work or that formula will cause such-and-such, he must come up with evidence and proof through practical experience and not through (sayings of that and such-and-such company guidelines)

Including you. Why don't you research on the topic yourself and report us back with you own experiments? Spend money on that and let us know what are the results.
And remember: slides are meant to be projected, of course.

 

[Athiril]

In Resources you will exactly what you are looking for : https://www.photrio.com/forum/resources/fompan-r100-reversal-first-developer.227/

In my notes I see that I used a development time of 8 min at 20C against the listed time by the poster of 5m @27C. I think I only did that one roll. though, but you have a good staring point there.

My old article. Anyone here using Fomapan R100, I want to warn that you should use a developer without a typical solvent for clearing highlights in it like you would for reversing say T-Max. It should be solvent free (no thiocyanate, no thiosulphate), every test I did I would otherwise get effectively either a monobath developer or simply fix the film. If solvent is unnecessary for a film for reversing then you should not use it - or formulate a developer with as little solvent as possible.

That solvent does the same thing as fix and is removing silver halide from the film - meaning the more solvent you have in a reversal process the more you are reducing potential dMax.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

My old article.

Thanks for your old article. I find that you got a DMax of 3.16 with your catechol second developer which is substantially higher than what the data sheet reports (~2.75 with Fomadon second developer). Did you project the higher DMax slides and notice any difference the additional density makes to your viewing experience? It's often said that for projection DMax above 2.75 is not useful and hence some argue that slides should target ~2.75 DMax. Would be interesting to know your experience in this regard.

 

[mohmad khatab]

Including you. Why don't you research on the topic yourself and report us back with you own experiments? Spend money on that and let us know what are the results.
And remember: slides are meant to be projected, of course.

I actually spent the money experimenting with the (OWRO) process which is very similar (somewhat) to the processes that produce film transparency.
I already showed my experiences, but there is still one experience left that I will strive to experience in a few days.
- You are talking about that the details of Elephant Shadows are almost non-existent, and I object to this opinion.
- But I can make a slight adjustment that Master (Raghu) the Indian told me, in order to increase the details in the shadows.
I can conduct this experiment within days or a few weeks, God willing.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

- You are talking about that the details of Elephant Shadows are almost non-existent, and I object to this opinion.

What are you talking about?

 

[Athiril]

Thanks for your old article. I find that you got a DMax of 3.16 with your catechol second developer which is substantially higher than what the data sheet reports (~2.75 with Fomadon second developer). Did you project the higher DMax slides and notice any difference the additional density makes to your viewing experience? It's often said that for projection DMax above 2.75 is not useful and hence some argue that slides should target ~2.75 DMax. Would be interesting to know your experience in this regard.

I looked a at them directly oh a light box, the difference is very substantial and a lot better contrast. You can’t project black so you’re limited by the brightness of the projection surface with the projector turned off etc. Thsoe tests would be carried out and tested under normal home conditions with a standard low power tungsten bulb of what’s available at the time. There’s nothing stopping you from having a much brighter back light for your film.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

I looked a at them directly oh a light box, the difference is very substantial and a lot better contrast. You can’t project black so you’re limited by the brightness of the projection surface with the projector turned off etc. Thsoe tests would be carried out and tested under normal home conditions with a standard low power tungsten bulb of what’s available at the time. There’s nothing stopping you from having a much brighter back light for your film.

So to sum it up, DMax higher that 2,75 are useless in projected slides.

 

[Athiril]

So to sum it up, DMax higher that 2,75 are useless in projected slides.

So to sum it up, DMax higher that 2,75 are useless in projected slides.

No, highly doubtful. You need to make a comparison to see it. Those claims are also based on that the eye can’t see more than a certain dMax, which is effectively a certain light level and that light level is well above what the human eye can actually see - and also relatively to the backlight intensity, and also claiming effectively that the human eye can only see low dynamic range, while in reality it can see a high dynamic range all at the same time.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

No, highly doubtful. You need to make a comparison to see it. Those claims are also based on that the eye can’t see more than a certain dMax, which is effectively a certain light level and that light level is well above what the human eye can actually see - and also relatively to the backlight intensity, and also claiming effectively that the human eye can only see low dynamic range, while in reality it can see a high dynamic range all at the same time.

You have said it when you write "you can't project black".
Of course you can but it will be solid black, with no details in it.
That's why higher DMax are useless.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

while in reality it can see a high dynamic range all at the same time.

Source?

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

High maximum densities are not needed because, as H. Verkinderen8 has pointed out, "by normal projection all density-discrimination for densities exceeding from 2.2 to 2.4 is
lost."

This is Grant Haist, modern photographic processing, vol 2.

8. H. Verkinderen, "Reversal Processing," Brit. Kinemat., 13 (2): 37 (1948).

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

You have said it when you write "you can't project black".
Of course you can but it will be solid black, with no details in it.
That's why higher DMax are useless.

If the densest regions of your slide have no detail, then no amount of light from the bulb can produce detail when you project the slide. You can't create something out of nothing. However, what stops a well made slide from having detail in the densest regions? Is there a technical reason why densities above 2.75 in the slides can't have detail in them?

It's a different matter whether the detail in dense regions is going to visible when projected. The old scientific consensus seems to agree with you that densities above 2.75 are generally not useful when the slide is projected. I'm trying to understand what physical factors are responsible for this upper limit as human eye supposedly has a dynamic range of > 10 stops.

 

[Anon Ymous]

Hello

It's been a while since my last post and I have some news. Having some D19 already mixed, I decided to use this as both my first and second developer. I also had some premixed permanganate bleach, with 20g/l sodium hexametaphosphate, 2g/l potassium permanganate and 50g/l sodium bisulfate. I had a Canon EOS 300V empty at the time, so I loaded the film in it and bracketed some shots of a gray card at -4, -2, 0, +2 and +4 stops. These would enable me to plot a characteristic curve, as well as visually assess the density at various exposure levels. So far, so good, but I couldn't be sure what a good exposure index for my process would be, so I decided to play it safe and bracket my shots, leaning towards overexposure. So, I gave my film a +1/2 stop exposure compensation (the 300V only supports half stops) and bracket +-1/2 stop around it. This would create a sequence of shots at 70, 100 and 50 ISO.

Obviously, I had no clue about what a reasonable FD time would be, so I had to experiment a bit. I took the film leader and put some selotape on half of it's emulsion side. This would prevent it from being developed in the FD, but would later be removed for the rest of the steps. I decided to try 10' FD time at 20°C, based on what Foma's suggestion for their recommended developer is, which shouldn't be too far off from D19. It certainly made the piece of film leader black and proceeded to the next step, bleaching. Rather surprisingly, it seemed that 3' was all that was needed to clear the already developed part, so I developed for another 10' in D19 and got a reasonably good looking piece of film, half black, half clear. This method only tells us that 10' in FD will give clear highlights, but less might still be ok. It also tells us nothing about Dmax, because it doesn't take into account any fog produced by FD, because of the selotape.

So, I went ahead and started processing my film. After 3' in bleach, I washed it and took a look inside. Surprisingly, it most definitely wasn't properly bleached, with a large band of unbleached silver in the middle of the frames. I put it back in for another 3', after which it seemed ok. In hindsight, I probably should have left it more. Foma's instructions from their permanganate based kit call for 8' bleaching, but I mixed them up with their 5' suggestion for a dichromate bleach. The rest of the process was completed and finally some observations could be made. First, the best shot was always the ISO100 one, without being necessarily perfect. It's quite good, but a bit less exposure would be nice, at EI125 or 160 (incidentally, dr5 suggests EI160 for this film and his process). Second, the Dmin is rather high. It's probably not as clear as could be. I need to do some testing on it and it could be caused by the short bleaching time. I used my Minolta Scan Dual III as a densitometer and this is the characteristic curve I got:

The density readings might not be very accurate, but they're not far off. Dmin as you can see is 0,5. This doesn't exactly ruin them, but it's something that needs to be corrected. Overall, the EI100 shots are rather marginally projection worthy as far as I can tell, I haven't projected any of them yet. They scan fine though and the highlights aren't blown out, they can easily be corrected. The film is also quite fine grained. I suspect with a little more experimentation I'd be able to get very nice results and the film itself is worth using.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

Hello

It's been a while since my last post and I have some news. Having some D19 already mixed, I decided to use this as both my first and second developer. I also had some premixed permanganate bleach, with 20g/l sodium hexametaphosphate, 2g/l potassium permanganate and 50g/l sodium bisulfate. I had a Canon EOS 300V empty at the time, so I loaded the film in it and bracketed some shots of a gray card at -4, -2, 0, +2 and +4 stops. These would enable me to plot a characteristic curve, as well as visually assess the density at various exposure levels. So far, so good, but I couldn't be sure what a good exposure index for my process would be, so I decided to play it safe and bracket my shots, leaning towards overexposure. So, I gave my film a +1/2 stop exposure compensation (the 300V only supports half stops) and bracket +-1/2 stop around it. This would create a sequence of shots at 70, 100 and 50 ISO.

Obviously, I had no clue about what a reasonable FD time would be, so I had to experiment a bit. I took the film leader and put some selotape on half of it's emulsion side. This would prevent it from being developed in the FD, but would later be removed for the rest of the steps. I decided to try 10' FD time at 20°C, based on what Foma's suggestion for their recommended developer is, which shouldn't be too far off from D19. It certainly made the piece of film leader black and proceeded to the next step, bleaching. Rather surprisingly, it seemed that 3' was all that was needed to clear the already developed part, so I developed for another 10' in D19 and got a reasonably good looking piece of film, half black, half clear. This method only tells us that 10' in FD will give clear highlights, but less might still be ok. It also tells us nothing about Dmax, because it doesn't take into account any fog produced by FD, because of the selotape.

So, I went ahead and started processing my film. After 3' in bleach, I washed it and took a look inside. Surprisingly, it most definitely wasn't properly bleached, with a large band of unbleached silver in the middle of the frames. I put it back in for another 3', after which it seemed ok. In hindsight, I probably should have left it more. Foma's instructions from their permanganate based kit call for 8' bleaching, but I mixed them up with their 5' suggestion for a dichromate bleach. The rest of the process was completed and finally some observations could be made. First, the best shot was always the ISO100 one, without being necessarily perfect. It's quite good, but a bit less exposure would be nice, at EI125 or 160 (incidentally, dr5 suggests EI160 for this film and his process). Second, the Dmin is rather high. It's probably not as clear as could be. I need to do some testing on it and it could be caused by the short bleaching time. I used my Minolta Scan Dual III as a densitometer and this is the characteristic curve I got:

View attachment 258374

The density readings might not be very accurate, but they're not far off. Dmin as you can see is 0,5. This doesn't exactly ruin them, but it's something that needs to be corrected. Overall, the EI100 shots are rather marginally projection worthy as far as I can tell, I haven't projected any of them yet. They scan fine though and the highlights aren't blown out, they can easily be corrected. The film is also quite fine grained. I suspect with a little more experimentation I'd be able to get very nice results and the film itself is worth using.

You need some sort of silver halide solvent.

 

[Anon Ymous]

You need some sort of silver halide solvent.

This will likely result in unacceptably low maximum density.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

This will likely result in unacceptably low maximum density.

It depends on how much will you use it.
The fact is: Adox doesn't publish tech datas of their films, one cannot know how much scientifically DMin and DMax of Adox 160 is. Plus.
It's impossible to know if you have reached the maximum that can be obtained or not. There's no benchmark.
Another doubt: does bisulfate contain impurities on form of halides? If so you will get a partially rehalogenating bleach.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

You need some sort of silver halide solvent.

Even with a film that is supposedly optimized for reversal processing?

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

@Anon Ymous: Nice work! Thanks for sharing. Do post some real-world examples when you have them.

I suspect with a little more experimentation I'd be able to get very nice results and the film itself is worth using.

If I read the graph correctly, Caucasian face would have a density of ~1 (by virtue of placing it in Zone VI). Wouldn't that look a little too dark in the slide?

 

[Athiril]

You have said it when you write "you can't project black".
Of course you can but it will be solid black, with no details in it.
That's why higher DMax are useless.

This is incorrect. Higher dMax are useful and great in slides as long as there is detail separation. End of story. There is no argument against this, and is easily confirmed by adding density to a slide by various methods that keeps separation and you can see this on a light table easily.

The argument that the eye can't see beyond certain densities is old pseudoscience based on bad assumptions. An optical density does not equal light intensity, light intensity or brightness is independent from optical density because you can have any light intensity as the source light. You can have a very high optical density and also a very high light intensity coming through that high optical density. The human eye can additionally see very dim low light detail. Much lower than high densities on a slide with a decent backlight. The human eye can also see a high dynamic range all at once. Go into a department store and look at the better high quality HDR TVs. That is well beyond. Iirc the minimum standard for such a TV works out to be around a dMax of 4.3. A TV with a lower contrast ratio of 2.75 dMax looks quite washed out. The blacks and shadows become more visible and detailed with a higher dMax - specifically because over the same image input there is more contrast and separation between them and they become easier to see.

 

[Athiril]

Those dr5.com stellar DMax figures are meaningless. We have discussed it before. The human eye can't discern DMax higher than 2,4* so why bother?

*as per Grant-Haist book

And Grant is wrong. Blindly believing something out of a book contrary to evidence sounds like a bad idea to me, and is fundamentalism. Practical experiment shows it is wrong. Basic science and logic shows that it is wrong. If you put an optical density filter in front of the sun of 2.4d vs looking through 2.4d at night in a dark forest, you're clearly getting different light levels through that filter. Optical density isn't an absolute measurement of what light level you will get. 2.4 means you'll get around 1/256th of the light coming through. The human eye can see most illumination provided by most light sources well beyond 1/256th reduction.

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-human-eye-photon-20160719-snap-story.html

Previous studies dating back to the 1940s have shown that the human eye can detect as few as five to seven photons. But whether a single photon would be detectable proved elusive.

The threshold for colour vision is about 10 cd m−2
A 60W tungsten bulb is around 160,000 cd m-2

If you use half the light of that bulb to view a slide, you can maintain colour vision down to 3.9d. And for b&w vision for b&w slides... well... it is far below that. It is also not the 1920s anymore, and we can afford better lights than a 60W bulb for viewing slides. We can also project with more intensity than direct viewing with a 60W bulb. If you use a dim bulb and lose most of the light, have it scatter around the room your in and enter your eye off axis (not from the slide), then I can see how one could arrive to the conclusion you "cannot" see below 2.4d.