Stand Development with DD-X was a disappointment

[Molte]

I have recently developed film that I had exposed while travelling over the last 3-4 years. Mostly I used Tri-X. I had exposed all films at half of the box speed. I mixed my own 2 bath developer, using Barry Thornton’s recipe. Tri-X and HP5+ mostly came out fine, but Rollei Superpan 200 seems thin and underexposed when looking at the negatives. I still have a lot of picture-making to do and am hoping to find adequate detail in the shadows. Overall, it seems good that I overexposed the film for metol-based development.


I ran out of Sodium Sulphite and instead decided to try stand development with (liquid concentrate developers) Rodinal and Ilfotec DD-X. I also wanted, for the first time, to find my own EI for various films, given a lot of upcoming travel.


Delta 100 and Delta 3200 in DD-X stand development (1+9; 1 hour) was most disappointing. The films were totally blank. Even the manufacture’s ‘signatures’ at the very edges of the film were fixed away. I have read that DD-X does not keep long and assume that I had old developer, despite not having opened it when I bought it app. 1 years ago. I will not use DD-X again.


Rodinal stand development (1+100; 1 hour) has worked well. I expose a Kodak grey card for zone I at various EIs and read densities with a Heiland densitometer.


My particular, first round, results are:


120 Foma 100 has an EI of app. 64


120 FP4+ has an EI of app. 160


120 Delta 100 has an EI of app. 125


35mm Agfaphoto APX 100 has an EI of app. 160


This is very different from my experience with the two-bath and (assumed) lower EIs. I should maybe have tried Tri-X in Rodinal 1+100 also, but this film has become quite expensive.


I will try these EIs and meter for Zone IV in the shadows when travelling over the coming months.

 

[BrianShaw]

Have you tried DD-X as it is intended to be used, or only stand developing?

I’ve been quite satisfied with it 1+4 and agitating as directed. I’m not sure what to think of it’s keeping charateristics. I recall reading that it doesn’t keep long yet it seemed to perform nominally 1 year after opening.

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

DD-X isn't suited to stand developing; it is similar to Kodak's Tmax Developer.

 

[Steven Lee]

The title of the thread should be changed to "Stand development was a disappointment", possibly adding "(again)". Where's @MattKing when the world needs him?

 

[MattKing]

The title of the thread should be changed to "Stand development was a disappointment", possibly adding "(again)". Where's @MattKing when the world needs him?

How about we compromise?
Title updated slightly
Hope that is okay @Molte !

 

[Augustus Caesar]

The title of the thread should be changed to "Stand development was a disappointment", possibly adding "(again)". Where's @MattKing when the world needs him?

Stand development was used in the old days with glass plates held perfectly horizontal in trays, with ortho or blue-sensitive plates, which allowed for inspection development under appropriate safelight conditions. The development by-products (which are denser than the developer and more acidic) tend to stay where they are formed, and thus limit the development of dense areas. Trying to use this procedure with roll film is doomed to failure, because the heavy acidic by-products stream down the film surface under the pull of gravity, causing streaks. Nobody has ever recommended stand development with roll films. All major mfrs of films recommend intermittent agitation.

 

[destroya]

hmmm. stand development and disappointment. why am I not surprised

 

[Steven Lee]

I've had many hobbies over the years, and I haven't found anything equivalent to stand development in those communities. Not in auto racing, not in skiing, fishing, gaming, cooking, or aviation. I wonder how it would have looked like?

- Racing in the neutral gear was a disappointment!
- Fishing in the desert was a disappointment!
- Flying backwards was a disappointment!
- Sex in a hammock was a disappointment!

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

I have recently developed film that I had exposed while travelling over the last 3-4 years. Mostly I used Tri-X. I had exposed all films at half of the box speed. I mixed my own 2 bath developer, using Barry Thornton’s recipe. Tri-X and HP5+ mostly came out fine, but Rollei Superpan 200 seems thin and underexposed when looking at the negatives. I still have a lot of picture-making to do and am hoping to find adequate detail in the shadows. Overall, it seems good that I overexposed the film for metol-based development.


I ran out of Sodium Sulphite and instead decided to try stand development with (liquid concentrate developers) Rodinal and Ilfotec DD-X. I also wanted, for the first time, to find my own EI for various films, given a lot of upcoming travel.


Delta 100 and Delta 3200 in DD-X stand development (1+9; 1 hour) was most disappointing. The films were totally blank. Even the manufacture’s ‘signatures’ at the very edges of the film were fixed away. I have read that DD-X does not keep long and assume that I had old developer, despite not having opened it when I bought it app. 1 years ago. I will not use DD-X again.


Rodinal stand development (1+100; 1 hour) has worked well. I expose a Kodak grey card for zone I at various EIs and read densities with a Heiland densitometer.


My particular, first round, results are:


120 Foma 100 has an EI of app. 64


120 FP4+ has an EI of app. 160


120 Delta 100 has an EI of app. 125


35mm Agfaphoto APX 100 has an EI of app. 160


This is very different from my experience with the two-bath and (assumed) lower EIs. I should maybe have tried Tri-X in Rodinal 1+100 also, but this film has become quite expensive.


I will try these EIs and meter for Zone IV in the shadows when travelling over the coming months.

Expose the films normally and process them normally and you may not be disappointed.

 

[250swb]

The films were totally blank. Even the manufacture’s ‘signatures’ at the very edges of the film were fixed away.

Why were they completely blank, perhaps there is a clue in your use of words?

I like many people think stand development can be a bit of fun if you just want to try something different for a change, or maybe you've got an odd film that never matches with other films or developers you are using. But used as a plan for developing a lot of films from important trips it's just too hit-and-miss even with testing, it's downright scary to think about it. So I have to say making more of an effort with more conventional techniques is the reliable way to develop film. And there is a consensus among film manufacturers about what works best so while there may be some satisfaction in the devilment of bucking the trend they use words like agitate or invert or swish because it leads to reliability and a full range of tones.

 

[Molte]

Thank you for changing the title. It does reflect my main point better.

I am old, but open minded. Having used D76 1+1 many years ago, I still don’t mind slow. And stand development seems even easier.

My current overall conclusion is that stand development with Rodinal gives me app. box speed+ where 2-bath gives me half as much. I can rate Tri-X in metol-based 2-bath at the same EI of 200 as FP4+ in Rodinal stand 1:100. I am expecting a difference in grain, but probably not much. Another conclusion is that DD-X is not for me at this time.

I like slow. Family and friends are fond of my pulled pork, which I cook in the oven for 10 hours at 110C. I have several cooking books about slow cooking, and some companies actually produce and sell electrical slow cooking pots. Eating slowly is beneficial and regular fasting improves the health. I expect that many people, especially women, would agree that slow sex is preferable. In politics, the world would benefit enormously from slowness as this would allow for reflection and consideration. My experience with aviation is dated (TWA headquarters on Manhattan), but some people are into engine-less, gliding aircraft. In traffic, slow saves lives and energy.

One of the benefits of film photography is the slowness. It is more deliberate and contemplated when compared to digital. I remember spending hours in the ancient city of Priene, in Turkey, with my tripod, a Holga 120 WPC pinhole camera and rolls of Acros film. It was a beautiful day and my patient wife and I were all alone, as all the other tourists were at Ephesus, which is admittedly more impressive. If I can figure it out, I will try to post a picture. Slow also means that it is more time consuming. I am spending a lot of time transferring analog images into digital.

It seems that some people have a definite opinion against stand development. Maybe they are right, but I will try it out some more, and see for myself. But maybe not for my upcoming trip, as suggested above. Maybe the issue is one of consistency?

My Delta films were completely blank. Normally I can see the film type at the very edge of the film. There was nothing. I assume that Ilford exposes this information onto the film during production. I therefore concluded that the developer was totally inactive. Copenhagen water is untreated and semi-hard. I used 900 ml of de-mineralized water (from the supermarket) with 100 ml of DD-X from the bottle, which I first had to open with a hobby knife. Temperature was 20C. I prewashed for 5 minutes in tap water and developed 2 x 29 minutes, inverting the Jobo tank at 'half-time'. Did I misunderstand something? I am tempted to try a half roll of APX 100 in 1+4, just to see if there is any action.

 

[Molte]

I uploaded a couple of my favorite slow pictures under the standard Gallery here.

 

[pentaxuser]

Delta 100 and Delta 3200 in DD-X stand development (1+9; 1 hour) was most disappointing. The films were totally blank. Even the manufacture’s ‘signatures’ at the very edges of the film were fixed away. I have read that DD-X does not keep long and assume that I had old developer, despite not having opened it when I bought it app. 1 years ago. I will not use DD-X again.

So to be clear: There was absolutely nothing on the film at all - not even a trace of the film edge markings? Unless your DDX was very old and had completely died in the unopened bottle I find it quite strange that developer used at a little under half strength at 1+9 has completely died to the extent of there not being any trace of exposure or edge marking after 1 hour's development

If you can be absolutely certain that you did not fixer first then I'd be tempted to contact Ilford about this. There may well be a period beyond which even an unopened bottle of DDX does die completely but it might be helpful to get Ilford's statement on this

Yes I realise that my statement about using fixer first is one that can easily be dismissed as insulting but all I can say on this is that blank negs including no edge markings have only happened to me once in nearly 20 years and I was convinced that I had not used fixer first but I have to admit that in fact I must have done.

Just out of interest did you buy the DDX from a retailer or from another person and if it was another person were you able to obtain any information from that person as to how long he had it before selling or giving it to you?

pentaxuser

 

[snusmumriken]

I don’t know anything about DDX, but I learned quite recently here on Photrio that Delta 3200 has a reputation for not keeping well, even in a fridge. I can’t vouch for that, but it did explain the declining success I had with it. How old were the Delta films you were using?

 

[Milpool]

Did I misunderstand something? I am tempted to try a half roll of APX 100 in 1+4, just to see if there is any action.

I think that is a worthwhile test to do. While stand development gives poor quality results, the film will develop. Even with no agitation DDX 1+9 would form an image - and a lot sooner than 30 minutes etc.

If absolutely no development took place at 20C, you pretty much have three possibilities: (1) The DDX concentrate was totally dead in the bottle due to it being very old and/or having been subject to abusive storage conditions, (2) the mixed developer didn’t make it into the tank before fixation, and (3) the mixed (diluted DDX) was stored for a significant amount of time before use and had completely oxidized.

(1) and (3) seem improbable as you would have noticed a pronounced coloring of the concentrate or working solution.

Not sure what happened here, but DDX is a fine developer - although not a “slow” one so if you are dead set on very long development times you’d really need to dilute DDX more than 1+9. If you do though, make sure you still have enough concentrate on the working solution to develop the quantity of film you are processing. All things considered if you really want to stand or “semi-stand” develop your film and have very long development times you’d probably do better with a less active developer than DDX. Something like diluted Perceptol or D-23 would probably be more suitable. Rodinal is a fine developer too, but note the typical stand development wisdom of 1 hour at 1+100 over-develops the film. 30 minutes is a more reasonable starting point.

 

[chuckroast]

I have recently developed film that I had exposed while travelling over the last 3-4 years. Mostly I used Tri-X. I had exposed all films at half of the box speed. I mixed my own 2 bath developer, using Barry Thornton’s recipe. Tri-X and HP5+ mostly came out fine, but Rollei Superpan 200 seems thin and underexposed when looking at the negatives. I still have a lot of picture-making to do and am hoping to find adequate detail in the shadows. Overall, it seems good that I overexposed the film for metol-based development.


I ran out of Sodium Sulphite and instead decided to try stand development with (liquid concentrate developers) Rodinal and Ilfotec DD-X. I also wanted, for the first time, to find my own EI for various films, given a lot of upcoming travel.


Delta 100 and Delta 3200 in DD-X stand development (1+9; 1 hour) was most disappointing. The films were totally blank. Even the manufacture’s ‘signatures’ at the very edges of the film were fixed away. I have read that DD-X does not keep long and assume that I had old developer, despite not having opened it when I bought it app. 1 years ago. I will not use DD-X again.


Rodinal stand development (1+100; 1 hour) has worked well. I expose a Kodak grey card for zone I at various EIs and read densities with a Heiland densitometer.


My particular, first round, results are:


120 Foma 100 has an EI of app. 64


120 FP4+ has an EI of app. 160


120 Delta 100 has an EI of app. 125


35mm Agfaphoto APX 100 has an EI of app. 160


This is very different from my experience with the two-bath and (assumed) lower EIs. I should maybe have tried Tri-X in Rodinal 1+100 also, but this film has become quite expensive.


I will try these EIs and meter for Zone IV in the shadows when travelling over the coming months.

This sounds suspiciously like a developer problem.

That said, I've found that tabular grain films seem to not respond as nicely to semistand or EMA processing ... or at least not with Pyrocat-HD, which is my usual go-to developer. The tab films seem to not stain really well, so it may not really be the agitation discipline that's the root of my objection.

As to your "surprising" EI results ...

Very long standing development will allow shadows to develop to completion, so you nominally get full box speed. But this fundamentally depends upon what you declare to be the shadow density you're shooting for. There is nothing magical about 0.1 DU above FB+F for Zone I or whatever the cool kids say you should be using. How you place shadows also matters. Finally, your meter and thermometer calibration matter. So your "personal" EI can be all over the place depending on these variables.

In my case - with my meters, thermometer, and placement discipline - I pretty much get a personal EI of full box speed with every film/dev combo I have tried. That is, shadows placed on III show just a hint of detail. But I don't quite think that's enough and so I increasingly have tended to do shadow placement between III and IV to give me more to work with in these darker areas of the image. Since semistand/EMA allow highlight to quickly develop to exhaustion, this extra half stop isn't a concern for blowing out the highlights.

As always, YMMV.

 

[Rrrgcy]

Lovely photos your Media, you take as I, but what’s a Window Tax (Image of bldg w windows brIcked up in avoidance)? That you have nothing to show from Stan Development is a shame as results can’t even be managed as “art.”

Maybe each time you commit to Stand Development you judiciously pre-pay a “Stand Development tax“ into a jar which would afford you later to buy a few rolls in compensation to your development losses. I’ve unfortunately nothing to add in value to the problem but wanted to mention nice image making (in your Media list), obviously.

 

[retina_restoration]

"Stand" development has become some kind of mystical "it will perform miracles" development scheme, and many new-ish/new film photographers are seduced by its promise of perfect exposures every time, and all manner of nonsense imaginary properties.
So no - it's no surprise that someone used DD-X as a stand developer and got crap results. I wish the whole concept would just go away. So much BS baked into the mythology of "stand".

 

[chuckroast]

"Stand" development has become some kind of mystical "it will perform miracles" development scheme, and many new-ish/new film photographers are seduced by its

Not by anyone who actually understands what it can- and cannot do, and where it makes sense.

promise of perfect exposures every time, and all manner of nonsense imaginary properties.

I've never seen this claim, at least not recently.

So no - it's no surprise that someone used DD-X as a stand developer and got crap results. I wish the whole concept would just go away.

So much BS baked into the mythology of "stand".

And this is based what experience, exactly, on your part? I see people making these broad brush statements having done little- or, more usually no really testing of their own.

As it happens I have done a whole bunch of testing of stand in its various incarnations over the past few years. What is to say, I have tested a lot. That means I have a pretty good idea of how it works, when it fails, and even why it fails.

Stand - in some variations - works just fine. It works better than "fine" for certain SBR circumstances. For example, lighting situations where the overall SBR is very large but the mid tones essential to the image have a very short SBR with minimal separation. An overall large SBR would call for N- development. The problem is that doing this would compress the middle tones even further. With semistand or EMA you can expand the middle tones while holding back the highlights to both keep the overall SBR under control and make the middle tones actually have some microcontrast. Oh, and you'll get full film speed too. The mid tones are usually what makes an image really pop, so they matter a lot, and optimizing them is important.

Stand - and its variations - at least in my testing, will not work well when you already have a nice mid tone separation and contrast because it will exaggerate it too much. This is especially true if the mid tone areas feature highly textured surfaces that - when combined with local contrast expansion - will give you a kind of graphic arts effect that isn't that great (unless that's what you're going for).

In my testing, using stand with superadditive developers like DK-50 and HC-110 was no bueno because these developers are so active that they way over emphasize middle tone contrast to the point of being obnoxious.

Solvent developers will not work well with stand variation with smaller formats. To be able to stand a long time, you have to super dilute. But a super dilute solvent developer - like, say D-23 - becomes high accutance when you do this and it really emphasizes visible grain with small negatives. The fix for that is to use Pyrocat-HD which doesn't remotely have the same behavior even at high dilution and has some stain that masks grain.

And finally, you cannot do any of this if you do not make sure that the film is suspended well above the bottom of the tank and that the surface in contact with the film is minmized. That means no plastic reels, no Yankee sheet film contraptions, no sheet film frames. Sheet film should be either handled in tubes or suspended with minimal contact clips. Roll film should only be handled only with thin spiral stainless reels like Nikors, and these should be suspended off the tank bottom with an inverted funnel.

Everything I wrote above comes from hundreds of hours of reading, research, and experimentation - some of which is ongoing. I am converging on the belief that - for most subjects - Extreme Minimal Agitation over long periods of time is preferred to give best edge effect, minimize risk of drag, and keep the middle tone contrast from becoming overly accentuated.

When something fails, it's not because of mythology (usually, at least in this domain), it's caused by ignorance, a lack of testing, giving up before really shaking out a new technique and so forth.

I have made both my notes and examples of successes and failure available for others to use in their own pursuit of this approach. In the end, it's just another arrow in the quiver, but it sure ain't mythology ...

See: https://gitbucket.tundraware.com/tundra/Stand-Development

 

[Milpool]

OP states he got no development. That’s not a stand vs no-stand issue. Something else went wrong in the process.

 

[JerseyDoug]

I've had many hobbies over the years, and I haven't found anything equivalent to stand development in those communities. Not in auto racing, not in skiing, fishing, gaming, cooking, or aviation. I wonder how it would have looked like?

- Racing in the neutral gear was a disappointment!
- Fishing in the desert was a disappointment!
- Flying backwards was a disappointment!
- Sex in a hammock was a disappointment!

The closest equivalent to stand development I know of in cooking is the Roman method of making garum. It typically took about a year. The results would vary and only a few batches would command the highest prices.

 

[chuckroast]

OP states he got no development. That’s not a stand vs no-stand issue. Something else went wrong in the process.

Yes, I think this implicates the developer first and foremost.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

This sounds suspiciously like a developer problem.

That said, I've found that tabular grain films seem to not respond as nicely to semistand or EMA processing ... or at least not with Pyrocat-HD, which is my usual go-to developer. The tab films seem to not stain really well, so it may not really be the agitation discipline that's the root of my objection.

As to your "surprising" EI results ...

Very long standing development will allow shadows to develop to completion, so you nominally get full box speed. But this fundamentally depends upon what you declare to be the shadow density you're shooting for. There is nothing magical about 0.1 DU above FB+F for Zone I or whatever the cool kids say you should be using. How you place shadows also matters. Finally, your meter and thermometer calibration matter. So your "personal" EI can be all over the place depending on these variables.

In my case - with my meters, thermometer, and placement discipline - I pretty much get a personal EI of full box speed with every film/dev combo I have tried. That is, shadows placed on III show just a hint of detail. But I don't quite think that's enough and so I increasingly have tended to do shadow placement between III and IV to give me more to work with in these darker areas of the image. Since semistand/EMA allow highlight to quickly develop to exhaustion, this extra half stop isn't a concern for blowing out the highlights.

As always, YMMV.

I've gotten very good response from TMY-2, semi-stand in Pyrocat-HD. Good staining, good shadow compensation, and exceptional sharpness.

 

[chuckroast]

I've gotten very good response from TMY-2, semi-stand in Pyrocat-HD. Good staining, good shadow compensation, and exceptional sharpness.

What dilution, agitation discipline, time, an EI are you using?

 

[Ulrik Christiansen]

I am still using DD-X from a bottle I opened almost one year after I bought it. Further, I split it into a lot of 50ml bottle (I only use 1+9 dilution in 500ml tanks) and after having these in store for more than half a yeah, I still get fine results with 1+9 dilution. I don't usually do stand development with DD-X, but I recently tried 40 minute stand with Kentmere 400, DD-X 1+9 and, although grainy, I can see myself using the stand method again. These were shot with a Canonet QL17III, 2 of them shot in Copenhagen .