Re: Digital Carbon Negatives

From: Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>
Subject: RE: Digital Carbon Negatives
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 19:58:17 -0500

> 2. Many people are using films that are less than ideal for
> alternative printing because they have such a high rise in B+F from
> the longer development times we must give them to get enough
> contrast. Films like BPF and HP5+ are good examples. And of course,
> as I noted above, an increase of 0.15 for a traditional negatives
> becomes an effective increase of 0.30 to 0.45 for a stained negative.
>
> What to do?

Why don't people use antifoggant like 1-phenyl-5-mercaptotetrazole or
one of benzotriazoles? I suggest PMT in 3-10% of phenidone by weight,
or benzotriazole in 50-100% (same) as a starting point. You can use
KBr as well.

> 4. If you must shoot films like BPF and HP5+ in very flat lighting I
> would recommend that you either develop the film in a Pyro developer
> that does not produce a lot of stain, ABC Pyro at the 1:1:1:7
> dilution for example, or use a very high energy developer like Kodak
> D19, which you will have to mix from scratch.

If highest contrast is desired, D-11 is probably a better choice than
D-19. You can still buy D-19 in a bag (at least last when I checked)
but you have to mix D-11 from bulk chemicals. These developers contain
KBr and fog increase with these developer should be pretty minimal.

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie." (Bob Dylan 2000)