Stand development with D76 or other developers? Speed increase? (2024)

Good evening to all,

after digging trough some threads about stand or semi-stand development I know the developer has to be highly diluted. I want to use sd for 35mm film, so the fine grain abilities of the developer are an issue. Could I use D76 diluted higher than usual, let´s say 1:5 or 1:10, for the sd method?

The second question: Does sd produce a real increase of film speed? That means, if I underexpose 1 or 2 stops, that I have the same details in the deepest shadows as with a normal exposed and developed negative.

Best regards,
Andreas

Don't do stand very often - but when I do - I use Rodinal 1+100. Here is one example of negative 35mm scan:

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regards,

D-76 is not a developer typically used for extreme dilution and stand development. That's not to say you can't do it, but you may run into problems of not enough developer in the total solution to do the job. I've heard of people using D-76 at 1:3 dilution, but at 1:5, I'd say you're on thin ice as far as making it work. If you do experiment with it at 1:5, I'd use twice the amount of total solution - 1 liter to develop 2 rolls, 1/2 liter to develop 1 roll of 35mm. Be aware, too, that enlarging 35mm that has been stand developed may show very exaggerated edge effects at big magnifications.

Rodinal or Pyrocat-HD seem to be good choices to try this method. I have used Photographer's Formulary TFX-2 successfully.

Peter Gomena

I've done stand development with d76 1+5 with two films; with Tri-X I got an unprintable grainy mush, and with Tmax 100 I got this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/din_27/4081282262/

I've shot Tri-X @ 6400, and developed in Rodinal 1+100, semi-stand 2 hours, 2 gentle inversions at 40 minutes, 2 gentle inversions at 1 hour 20 min.

Results are very nice.

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experiences and for the good advices. If I find the time I´ll give stand development a try and maybe I compare Rodinal 1+200 to 1+300 and D76 something between 1+5 and 1+10.

Best,
Andreas

A49 said:

after digging trough some threads about stand or semi-stand development I know the developer has to be highly diluted. I want to use sd for 35mm film, so the fine grain abilities of the developer are an issue.

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You don't say

you want to use stand development. Stand development has its uses but should not be used for routine film development. There are several down sides to this technique. For example the tonal scale of the negatives is distorted. As with so many things in photography there cannot be gain without a loss.

Any fine grain capability of a developer is lost with the high dilution required for this technique. For example, D-76 is a fine grain developer but once you use a dilution greater than 1:1 the fine grain is lost.

A49 said:

The second question: Does sd produce a real increase of film speed?

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I've never seen it in any of my negatives. I still place my shadows on Zone IV, even when using minimal agitation development. When I place them on Zone III I don't get sufficient detail in the shadows.