Fomapan In D23

I

Ian-Barber

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After mixing sone Kodak D23 developer a few weeks ago, I have developed around 320 sq ins of film in the stock solution and another 80 sq inches after the first replenishment.

The testing I have been doing was to get a development time as close as I could to give me a Zone 8 density of about 1.29 for my regular 5x4 film which happens to be FomaPan

The end results which yielded a density of 1.31 for my workflow using the SP-445 daylight development tank has ended up at 7 minutes at 20 degrees centigrade in Kodak D23.

Here is a scan using the Epson V800 of the negative and the positive after it was converted using ColorPerfect.

FomaPan Negative

FomaPan D23 7 Minutes.jpg

FomaPan Positive

FomaPan D23 7 Minutes Positive.jpg
 
Which Fomapan was this Ian?
After some confusion with Silverprint I'm getting in a stock of Fomapan 200 5x7 rather than the 100 I ordered: nearly a week of waiting for a £200+order to turn up ... then 'oh we should have phoned you last week to say it was out of stock'. Yep they should have done!

I'm using Fomapan100 in 5x4 developed in Rodinal.
 
Having shot a lot of Fomapan 100 & 200 a few hunded rolls over the past 14 years I decided to stick to the 200 last year, in practice the differences aren't noticeable in terms of grain, sharpness, & tonality, and the 200 has that extr stop in terms of speed. At half the price of Ilford 25 sheet packs for a box of 50 sheets it's a bit of a no brainer :D expecially with 7x5 and 10x8.

Must place an oder for a few boxes of 10x8 :)

Ian
 
Marley said:
Which Fomapan was this Ian?
After some confusion with Silverprint I'm getting in a stock of Fomapan 200 5x7 rather than the 100 I ordered: nearly a week of waiting for a £200+order to turn up ... then 'oh we should have phoned you last week to say it was out of stock'. Yep they should have done!

I'm using Fomapan100 in 5x4 developed in Rodinal.
Click to expand...

This was FomaPan 200
 
I agree with Ian that there doesn't seem to be much difference, visually, between Foma 100 and Foma 200. But Foma 400 is a different kettle of fish. The 400 has real character, making the 100 and 200, and Fp4 and HP5, look quite bland.

Alan
 
Alan Clark said:
I agree with Ian that there doesn't seem to be much difference, visually, between Foma 100 and Foma 200. But Foma 400 is a different kettle of fish. The 400 has real character, making the 100 and 200, and Fp4 and HP5, look quite bland.

Alan
Click to expand...
I have shot a lot on Foma 400 in rollfilm ... and was impressed ... I love the grain structure and the somewhat 'old fashioned' ... maybe even 'film noir' vibe.
 
I use D-23 as an alternative to Pyrocat-HD for semistand processing in certain circumstances. I use a minimal contact "pinch" style old school Kodak frameless film hanger in open tanks. The process is:

  • 3min presoak in running water @20C
  • 2min vigorous agitation in D-23 1:1 @20C
  • 10-20 sec agitation at the 30min mark
  • Pull the film at 60min and stop/fix/wash

I shoot the film at box ASA and place carefully for shadows on III. This gives me excellent result with that development discipline.
 
thronobulax said:
I use D-23 as an alternative to Pyrocat-HD for semistand processing in certain circumstances. I use a minimal contact "pinch" style old school Kodak frameless film hanger in open tanks. The process is:

  • 3min presoak in running water @20C
  • 2min vigorous agitation in D-23 1:1 @20C
  • 10-20 sec agitation at the 30min mark
  • Pull the film at 60min and stop/fix/wash

I shoot the film at box ASA and place carefully for shadows on III. This gives me excellent result with that development discipline.
Click to expand...

I have also done some test similar to this and agree, the results are very good. I was wondering if 1+3 would give better compensating and edge effects.
 
Ian-Barber said:
I have also done some test similar to this and agree, the results are very good. I was wondering if 1+3 would give better compensating and edge effects.
Click to expand...


I have also wanted to try this. The problem one might encounter is that there is so little Metol in D-23 to begin with that diluting it this much might be "too far" - I still think it's worth a try.

With 1:1 I keep reusing the same batch, BTW. I expect that at 6 months I will replace half of it with newly mixed developer. Why not the whole batch? Because - it is rumoured - that D-23 improves with age and only needs some freshly added developer, not complete replacement. This, apparently, was the practice of the old commercial labs and pros that used it in large open tanks in the past.
 
thronobulax said:
it is rumoured - that D-23 improves with age and only needs some freshly added developer, not complete replacement
Click to expand...

I have also read this so at the moment I am replenishing the D23 with 22ml of replenisher (DK25-R) after 1 roll or 4 x 5x4 sheets
 
There is a good video on youtube by John Finch about making D23. Just search for Pictorial Planet.
 
I was told, some time ago, that the half-quantity replacement was because there is indeed a change in performance over time and replacing the whole tank would have changed the negatives in a way that was inconvenient. Better or worse wasn’t mentioned, just consistency. Replacing half was an acceptable compromise.
 
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