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Author Topic: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt  (Read 6510 times)

EinstStein

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My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« on: August 12, 2018, 02:11:12 pm »

I am picking up film again. I am thinking to use standing development as my standard development practice.
Here, I use the term standing development loosely. It includes full standing development, semi-standing development, or minimum agitation, that suppose to compress the global contrast while promote the micro contrast. I want avoid dodging and burning.

But, after I searched a lot of web photos, I can hardly find shared photos that I can admire. All of therm, so far, looks weird in the tonal rendering. I am sure this is largely my personal taste.

Here's a mix of my observation and thinking. The effects of standing development, in the terminology of signal processing in the spatial domain, is to compress the low frequency response  while amplify the high frequency response.   

Try it in your audio, turn down significantly the low frequency channel and turn up significantly the high frequency channel. I am sure it is very likely to make your music unpleasantly ugly. That is exactly what I feel in the web photos, even include all photos from Sandy King and Michael Sherman.

Of course, this bad effect can be reduced if knowing how to apply it wisely. But I guess in the end, it is not use stand development.
 
 
 
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Jim Kasson

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2018, 03:19:13 pm »

I am picking up film again. I am thinking to use standing development as my standard development practice.
Here, I use the term standing development loosely. It includes full standing development, semi-standing development, or minimum agitation, that suppose to compress the global contrast while promote the micro contrast. I want avoid dodging and burning.

But, after I searched a lot of web photos, I can hardly find shared photos that I can admire. All of therm, so far, looks weird in the tonal rendering. I am sure this is largely my personal taste.

Here's a mix of my observation and thinking. The effects of standing development, in the terminology of signal processing in the spatial domain, is to compress the low frequency response  while amplify the high frequency response.   

Try it in your audio, turn down significantly the low frequency channel and turn up significantly the high frequency channel. I am sure it is very likely to make your music unpleasantly ugly. That is exactly what I feel in the web photos, even include all photos from Sandy King and Michael Sherman.

Of course, this bad effect can be reduced if knowing how to apply it wisely. But I guess in the end, it is not use stand development.
 

Using extremely low amounts of agitation in development is the equivalent of applying a low-cut spatial filter to a normally-developed negative. However, unless you are really careful or really lucky, it runs the risk of introducing motteling artifacts. You can perform a similar operation in printing a normal negative with diffuse contrast reduction masks, but this is time consuming and fiddly, and you'll need a pin-registration system. Contrast reduction masks, however, afford multiple tries to get the effect you're looking for.

Jim

EinstStein

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2018, 04:20:15 pm »

Using extremely low amounts of agitation in development is the equivalent of applying a low-cut spatial filter to a normally-developed negative. However, unless you are really careful or really lucky, it runs the risk of introducing motteling artifacts. You can perform a similar operation in printing a normal negative with diffuse contrast reduction masks, but this is time consuming and fiddly, and you'll need a pin-registration system. Contrast reduction masks, however, afford multiple tries to get the effect you're looking for.

Jim

Yes, Silver masking is suppose to have the similar effect. It takes more efforts and I happen still have the old stuffs that  I used for Ilfochrome. The good thing about the silve masking is I can control the strength of the masking individually. This has the fundamental difference from the blind spatial filter effect of the stand development.

But, even silver masking still requires film development, and I am almost sure this step cannot be stand development.


   

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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2018, 06:55:39 am »

I did standing developement back in day. I worked in various commercial photo labs. So here goes a little theory as I remember it.

The more light that strikes a light sensitive emulsion the more the developer works on it and the larger the build up of black metallic silver which is what forms the image. Logical of course. You don’t want shadow areas to have the same density as highlights or you don’t have an image. It must be proportional. The thing is when you develope for longer the shadows and highlights get further apart with the highlights developing much faster thatthe detail building up in the shadows. So when you are hoping to push the film to a higher ASA what happens is contrast builds faster that shadow detail. This is unfortunate since iso is determined at the point where density rises by a specific amount above the base fog. Base fog is an unexposed piece of film that has been developed and fixed as normal. There is a little bit of density gain from the developer eccentric in areas of film that received no exposure due to a chemical fog despite the presence of a retrained in the developer designed to inhibit this occurrence. The film needs to be developed at a gamma of 0,62 I think it was for black and white negative film when determining the speed point.

Agitation is designed to remove developer from the gelatins emulsion that has been exhausted by the development process and replace it with fresh developer. Since developer is working harder in highlight areas it is quickly exhausted in those areas and stop working faster than in shadow areas. Allowing film to stand for up to an hour without agaitation has the effect of arresting the developement of highlight areas due to develope exhaustion while developement continues slowly in shadow areas thus boosting that detail and giving a speed increase while minimizing excessive contrast build up.

That is the mainstream theory behind this development plan.

When working as an aerial photographer for the military I was involved in a study with Kodak based on the theory that silver migrated and clumped as long as the emulsion was wet, adding to grain. Kind of counterintuitive since so many fine grain developers such as promicrol had very long developer times. What we found was that Kodak was correct and keeping developer times to under a minute, tricky for many reasons, gave us surprisingly fine grain. We did this using Kodalk a Kodak propriety accelerator, essentially a strong alkaline. I bring this up because the long development times of standing developement procedures give a lot of grain in my experience and this could be a reason. 
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EinstStein

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2018, 08:52:33 pm »

It is well known that to grow the salt crystal from a salty water, you do not want to start with high concentration, and you dont want to do it quick.  The more dilute and slower, the bigger the salt crystal.
I think your observation seems consistent with this.

Personally I have more problems on the unatural twisted global contrast and local contrast.


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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2018, 01:56:13 am »

I would be keen to some examples. Are you making a conventional silver print or scanning and printing digitally?
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EinstStein

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2018, 04:51:42 pm »

I would be keen to some examples. Are you making a conventional silver print or scanning and printing digitally?

No, I did Silver masking back when I print Ilfochrome. I am thinking may be a center filter mask on the film plane might work, if I can hold it in the camera, before the film.   

But for now, I am looking for a solution to use my GX617/90mm without center filer. Digital scan and print.  My darkroom equipment is limited to 4x5.     
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donbga

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2018, 10:21:08 pm »

I am picking up film again. I am thinking to use standing development as my standard development practice.
Here, I use the term standing development loosely. It includes full standing development, semi-standing development, or minimum agitation, that suppose to compress the global contrast while promote the micro contrast. I want avoid dodging and burning.

But, after I searched a lot of web photos, I can hardly find shared photos that I can admire. All of therm, so far, looks weird in the tonal rendering. I am sure this is largely my personal taste.

Here's a mix of my observation and thinking. The effects of standing development, in the terminology of signal processing in the spatial domain, is to compress the low frequency response  while amplify the high frequency response.   

Try it in your audio, turn down significantly the low frequency channel and turn up significantly the high frequency channel. I am sure it is very likely to make your music unpleasantly ugly. That is exactly what I feel in the web photos, even include all photos from Sandy King and Michael Sherman.

Of course, this bad effect can be reduced if knowing how to apply it wisely. But I guess in the end, it is not use stand development.
 
 
 

Are you using roll film or sheet film? In my experience sheet film works very well with stand developer; with roll film you will need to agitate minimally to prevent streaking or moltling. I think you perhaps mean Steve Sherman not Michael Sherman. Sandy showed me the difference in sharpness of negatives made with and without stand development, and it was noticeably different.

Of course your mileage may vary, but I can hardily recommend Pyrocat HD for stand development. I also recommend an acid stop bath to adjust the pH of the film properly prior to fixing (actually an acid stop should always be used regardless of development/developer used). 

Having said all that I don't use stand development any longer. Instead I use TMAX developer and rotary agitate in a Jobo simply to save time, but I do encourage you to experiment with the technique.

Don Bryant
 
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EinstStein

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #8 on: August 27, 2018, 11:53:52 pm »

Are you using roll film or sheet film? In my experience sheet film works very well with stand developer; with roll film you will need to agitate minimally to prevent streaking or moltling. I think you perhaps mean Steve Sherman not Michael Sherman. Sandy showed me the difference in sharpness of negatives made with and without stand development, and it was noticeably different.

Of course your mileage may vary, but I can hardily recommend Pyrocat HD for stand development. I also recommend an acid stop bath to adjust the pH of the film properly prior to fixing (actually an acid stop should always be used regardless of development/developer used). 

Having said all that I don't use stand development any longer. Instead I use TMAX developer and rotary agitate in a Jobo simply to save time, but I do encourage you to experiment with the technique.

Don Bryant

Tried, don't like it, and searched the shared photos from experts good at stand development. Don't appreciate any either.
I feel stand development has its advantage as a special technique for push processing. That's all.  For well exposed films, I would do "standard development (by all means)" not "Stand development".
 
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Jim Kasson

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2018, 01:24:45 pm »

Tried, don't like it, and searched the shared photos from experts good at stand development. Don't appreciate any either.
I feel stand development has its advantage as a special technique for push processing. That's all.  For well exposed films, I would do "standard development (by all means)" not "Stand development".

In my mind, standing development is not particularly useful for push processing, where you usually have plenty of local contrast. If it's at all useful, it's for pulling, or minus processing.

Jim

EinstStein

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #10 on: August 28, 2018, 09:59:07 pm »

In my mind, standing development is not particularly useful for push processing, where you usually have plenty of local contrast. If it's at all useful, it's for pulling, or minus processing.

Jim

My observation is, Stand development tends to reduce the global contrast while increase the micro contrast. Doing it for push processing is aimed to reduce the global contrast.   
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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2018, 06:51:07 am »

My observation is, Stand development tends to reduce the global contrast while increase the micro contrast. Doing it for push processing is aimed to reduce the global contrast.

You are quite correct. It pushes up shadow density which is where film speed is determined without pushing highlight density by as much as it would normally go up by.
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EinstStein

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #12 on: August 30, 2018, 09:00:40 pm »

The mismatched dynamic range of the film to the paper (or the visual comfort range) is a common problem for non-experts like me. And I hate dodging and burning. This leads to the desire of reduce the global contrast. And this is what triggered me to practice the stand development. But soon I found it almost always causes unwanted damages.

What I learned, forBW negatives, the global contrast,,scene by scene, could be reduced by overexposure on the film, and extend the exposure on the paper. It works far better than the blind stand development.

With this, it leaves the micro-contrast control to the fine tuned development procedure. This is the area I have a lot of to improve.

No, even so, stand development will not be my choice.
     
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JeanMichel

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #13 on: September 01, 2018, 12:08:41 pm »

This may not be new to you, but you might want to re-visit such publications as “The Zone System” by Minor White, and “The Negative” by Ansel Adams.

In the darkroom (too many decades to count) I pretty much eliminated any variation in agitation -sheet or roll - and only adjusted the development time when needed.

Strictly from experience, I found that using a one-minute water bath instead of a stop bath and not agitating the film there gave me ‘better’ results. That of course meant that the fixer would expire sooner.
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EinstStein

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #14 on: September 02, 2018, 01:33:47 am »

This may not be new to you, but you might want to re-visit such publications as “The Zone System” by Minor White, and “The Negative” by Ansel Adams.

In the darkroom (too many decades to count) I pretty much eliminated any variation in agitation -sheet or roll - and only adjusted the development time when needed.

Strictly from experience, I found that using a one-minute water bath instead of a stop bath and not agitating the film there gave me ‘better’ results. That of course meant that the fixer would expire sooner.

Most those books I have read are lack of enginerring precise and concise explanation. Ansel Adam’s zone system, for examples, is only half way, probably dud to his artistic centric education back ground.

Darkroom is not black magic.  It is a physical reaction ..., OK, a chemical reaction if you Insist chemistry and physics are two different branches of physical world.  The interesting part is its connection to human’s visual response.











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donbga

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #15 on: September 02, 2018, 10:31:31 pm »

Most those books I have read are lack of enginerring precise and concise explanation.
So what sensitometric methods do you use to calibrate film exposure, development and printing?
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Rob C

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #16 on: September 03, 2018, 08:01:01 am »



Darkroom is not black magic.  It is a physical reaction ..., OK, a chemical reaction if you Insist chemistry and physics are two different branches of physical world.  The interesting part is its connection to human’s visual response.


Were you correct, then everyone could produce identical prints from the same negative, given they understood the chemistry.

That's obviously rubbish: most of the time the average printer has a hard time making identical prints.

Printing is as much about soul as is making the shot in the first place. And that's where it becomes different to computer printing, which can end up as nothing more than patience until the monkey writes the sonnet.

Rob

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #17 on: September 21, 2018, 12:07:27 pm »

You can simplify this type of development by controlling the contrast with the variable contrast paper and the enlarger allowing to mix yellow and magenta filtration.  The development process with the varying methods of agitation and also temperature* can then be used to fine tune the result.
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EinstStein

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #18 on: September 21, 2018, 04:41:18 pm »


Were you correct, then everyone could produce identical prints from the same negative, given they understood the chemistry.

That's obviously rubbish: most of the time the average printer has a hard time making identical prints.

Printing is as much about soul as is making the shot in the first place. And that's where it becomes different to computer printing, which can end up as nothing more than patience until the monkey writes the sonnet.

Rob

I don't know how you reach that conclusion,  but I have no objection it could be rubbish.
I only think most black magic resepe in film development should  be expressed with more pph6sics and image processing context.
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Rob C

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Re: My personal opinions on standing developmemnt
« Reply #19 on: September 23, 2018, 09:35:04 am »

I don't know how you reach that conclusion,  but I have no objection it could be rubbish.
I only think most black magic resepe in film development should  be expressed with more pph6sics and image processing context.


I reached that conclusion because understanding how to print does not automatically imply that you can make the same print look identical every time. You can bulk-process, and after some time of doing it every day, get pretty good at it, but you will, with your trained eye, still be able to detect things the client cannot see because he doesn't know how to look. If it was just down to chemistry or physics, then there should be no reason not to be able to repeat the same result for ever, as with digital; in that sense, it does contain its own "black magic" which is skill and experience rather than science alone.
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