[Leica] Developer for Neopan 1600/TMax 3200

[freakscene at weirdness.com (Marty Deveney)]

The problem with apparent sharpness or acutance is that it rarely has much 
to do with resolution.  TMX, for instance, has excellent resolution (from 
Kodak's charts), but quite low acutance.

I use Acros when I want to record fine detail - I have measured that it is 
finer grained than APX 25 was and it looks nicer to me than Delta 100, TMX 
or any of the other comparable films.  It is a monosize cubic-grain 
emulsion, which for me seems to offer the best advantages of modern 
technologies, but do not have the processing touchiness of flat-grain or 
epitaxial emulsions.  I can't get it to work in Xtol 1+3, so I use 1+1 or a 
home-made equivalent with the same developing agents as Xtol 1+1, but with 
the sulfite of 1+3.

Xtol is remarkable and works better than most ascorbate developers because 
it works at high dilution and moderate (Kodak calls it 'mildly alkaline') 
pH.  Other more normal developers that contain ascorbate at higher pH work 
well, but not as well as Xtol.

>THE future of my silver developing my go in Metol Ascorbic acid developers.

There are some metol ascorbate developers described by Pat Gainer here:
http://www.apug.org/forums/forum223/39769-experiments-metol-ascorbic-acid.html

>And Pyro with Metol.

There is a pyro ascorbate developer here:
http://www.digitaltruth.com/techdata/article-stainingdev.php
you could replace the phenidone with metol (you need more metol than 
phenidone) and go from there.  The TEA will definitely provide a high enough 
pH to activate those developing agents.

Good luck,

Marty


Gallery:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/main.php?g2_itemId=7617

Most people can only judge of things by the experiences of ordinary life, 
but phenomena outside the scope of this are really quite numerous.
        Shen Kuo - 'Dream Pool Essays'


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