digitaltruth.com

Bonderer · 2010-04-11T08:38:39+00:00

Die Herstellerangaben zur Filmentwicklung werden immer dürftiger, es gibt aber lobenswerte Ausnahmen. Bei den Herstellern hat man kaum noch Ansprechpartner d...

Bonderer

Manufacturers’ instructions for film development are becoming increasingly sparse, though there are some commendable exceptions. It’s now rare to find anyone at the manufacturers who can help or offer advice. The salespeople are in charge there – turnover takes precedence over service. Here’s a tip on film development. At digitaltruth.com, you’ll find almost every conceivable combination of film and developer. Various dilutions, sections for 35mm roll and sheet films, and speed. There is also a sort of appendix explaining the numerical and letter codes under the ‘Notes’ section. It is in English, but very well structured. If you like, you can pick a film and get the development times for every developer you can imagine; the same works with developers too, where you’ll find all the corresponding films. It may not be 100% complete, but it’s very comprehensive. I’ve tried a few things out and was very impressed. I achieved such good results on my very first attempt that I don’t really need to change anything, and that’s been the case with every attempt. Good luck with your experiments.

Stewe

The site is really great and is a huge help to me as a beginner who’s planning to start developing black-and-white 35mm films soon. I just have a question about the times: Phototec’s development time calculator gives different times to the table on Digitaltruth. When comparing Agfa APX 100 and Rodinal 1+50, it’s clear that the data in Phototec’s development time calculator is obviously out of date. Now to my question: should I stick to the Digitaltruth table or the Phototec development time calculator? As a beginner, I’d find it really helpful to have fixed figures to follow for the first few rolls, until I gain more experience and work out my own times. Best regards, Steffen

Wolf_XL

"Now to the question: should I stick to the table from Digitaltruth or the development time calculator from Phototec?" ...neither – just go with the values that work best for you... Basically, these values – wherever they come from – are merely guidelines. You’ll have to find out for yourself whether they work for you. When developing film, temperature, agitation rate and water quality play a major role. It would be a highly unlikely coincidence if your thermometer showed exactly the same reading, your agitation rate were exactly the same, and your tap water contained the same additional components... Another, not insignificant factor is the actual speed achieved in the respective developer, or the gamma you achieve during development at the rated speed... As you can see, it’s not that simple... It’s best to start by choosing a tried-and-tested film/developer combination and work your way up from the specifications on the package to a result that satisfies you.

MarcS

The Digitaltruth website is really great. I think the iPhone app is brilliant. You can finally retire that old lab stopwatch... and you can use it for paper tests too, as you can create your own database. Best regards Marc