HenningH
Hello,
I’ve been leafing through some older books again recently (I was actually looking for the composition of E102...).
Willi Beutler used a developer for the ‘new 35mm films’ consisting of 50ml of ‘A’, 25ml of ‘B’ and 500ml of water (i.e. 0.5g of metol and 2.5g of soda).
In the sixth edition (1978) of “Dunkelkammerpraxis”, Beutler then mentions that many amateurs and processing laboratories found the “new films” too hard, so that some film manufacturers had adjusted the gradient to make it softer. For these films, as well as “today’s” high- and ultra-high-speed films, he then recommended using 25ml each of “A”, “B” and “C” (i.e. 0.25g metol, 0.25g hydroquinone and 2.5g soda).
Until now, I had always thought that these were the original recipes for Neofin Blaue and Red.
However, Tetenal’s safety data sheet for Neofin Blaue now states that this developer contains metol, hydroquinone and potash...
Apart from potash as an alkali (which is more strongly activated than soda???), the addition of hydroquinone would, after all, alter the characteristics of the developer quite significantly. Has this always been the case, or has Tetenal, with the disappearance of the original ADOX films, adapted the formula to match the ‘other’ films (Agfa, Ilford, Kodak), so that today’s ‘blue’ corresponds to the former ‘red’...?
Or did Schleussner-Werke also produce the 35mm films with a softer emulsion? Which formula do the current CHS emulsions then correspond to?
Interestingly, Ultrafin liquid seems to contain only Metol as a developer...
I’m (once again) confused...
Swinging regards
Henning
