The 2013 New Year Lecture...

 Working with old developer

This won't be a nice, in-depth tutorial, because it is still very much work in progress, but nevertheless...
You all know by now that I love to use old stuff: cameras and film, but also chemicals. (I use that word because I once had Russian seventies фиксаж... hà!)

Normally I use reliable Rodinal, at the moment "Promicrol" (the q.m. because it's not real Promicrol any more, alas), but if I can get it: Tabloid, Реактив (great stuff!), Montauk - the older the better.

Yes, there are some problems.
Fluids, like Tetenal Neofin, tend to disappear into thin air - and they don't work.



But the powders - the only problem, sometimes, is to get them out of the tube, or the envelope. When that is difficult, I just put everything (yes: developer, activator, glass, paper and stoppers) in the water, wait (leave it covered in the dark) and filter it. Works.

Wòrks? Yes, they work. Young seventies РЕАКТИВ or a century old   
Eastman, they will develop your film. The solution can be clear, cloudy or dark brown - that doesn't matter.

Developing time: I follow the decades old instructions. (! That's not me...)

Mostly I make 500 ml, and use that for let's say 4 or 5 films, but it dies rather suddenly - and in fact I am happy when I get one or two films out of it.

Dating: yes, that ìs a problem. The Ucrainian stamp it on, nice. Sometimes there is a manual with names of film, or the firm still exists. Often it's just educated guessing.



But always: surprise, satisfaction. Admiration, too. FUN.

Back to BatenBurg...

...because I have a soft spot for this lovely village since I made a documentary about the stunning organ they have in the old church.



It is small, sometimes the car is bigger than the house.

Near the ruins is a charming, almost hidden garden, and at the river you'll see avocets and spoonbills, shelducks and terns and all kinds of plovers and - well, that's more for my other blog, where you can also see: the mill. Of course they have a mill! Very analogue.

Today, in 2012...

Then and now 36

Once upon a time Nijmegen was a famous flower city for tourists. Today I had a déjà-vu from the late sixties, when I visited sunny Czechoslovakia.
Yes, it is the same avenue, railway station in the back,  and there are still some fountains.

BW&Co Tabloid still going strong on FP in the Olympus half frame.

Mills in Tabloid

The 1926 BW&Co Tabloid developer does produce a stronger fog on the 1973 Ilford FP, but that doesn't affect the image, nor the weather. In the 1982 Agfa Optima.

The mill above: "Progress", in Oeffelt.
Left "de Hamse Molen" in Wanroy where I tasted the cherry pie, of course, from B. Maassen. Sweet!

Tabloid

"Tabloid", did start just as a design ( ovoid tablet ) and then started a war when compact papers stole the name. BW&Co. lost that, alas. But their developer, from around 1926 was superb: the cloudy solution still works almost 90 years later. Look at the small picture, that's 10% of the whole negative. (Shanghai GP3!)

Good advice?

I got this with some very exciting Tabloid developer from Burroughs Wellcome & Co.
I can't find a date, probably ± 1926, "for Gaslight Papers and Lantern Slides".
Not sure if I want grease on my fingers when handling film in the developer...

("Hazeline" still exists; I will explain the word Tabloid when I show the results of the developer test later, it's interesting.)