Infinity developer for film.

For all those who just can NOT bring themselves to do testing of film.

For all those who crave the best of all possibilities in film development, but without a care in the world.

And yet, they want to absolute best negatives possible for both printing and scanning there is a solution (ha! Ha! PUN!!!).

Now, be warned that this is absolutely true and I have no ax to grind and they nay-sayers can run the test and prove that this can not be true. Find great truth. In the end they will be dragged over to the dark side!

It is the Yellow God who done this, why? Because they could and they were always THAT arrogant (I learned a lot from them). Oh for those who do not know the phrase “Great Yellow God of Photography” is The Eastman Kodak Company, or simply Kodak.

So Kodak has made two of these developers. Back when I was just a foundling in photography I stumbled upon the first developer, Kodak’s HC-110. STOP! The HC-110 of today is NOT the HC-110 from the past. So no point in trying to make it work. BUT! If you find the vary old stocks from the post WW II era, it is still good and you can make it work, but then why bother. The point is that the old, vary old HC-110 was the first of two infinity developers.

The new improved infinity developer is Kodak T-Max RS Developer. Yes you can use it according to the instructions Kodak gives you and all the instructions found on the internet. These are the regular instructions and it all works quite well if you like the results and you are traditional photo nerd or photographer. I am NOT that sort of boy!

When you have set up the developer properly you can do a batch of film, mix all brands, types and speeds together and follow the modern techniques of T-Grain technology development and you will get from the film a negative that is perfect to print.

You will discover that there is a single ideal exposure index (EI) for each film that is made. Film types do indeed hold inherent variants of sharpness, grain, speed and such. The t-Grain technology films will reveal the greatest latitude for the developer. Yet it matters not if you are using old school film or modern tabular grain technology (T-Grain films). It is just that the tabular technology films will have greater advantages to variants.

Kodak T-Max RS Developer is designed to produce a result that is highly speculative in the minds of those who embrace the whole ‘art’ approach to film processing. These would be those who swear to the Zone System as a way of technology. All of this is fine and I have no argument with this system. BUT to deny the existence of other approaches is what has created the void between what is referenced as production style work (business) and those who tinker for the fun of tinkering. AGAIN, I am the most extreme of tinkers, but I also know a good thing when it jumps in my lap and smoozes me.

So, this will not only not be believed, it will be denied. Fine by me, but it does work and it is amazing. Oh, how do I know it works? I have processed thousands of rolls of film and well over several thousands of sheets of film from 4X5 to 8X10. So I know it works and it worked so well that all of my film for some seven years was processed using this process.

Here though is the crazy shit you will need to do. First, mix up a gallon of the developer. Because you will be developing a quart or pint at a time, you will transfer the additional developer, that will become the replenisher, into small glass jars (so it will not oxidize).

Now the realy hard part, start by developing film in the developer, use it to exhaustion. For reference figure out how many rolls a quart took to exhaust that developer batch. DO NOT DISCARD this, you are conditioning the developer. Now get some ‘junk’ B&W film and develop it in the ‘exhausted’ developer. Try five 36 exposure lengths. Now set it aside for a day or two, DO NOT REPLENISH or you will screw things up. Now shoot a roll of film of something, anything and do it properly but don’t waste time, shoot some target over and over. Now develop the film in the ‘exhausted’ developer. If the negatives look super flat and are not clear and crisp, you still have not exhausted the developer far enough. Let the developer rest a day or two and do another test roll or two through the developer. This should do it, but if not follow the procedure again. By now the developer is ready for use. So go shoot a test roll and, replenish the developer after that last roll and develop the roll of film.

Now, I can not tell you just how many rolls or sheets you can do in your batch before you run into a loss of quality. When I was doing this I was using a stainless steel tank system of 3.5 gallons. On a heavy day of processing I would do three sets of 20 rolls each in a rack and follow it with 15 to 30 sheets of 8X10 film. I would on such days I would replenish the tank by raising the mark on the side of the tank so that I would get full even coverage of the top of the film. So replenishment was done by both need and eye. I stopped keeping records, I saw no point. I used this batch of developer, relishing as needed for six years with no change to the developer.

So here are your technical restrictions, take them to the bank. On this I am not joking, you need to do these things or you will get poor results.

No pre wetting of film.

Agitation is initially 45 seconds to 60 seconds.

After the initial agitation, you must agitate each 30 seconds interval. (NOT each minute).

As you begin processing you must have a temperature in the tank of at least 74F, and the temperature must not be above 80F. I found the best results at 78F. Everything going into the tank was stainless steel and the rooms were air conditioned for 74F. Starting the big tanks and reels at 74F gave some what less than optimum results.

I never filtered the developer. I would dump the tank and always found a sludge of black particles on the bottom of the tank. I did do a sample bottle with filtered and unfiltered developer but found no real differences in the film developed. So I never did mess with filtering the fine sludge.

WARNING!!! The developer MUST be used about each three months or it will die and nothing seemed to reactivate it back for use.

One last and vary helpful social suggestion; I would give a quart of the developer to departing students and photographers. They would use the developer to process film and would replenish by site (usually after processing film, they would simply top up the storage bottle). The developer would last for years. One guy used it as a base to ‘grow’ a gallon of developer (with two quarts the developer and two quarts of replenisher), he was doing sheet film in a small tank.

So there you have it.
T-Max 100 (TMX) EI 160
T-Max 400 (TMY) EI 800
T-Max P-3200 (TMZ) EI 1200
Tri-X EI 400
Ilford Delta 400, EI 600

That should help getting you started.

The next topic will be just as long and will be about printing with variable contrast paper and filters. How good will it be? You may actually end up shredding your current set of prints! (This will sound so full of myself! LOL!!!) if you have read or herd of the ‘multiple filter method’ of printing, I’m the guy who ‘invented’ it. No one is doing it correctly so look for that thread!