[Leica] Tri-X and D-23

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

On 1/16/06 5:48 AM, "Jeffery Smith" <jsmith342@cox.net> typed:

> Yes, that is pretty much what I got. I wasn't expecting to get such little
> grain that it couldn't really even be called "grain". I'm thinking that it
> might be a good people film/dev combination, but a terrible landscape
> combination. There doesn't seem to be a lot of sharpness anywhere (but I 
> was
> shooting wide open indoors under horrific lighting conditions with no
> ambient light and a big window to our right side).
> http://www.400tx.com/george.html
> 
> I'm ambivalent on it. The sheer simplicity of D-23 (two powders) makes me
> want to explore it a bit more, at least under some different conditions.
> 
> 
> Jeffery Smith
> New Orleans, LA
> http://www.400tx.com
> 
> 
d23 will give you just the kind of grain you'd like to get, depending how
much Sulfite you put in, it will be VERY smooth mushy fine grain at 100grams
per liter full strength. And will give you a crispy Rodinal almost grain at
around a tenth that; which I've done extensively, a bad analogy would be
"how much scotch grad do you want to spray on that raincoat? Do you want to
sweat all day but stay dry in a deluge? Never mind,
d23 is just giving you two simple tools to easily make your own developer
with, as there are only two there is little or no confusion as to what is
doing what when you do a tweak, blow it up and compare,

Ansel would say that its not the developer its how you dilute it,

In this case you can in effect dilute each of two main and only parameters
separately. And easily. And fun, and you can SEE the results You made.
In you chemistry office Bat cave.
I think the sulfite is like the reed pull stop and the Metol is like the
flues stop,







Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/