I just recently moved to Tokyo, Japan. in the camera store are your regular cast of chemicals - kodak, ilford, agfa, edwal etc.

but i've never seen fuji or oriental chemicals before now. unfortunately i am unable to read the labels. is anyone familiar with chemicals produced by Japanese companies?

-- James Luckett (jl@mollymail.com), December 27, 2001

Answers

I have 10 rolls of Konica Pan 400 black & white film which a neighbor brought back from Japan for me. It isn't sold in the U.S. According to the inside of the box that the film comes in, Konicadol is the same as D-76. I hope that helps.

Jeff

-- Jeff Adler (jadler444@aol.com), December 27, 2001.

I haven't used packaged Japanese chemicals but there are several published formulae similar to D-76 (as you expect). However, none of them as far as I have seen is identical to D-76.

Konica SD-20
hydroquinone 3.0g
metol 1.5g
sodium metaborate 2.0g
KBr 0.5g
Na sulfite 100g
WTM 1 liter

Fuji FD-122
hydroquinone 2.5g
metol 2.5g
sodium metaborate 2.0g
KBr 0.5g
Na sulfite 100g
WTM 1 liter

Konica SD-28
hydroquinone 5.0g
metol 2.0g
borax 8.0g
boric acid 8.0g
KBr 0.4g
Na sulfite 100g
WTM 1 liter

A few comments. Japanese fine grain formulae tend to employ bromide to restrain chemical fog, whereas D-76 results in manageable but slightly higher fog level. One speculation. Japanese press photographers loved to dilute fresh D-76 with used D-76, just like people do with D-72 and paper development. It usually results in higher shadow contrast, finer grain, and slightly reduced speed. SD-20 might have attempted to get similar effect when it is fresh. SD-28 is a striking example where it provides stability of buffered D-76, slightly higher shadow contrast, and slightly finer grain. Since T-MAX films respond much less to bromide, SD-28 is practically the same as D-76d.

Konica SD-4 is an interesting two-bath developer, originally designed for motion picture. It uses 100 grams of sugar in A bath in addition to 2g hydroquinone, 5g metol, 5g Na bisulfite and 100g Na sulfite. The B bath consists of 10g Na carbonate (anhy), 100g Na sulfite, and 0.5g KBr. I have been thinking about making ascorbate version of this, but I'm not really convinced what two-bath development is good for.

There are some interesting Japan-made developers using ascorbate, but they tend to use non-borate alkali and designed for motion picture, holography, etc, possibly because these are probably not affected by the XTOL patent.

I know, this is probably not what James was looking for... I don't know exact formula of packaged chemicals. Based on rough classification, Fujidol, Super Fujidol are general purpose fine grain, Fuji's Microfine, Konica's Konicadol Fine are very fine grain formulae like Microdol-X, and Fuji's Pandol and Konica's Konicadol Super are designed to be push developer. Fuji's Super Prodol (SPD) are marketed as allround normal to push developer. I have heared most Fuji and Konica packages use phenidone. I haven't used any of these, so please don't ask me how they compare, etc.

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), December 28, 2001.

I should have said in the previous post that adding bromide in D-76 type formula is not particularly Japanese way, as seen in Ansco 17, some Crawley's formulation, and so on.

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), December 28, 2001.

*any* information is what i'm looking for. i thought a lot of the japanes chemicals were most likely similar formulations to what kodak ilford agfa also make. just kind of exciting to see all these new bottles on the shelf. have to go back to check on prices - if the fuji/orietal etc are cheaper - might have to experiment some . . .

-- James Luckett (jl@mollymail.com), December 31, 2001.

James, Twenty-five years ago, in Japan, I used Fuji chemicals. They all had English usage printed on the packages. I always mixed a batch of D-23 no matter where I lived, in addition to a high-contrast dev.

I stopped using Kodak in the 60's. When it comes to poor service, there is a US company that can't be beat. Fuji people were great. Instructions in English easily come by. Enjoy.

-- Fred Johnson (ipygmalion@lycos.com), January 03, 2002.