wesforee
Reged: 26/01/2002
Posts: 376
Loc: Gloucestershire
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I found a magazine from 1963 with an advert for Ilford Monophen, a combined developed AND fixer. How did it work? The advert implied that you mixed the solution, poured it in and didn't have to be too fussy about timings as it fixed itself.
I suppose there must have been a downside to all of this or it would still be on the market?
Matt
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huwevans
Old Hand
Reged: 05/08/2000
Posts: 15408
Loc: Dorset, UK
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This has to be the perfect question to send in to Geoffrey Crawley. I've certainly no idea what the answer is - I googled for it, and that came up with only five hits in total, three of which weren't even in English. I guess that says something about how well known it was.
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Huw Evans.
  
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Roger_Provins
Made-it Man
Reged: 22/10/2005
Posts: 3002
Loc: Gloucester, UK
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The monobath uses a very powerful and energetic developer so that the fixer ingredient can’t work until the developer’s gradual exhaustion allows the fixer to progressively take over. Phenidone and Hydroquinone were often used as the developing agents and ordinary hypo for fixing. The whole action is self-balancing. The total time is in the region 4-8 minutes but is not at all critical. Best for slower films but unfortunately neither tonal graduation or grain size are very well controlled.
The process was first used in the late 19th century but there was a brief revival of interest in the 1950s/1960s when more effective developing agents became readily available.
Formulae have been published in the past for home-brewing the mix and proprietary monobaths included Unibath, Monophen and Monotenal.
If you'd like try yourself good sources for formulae are The Ilford Manual of Photography and the The British Journal Photographic Almanac.
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Rog
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wesforee
Reged: 26/01/2002
Posts: 376
Loc: Gloucestershire
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Rog
Thanks for the detailed answer - sounds like a convenient way to develop a film if one isn't too fussy!
All I can remember from my college days is metol/hydroquinone (are they the constituents of ID11???).
Matt
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PeteE
addict
Reged: 23/08/2005
Posts: 401
Loc: BRENTWOOD,Essex
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As a 'make it up yourself geek' with cupboards full of chemicals I tried the monobath formula as proposed by Geoffrey Crawley once and didn't like the results. Yes, Metol and Hydroquinone are developing agents as is Phenidone found by Ilford Limited.I still make up my own B/W film developers. I USED to make up my own Ferraniacolor ( showing my AGE now) to the published formula for years, then when they brought out Ferrania CR50 I couldn't get good results any more on the slides.
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Got COMPUTERISED at last and now Digitised but FILM still RULES!
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MJ_Warner
newbie
Reged: 15/10/2005
Posts: 38
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showing my age too [although I was a schoolboy at the time] I used to buy 10m lengths of CR50 from the original Jessops shop in Leicester when it was an adjunct to the professional photography business. And the CR50 kits that were composed of crystals and would take a whole evening to make up, and you still ended up with some sort of residue that you could never get into solution. Then using a photoflood lamp for the fogging exposure.
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nickc
Reged: 23/02/2003
Posts: 31
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Missed the start of this thread, but I do remember during the late sixties or early seventies a new product was described in AP - a tiny clear container which would just hold a cassette with a black top that was also a twiddle stick - you put the cassette full of film in and topped up with monobath and developed the film in its casette, twiddling the film round and round. You had to use monobath as the film did not all develop at once - the worlds most minimalist (non)darkroom perhaps?
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Nick
camera - noun.
An apparatus for taking photographs, generally consisting of a lightproof enclosure having an aperture with a shuttered lens through which the image of an object is focused and recorded on a photosensitive film or plate.
Free Online Dictionary
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wesforee
Reged: 26/01/2002
Posts: 376
Loc: Gloucestershire
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Sounds like a recipe for disaster! I can't imagine how the developer could evenly cover such a tightly wound film!
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