Establishing the Parodinal-salt monobath

When I started with this Parodinal-salt monobath I have used large ammounts of Parodinal but I have been reducing this until the final value of 4 ml/Liter. If you use just 500 ml developer, then put 2 ml. Less than this gives very weak negatives, that neither can be scanned reflective or at transparency. The last experiment I performed was with 3ml/Liter. The result was not so bad, but already in the very limit of the process.

The monobath Parodinal-salt uses 300 g/Liter salt, so the 500 ml working solution is as follows:

2 ml Parodinal
150 g salt
water to make 500 ml

You may choose between development at room temperature, 24 hours or just 5 hours at 35ºC. Then wash the film very well in plenty of water for 30 minutes at least and dry the film.

The film developed in this monobath developer will have a sepia tone and you will see it as positive against a black surface. I have been shooting with an Agfa Synchro Box at sun with the smaller aperture, f:22 the speed is (I suppose) 1/30 or 1/60. With a 100 ISO film this is a normal exposure. But the film will be slightly underdeveloped with this recipe, because the positive effect is better and you may use a very common scanner to scan your negatives. Not with a very high quality but a cheap alternative for the poor photo hobbyist.

All eight pictures of the roll in a single reflective scan

And here some of the above pictures scanned at transparency.

Example I

Example II

Example III

Example IV

Note: The recipe must also work if, instead of Parodinal, you use the commercial Rodinal developer or similar. But I didn't try it yet.