well my 2 boxes of harvey 777 arrived today.
this is a cultish-developer where HCB and the whole
crew at magnum would use it as their secret
formula. there is much debate whether this IS
the 777 that was originally used.
i quickly mixed 700ml of water at the stated 125F (51C)
with the 4 chemicals, Metol, Sodium sulfite,
Paraphenylene Diamine and Glycin...
and then i added the the last 300ml of water and mixed it together.
At first there was a lot of residue and floating white bits, i stirred
until everything was dissolved (to my eye).
the liquid was a light brown color, a bit like very diluted apple juice.
at around 42C, i was contemplating whether to try my luck at
development or not...afterall 777 was labelled Panthermic,
ie, little or no effect of temp to the development.
i has a roll of Neopan 100SS and Fomapan 400 (exposed at 200). I decided that
i would try my luck at 7mins at 42C(!), since this was the first roll, i expected
the solution to be "unripen".
i did a one minute agitation, and 5 agitation every minute thereafter.
water bath, fix, wash.....
the negatives are drying in the open, subject to the dusty confines of my room.
from my eye, the negatives look very dense, ie. overdeveloped, especially
the neopan 100ss, the fomapan looked overdeveloped but i could still see shadows.
will scan and post some pictures in a couple of hours.
raytoei