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Monobath or single step film developing formulations had existed in tandem with photography itself but gradually abandoned to the rapid user transition into color photography. The rapid commercialization & technological advancement of the latter drives the monobath technique into stagnation. In the past decade, the resurgence of film photography had driven back the interest in monobath development prompting a few monobath products to be commercially available. Most of the commercial developing chemical's usage were calibrated towards the characteristic curves published by film manufacturers. However, these monobaths are without reference to the characteristic curves in comparison with other standard commercial developers. To justify the feasibility of this formulation, we must therefore construct the required characteristic curves, albeit qualitatively. Utilizing basic optical densitometry method, qualitative analysis was conducted toward a comparative study of multiple commercial black & white photographic film stocks. This study suggests ways in which to utilize the trend in characteristic curves to provide a preliminary assessment of monobath developer over several commercial photographic film stocks. All film emulsion tested have lower quality negatives results compared to conservative developers, but KODAK & Ilford shows usable results for normal photography uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characteristic curves of photographic film are considered as an industry standard for all film manufacturers. Based on the optical density of suspended silver particles, a characteristic curve is unique to each film type providing a reference point to the users on the quality of any chemical development process subjected to the product. Most of the commercial developing chemical's usage were calibrated towards the curves. However, the bulk of the published curves are based on commercialized standard chemicals formulation, absent in either newer or non-commercialized formulations. To justify the feasibility of these formulations, we must therefore construct the required characteristic curves, albeit qualitatively. This study suggests ways in which to utilize the trend in characteristic curves to provide a preliminary assessment of Caffenol developers over a few film emulsions from different manufacturers. All film emulsion tested give lower quality negatives, but KODAK and Ilford show usable results for normal photography uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]