While some of you love the process of developing your own negatives, I’ve found it boring sometimes. Some of the developers out there take a long time. So, when I came across a seventy-four year old article talking about a 90 second quick film developer in production, I was intrigued. Then, when I went to research it, I was left with a few questions.

Popular Photography’s Review

In July 1950, Popular Photography gave a brief report of a breakthrough in film developing: a 90 second developer that made claims far fetched even by today’s standards. Written by Norryle English in the July issue, the article opens with:

“photographers have dreamed, for many years, of developers that would act fast and still yield fine grain negatives. Thus far some compromise always has been necessary—fast action has been achieved only at the cost of coarser grain structure, fine grain has been produced only with slow-working formulas. Now a new developer promises to provide fast processing without any great sacrifice of other desirable qualities.”

Called Ethol 90, formulated by Leonard A. Robbins, and hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah, this commercial photographer, spent eight years experimenting and perfecting it. For the previous year leading up to the announcement, he had a small group of amateur, commercial, and press photographers testing it under normal, as well as unusual conditions. The claim is simple. It will develop film, on average, in 90 seconds at 68 Fahrenheit. A bold statement in any decade. But the testimonials don’t end there. Other claims include.

The Claims

• Being able to develop 3,000 square inches of film without the need to increase developing time. That’s about 37 rolls of 36 exposure 35mm film in the same solution.
• A shelf life in a sealed bottle of no less than six months.
• Sports photographers reported results equal to conventional developers.
• And the ability to use it with papers at a 1+1 dilution.

One news photographer even said they tested it on no less than 20,000 4×5 negatives without failure. Not the same batch I assume, but as an ongoing workflow.

Sounds like the wonder developer, right? So why haven’t most of us heard of it and why can’t I find almost anything about it online? Damn good questions. I did some investigating because I wanted to know if and when it was discontinued. More importantly, what was in it.

The Search Begins

An initial google search doesn’t reveal much.

A photography forum post from 2005 says “Anyone remember Ethol 90?” with a single post saying “I once used a can of Ethol 90. Pretty neat stuff, if memory serves. If I recall correctly you could dev a roll of Tri-X in a short time at 90F at an EI of 3200 or 6400. Does anyone know if it’s still made and if not, do you have a formula?”

There were no replies. I was starting to think this quick film developer really was lost.

I found this picture of what the cans looked like on photo.net. This is where I found out Robbins produced other developers including one called UFG. I’ll go out on a limb here and say it stands for Ultra Fine Grain.

There’s this archived Washington Post article from January 1980 recommending it as a fine grain developer.

Here’s someone on Flickr claiming they pushed Tri-X to ISO 12,800 with it.

Progress Is Made

Probably one of the most significant finds is this mention of the logo in the Official Gazette of the US Patent office. Volume 669, Number One, released April 7^th, 1953. It says “no claim is made to “Robbins” and the number “90” apart from the mark as shown on the drawing. For Photographic Developing Composition. Claims use since October 5^th, 1950.” That’s just three months after the Popular Photography publication.

I checked The Massive Dev Chart, which it is not listed on.

A brief mention as an alternative developer for Ilford XP1 in the December 1985 issue of American Photographer. Ethol’s UFG, TEC, and Blue are also mentioned. And in January 1989 from the same magazine recommending Ethol 90 as an alternative to Kodalith for T-Max film.

I also checked The Darkroom Cookbook and The Film Developing Cookbook with no luck either.

Having an extensive database myself, I ran a search, and only found two other mentions of Ethol 90.

As mentioned Ethol had several developers.  They also had a paper developer called LPD. This is a bit of a redundant name, as LPD stands for Lasting Paper Developer. I thought I had a lead when I discovered that LPD was still being sold on multiple websites. I even found a phone number for Ethol Chemicals Inc…which has been disconnected.

Several websites are selling Ethol LPD as new in liquid form, so the name still exists in some capacity.

I did find a couple listings for Ethol 90 that seemed to be outdated. The only quantity you could purchase it in anyway, was 5000 gallons at a time!

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Contact Was Made

I contacted Adorama hoping to get a lead. A customer care associate replied pretty quick with contact information. The company currently producing, or at least distributing Ethol LPD is called Omega Brandess and they are associated with quite a few recognizable names.

I reached out and had a reply in twelve minutes. Yes, they do indeed make LPD. However, quote, “the rest have fallen away due to consumer demand and greatly increased minimums in the chemical production world”

Ethol 90 was among those dropped, and the big question, which was “Is the formula publicly available?”

“No, we don’t give out any formulas.”

poop

The July 1950 article also doesn’t give the formula. That’s no surprise, but there are several clues as to what kind of formula it is.

Robbins calls Ethol 90 “a new combination of eight common chemicals” so right off the bat we know there’s eight.

He says that it does not rely on “caustic alkalis or hydroxides,” and has less than half the sulfite content as most fine grain developers. He also uses an inorganic alkaline agent in combination with an aliphatic amine. The latter acts as a buffer which increases shadow detail and extends the shelf life.

The final clue is that it’s a mix of dry chemicals and a single liquid chemical. At least in the beginning. When we look at the container of Ethol 90, it’s on its own, it’s just a can of powder. As we saw from that other listing it’s available as a liquid concentrate as well.

A Call To Action

I’m afraid though, that this is where I reached a dead end. No public formula on this quick film developer and no way to buy it other than new old stock. Does this mean the formula isn’t out there? Of course not. My database, research ability and time restrictions all have limits. I’m sure someone out there has more answers than I do. If they come here and leave a comment with sources, I’ll update this blog.