6 Developers & Kentmere 200

[Andrew O'Neill]

Andy, always look forward to your videos. I tend to develop everything in XTOL stock, kinda boring.

I use the infernal Jobo machines that agitate the daylights out of things.

I wonder if your classical approach to agitation doesn't have a great effect?

The way you agitate without all the inversions or the constant rolling, has to make a huge impact.

I grew up learning from my father, the side to side figure 8 pattern was how we did it. No inversions at all. Always got good results.
Best Regards Mike

XTol is an outstanding developer. I almost always have some mixed up in my darkroom and either use it 1+1, or take a bit from the replenishment stock...
I do employ continuous agitation, when I use BTZS tubes. Even that offers great results, especially when I dilute the stock to 1+3 or even 1+5...even it if means standing there and spinning tubes for 20 to 30 minutes!

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Thank you for continuing to make great videos. I liked Pyrocat HDC the most of the scans and FX39 the most of the wet prints.

I thought that Xtol's excellent preservation of shadow detail was actually a drawback here artistically, because it made the tree too bright and less dramatic. Of course, all of this can be adjusted with optical printing contrast or digital curves, which makes the developer's contrast curve less significant to me. With this in mind I'd tend to go with the option that preserves a good amount of fine detail - but all of these options seem capable enough of that, realistically.

Pyrocat-HD (and until recently, HDC, and XTol have been my main developers for decades. When I shot the film for this test, I completely forgot to shoot at EI 320 for XTol.

 

[koraks]

Dev times determined by extrapolating and experience. Yes, densitometre was used. Dmax/min and DR written on the negatives starting at 0:33 in the video.

Thanks; I missed that. I probably also missed why the HD measurement on the Pyrocat negatives was missing. I think it's relevant to note that there are considerable differences in the total length of the tonal scale (>0.3logD between the extremes), which I think needs to be kept in mind when interpreting the results. I think differences like those in practice are pretty much inevitable if you run this kind of text, so don't take this as criticism.

 

[pentaxuser]

Hello Mike,

The reason I mentioned ID11 was because it's the developer that Ilford base their ISO/ ASA ratings rather than a criticism of D23.
Therefore I think ID11 or D-76 would have been a good yardstick to compare the other developers with. The dilution of 1+1 seems to be the most common way of using D-76/ID11.

All the developers tried have their merits and Andrew has been kind enough to share his findings.

Thanks and I understand now why you mention ID11

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Thanks; I missed that. I probably also missed why the HD measurement on the Pyrocat negatives was missing. I think it's relevant to note that there are considerable differences in the total length of the tonal scale (>0.3logD between the extremes), which I think needs to be kept in mind when interpreting the results. I think differences like those in practice are pretty much inevitable if you run this kind of text, so don't take this as criticism.

Density data left out for Pyrocat, as my densitometre cannot measure the stain, sadly.