A return to black and white (after an absence of 26-odd years!)

[BradleyK]

Having not shot any significant amount of black and white since my university days (my Nikons and Leicas have subsisted - until 25 December 2010 - on a steady diet of Kodachrome), I am in need of some guidance (seriously). I am currently shooting Pan F and E100G in my Hasselblads and Tri-x in my M6s and Nikons. I have developed the PanF (rated at EI25 and Tri-x (rated at EI 200) as per manufacturer's instructions (D76, currently).
My question is this: When pushing Tri-x to EI1600, what developer should be used?, If memory serves, way back when, we used a single developer (whose name I cannot recall) that gave us a true EI1600, excellent sharpness and acceptable amount of grain (this was circa 1984, by the way). What is currently available? Insofar as pushing film is concerned, I have an almost pathological preference for Tri-x.:confused:

 

[Jesper]

You will find a lot of info at http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Tri-X+400&Developer=&mdc=Search
Good luck.

 

[hpulley]

I find Delta 3200 is better @1600 than 400 speed films. Microphen stock works very well for pushing. I generally shoot at box speed or higher unless the film is expired (Delta 3200 is really around 1000 ISO speed).

 

[AgCl4ever]

You may be thinking of Acufine, the push darling of the 60's and 70's. It is still available.

 

[Dave Martiny]

Diafine.

But I agree with hpulley that Delta 3200 would be a better choice at ASA 1200-1600.

 

[Neal]

Dear BradleyK,

I'm pretty sure you are looking for Perfection XR-1. It worked very well, but I would agree with the others that Delta 3200 would be a better choice today and it is available in 120. I would use it with Xtol stock, but it hardly matters. If you really want/need to push Tri-X, either Xtol or TMax developers will work well and Kodak supplies plenty of information for development.

Neal Wydra

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Back in the 80's and before, developer manufacturers inflated the speed enhancing capabilities of their developers. They could do this because film makers such as Kodak rated their film conservatively so that people would overexpose rather than underexpose the film. When film makers became more rrealistic in their speed ratings the speed increasing claims of developers was reduced.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Low pH, high sulfite PQ developers such as Microphen do provide a very modest increase in speed of 1/2 to 2/3 of a stop. MQ developers like D-76 exhibit a much smaller effect. The pH of the developer must be below 9.5 and it must be used full strength for this effect to happen. This is explained in Mason, "Photographic Processing Chemistry."