Any opinions on FD-10 or Aculux 2?

[andrewmoodie]

I recently got some Paterson Aculux 2 and Fotospeed FD-10. Is there anyone out there who uses these ones regularly? What films do they work best with? Are they good for pushing? Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.

My fav films are Tri-X and HP5 but if these developers really shine with others then I'm more than willing to give them a try. I'm a creature of habit and I don't experiment nearly enough.

I've only ever used HC-110, Ilfotec HC and occasionally Rodinal and I feel like trying some new stuff. Any other recommendations would be welcome as well.

Thanks.

Andrew

 

[Tom Stanworth]

I've used Aculux 2 and may well use more. It is very fine grained and has stunning tonality. Very good stuff and very convenient. I have a very soft diffusion head and paterson's times seemes OK. It is not a push dev but gives fair speed. I rated my apx100 at 64 and had plenty of shadow detail and arguable could have gone for 80 or 100 at a pinch. I am certainly going to use pyrocat for compensation, but may well use paterson devs for normal stuff. I have heard great things about FX-39 too. Great spped and stunning acutance. films give at least full speed in it too, so in 10x8 getting 100+ from fp4 plus and 400-650 from hp5 would be great. It apparrently has fine greain too (not the normal trade off with speed increasing grain). May be too good to be true, but Aculux blew my sock off. Super fine grain, but not mushy like many solvent devs.

 

[Neil Souch]

Andrew,

I used Aculux for a few years and can confirm it is a good developer. IIRC there is an inbuilt speed increase of approx 1/3 of a stop (which I ignored). I never pushed any films in Aculux and kept to their recommendations for dev times etc, which I found OK for a variety of films. It also worked very well with Kodak infrared at 12 mins. The big problem I found with Aculux was its keeping qualities, once opened it does go off quite quickly. I would watch this as you can be caught out with a lot of expired developer. However, I am sure you will be delighted with your negs.

Cheers,

Neil.

 

[Dr.Kollig]

I used Aculux II with HP5+, grain is fine, speed is o.k., but I would rather use FX 39 (I use the FX 37 formula) for improved sharpness. Guess it is best used with 400 speed films, slower films will be better of with a developer tuned towards sharpness.

So I use up my Aculux with 400 speed films for portraits etc. We can get Paterson developers pretty cheap from Fotoimpex, Berlin.

Can not comment on Fotospeed as I would have to order them from the UK.

Wolfram