"Best" developer for Fuji Acros

removed account4 · Aug 9, 2011

Leigh B said:
I've never heard of anybody using running water as a stop bath, nor have I ever seen it recommended in any literature.

- Leigh

hi leigh

if you type in "water" "stop bath" in the apug search bar
you will see more than 10 pages of threads regarding this subject.

here is a recent one
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

i haven't used stop bath ( only water ) since the 1980s and i learned
of this sort of thing from a woman i worked for who was trained in
portrait photography in the 1920s/1930s, so it is a technique that has been around
for a very very long time ... water instead of stop bath is a topic that
comes up here once a year ( at least ) ... there are people that suggest
it should never be done, and others who do it and find nothing wrong with it ...
one thing using stop bath does is makes your fixer last a little longer
but as you will read in all the threads on the subject .. it isn't required / necessary ....

john

removed account4 · Aug 9, 2011

ssloansjca said:
I bought a boatload of this film in 35mm. Here's what I value in the kind of photos I shoot (moving trains):

1. Long Tonal Scale
2. Speed (in this case ISO 100) since I shoot moving subjects
3. Sharpness
4. Fine Grain
5. Economy

Your suggestions are greatly appreciated. I have been considering Rodinal. My normal dilution being 1:25.

Here is my work flow:

I keep a couple of gallons of water at the same temp as my developer. There is no possible temp variation from the moment the film is wet until the film is hardened.

1: Pre-soak
2: Develop
3: Post-Soak
4: 1 minute in stop bath (28% glacial acetic acid diluted 1:32)
5: Fix four minutes or twice the time to clear the film in Rapid-Fix w/hardner, whichever is longer.
6: 1-2 running water rinse.
7: One min in Perma Wash
8: 5 min running water rinse.

Your suggestions are greatly appreciated:

~Steve Sloan

steve

sometimes, what you have on hand, and what you are used to using works best ... no matter what
what people suggest you use, you will spend a lot of film tweaking your
way of processing in whatever soup they tell you to use, to get you close
to the results you want to expect.

that said ....

have you ever tried using a coffee based developer for your acros ?
i have been using "eyeball measured" home roasted caffenol c spiked with 10-20cc of ansco 130 / 750cc of caffenol for years and acros+neopan ( and everything else i shoot ) love the combination.
i stand develop my negatives for about 25-30 mins depending on when i remember to
go back to the darkroom to fetch the film.
before i used caffenol c i used sprint film developer, as well as 1:6 ansco 130
and they both worked very very well. sprint is like ID11 ( and D76 ) but different
and ansco130 will give a long tonal scale like it does for prints, for film ...

have fun !
( and YMMV )
john

pcyco · Aug 9, 2011

hallo

in d 23 1+1 or 1+3 no problems
pushed it to 400 asa with d-23 also no problem.

i use stop-bath or water rinse - no problems with both variants
--
thomas
ps.: not the best developer but a very good one

Richard S. (rich815) · Aug 9, 2011

I have found that the best developers for Acros are D-76, Xtol, Rodinal, and HC-110. I'll bet others are the best too though.

Richard S. (rich815) · Aug 9, 2011

I've used nothing but water as a film stop bath for 15 years.

Mainecoonmaniac · Aug 9, 2011

jnanian said:
i haven't used stop bath ( only water ) since the 1980s

I haven't used stop bath for processing film since the 80's also. It's from my old college professor claiming that stop bath can cause an "acid shock" which can cause pinhole in my negs. I'm not sure how true it is. I'm sure processing times are different than using stop bath.

Klainmeister · Aug 9, 2011

Same boat as you fellows, and never had with Acros in particular. I've developed Acros in Xtol, D76, PMK and Pyrocat. I currently use pyrocat exclusively, but my film needs to be overexposed, so I lose about a stop. I highly recommend Xtol if you want to maintain speed. Those negs printed quite well.

Mainecoonmaniac · Aug 9, 2011

Great info

Klainmeister said:
Same boat as you fellows, and never had with Acros in particular. I've developed Acros in Xtol, D76, PMK and Pyrocat. I currently use pyrocat exclusively, but my film needs to be overexposed, so I lose about a stop. I highly recommend Xtol if you want to maintain speed. Those negs printed quite well.

I just started some test with Acros. This will save me some work. My film shot at box speed has great shadow detail processed in Xtol. I'm curious what ASA will I have to shoot Acros at when I use Pyro PMK?

Klainmeister · Aug 9, 2011

Pyro PMK and Pyrocat HD seemed to be about the same. I currently shoot Acros at 64 and develop for around 13 minutes in 1:1:100. When I shot PMK I also used 64 with spectacular results. Those negatives were very easy to print on grade 2 and 3 papers with minimal fudging about. I switched to VC right before my darkroom took on it's hiatus, so I don't know about VC yet.

Hope that helps.

Mainecoonmaniac · Aug 9, 2011

It sure does! You must have your negs dialed in to print on graded paper. Thanks for the info. Love the look of pyro souped negs.

Leigh B · Aug 9, 2011

jnanian said:
...water instead of stop bath is a topic that comes up here once a year...

John,

I was commenting on your use of RUNNING water as a stop bath, not the use of water.

- Leigh

removed account4 · Aug 9, 2011

Leigh B said:
John,

I was commenting on your use of RUNNING water as a stop bath, not the use of water.

- Leigh

thanks leigh

i didn't realize that :confused:

in that case, i know what you mean ---
john

polyglot · Aug 10, 2011

Back to the matter of Acros... this is the classic question for which you will receive every possible answer because everything has been tried and liked by someone.

My experimentation shows:
- D76 1+1: works fine, if a bit soft. very smooth.
- Xtol 1+1: excellent shadows, a bit more resolution than D76
- Rodinal 1+50: reduced speed but excellent sharpness with lots of acutance, beautiful in 120
- Rodinal 1+100 semi-stand (18:00 process on Massive Dev Chart): dead highlights, not a good result.

derwent · Aug 10, 2011

I've only used ID11 on it but I loved the results.

ssloansjca · Aug 10, 2011

polyglot said:
Back to the matter of Acros... this is the classic question for which you will receive every possible answer because everything has been tried and liked by someone.

My experimentation shows:
- D76 1+1: works fine, if a bit soft. very smooth.
- Xtol 1+1: excellent shadows, a bit more resolution than D76
- Rodinal 1+50: reduced speed but excellent sharpness with lots of acutance, beautiful in 120
- Rodinal 1+100 semi-stand (18:00 process on Massive Dev Chart): dead highlights, not a good result.

This sounds like just what I was looking for! Thank you. ~Steve

Rick A · Aug 10, 2011

My two favorite developers for Acros are Pyrocat-HD 1+1+100 and Rodinal 1+50. I use my stop mixed at half normal dilution, folowed by a water rinse then fix. I use the water rinse after stop to get longer life from my fixer. I use indicator stop at half dilution to avoid pinholes in the emulsion, while still arresting development immediatly. I believe that if you are using a water rinse immediatly after developing you can skip the stop bath altogether and go straight to the fixer. There is still a chance of developer carryover to the fixing solution, so two quick water rinses would be better.

dynachrome · Aug 10, 2011

Best developer for Fuji ACROS

My favorite developer for ACROS is Fuji Microfine. It is not sold in the U.S. Friends have brought it back from Japan for me and I have also ordered it from a seller in Japan. Used undiluter, Microfine gives me finer grain than any combination I have been able to get from TMX. It also gives full box speed and very high sharpness. Ilford Microphen takes care of the speed problem but does not give the finest grain and is expensive. You can get results that are similar to what Microphen will give you by using Clayton F60 with the 1:9 dilution. Freestyle sells F60. I would advise pouring the F60 into smaller glass bottles for better keeping. Some people like using ACROS at a lower EI with Rodinal. Yiou can get interesting tonality with Rodinal but it increases grain even with ACROS and TMX. At one time I think I also tried AMALOCO AM-74 with ACROS. You can buy it with the Rollei High Speed name and dilute it 1:15. Edwal FG-7 diluted 1:15 with water (no added sodium sulfite) should also work well.

Gerald C Koch · Aug 11, 2011

Each film manufacturer optinizes their films to work best with their developers. So the answer to the question is whatever Fuji reccomends. Fuji doesn't seem to market their developers in the US. But Microfine is said to be similar to Microdol or Perceptrol and Fujidol-E similar to Xtol.

Leigh B · Aug 11, 2011

Gerald C Koch said:
Each film manufacturer optinizes their films to work best with their developers.

True statement.

The gotcha is that each photographer has a different definition of 'best', so while some will find the recommended developer is indeed best, many others will not.

- Leigh

Gerald C Koch · Aug 11, 2011

Leigh B said:
True statement.

The gotcha is that each photographer has a different definition of 'best', so while some will find the recommended developer is indeed best, many others will not.

- Leigh

Exactly and each poster on APUG will tell you their choice of best. What you get is opinion and not hard fact. That's why these "best" threads supply so little useful information.

markbarendt · Aug 12, 2011

Gerald C Koch said:
Exactly and each poster on APUG will tell you their choice of best. What you get is opinion and not hard fact. That's why these "best" threads supply so little useful information.

Yep.

The only thing really learned is "who likes what."

Uncle Bill · Aug 12, 2011

Xtol 1+1 works for me.

Rick A · Aug 12, 2011

The bottom line is to use whatever developer you like and have on hand. The ultimate goal is to get the look you prefer, and to start jumping around wont get you where you whanna go. Pick one developer and tweak it, if that doesn't get it then pick another. Rodinal is a danged place to start if thats what you have, just change dilutions or times and keep exacting notes so it can be repeated or discarded.

Leigh B · Aug 12, 2011

Gerald C Koch said:
What you get is opinion and not hard fact.

Hi Jerry,

Sorry to disagree, but... You usually get facts as they exist in the poster's world.

What you don't get is the entire context within which those facts exist, i.e. the education and experience of the individual, an insight into his practices and procedures, and quantitative evaluations of the accuracy of the measurements involved.

In short, you get a snapshot of a very complex environment.

- Leigh

markbarendt · Aug 12, 2011

Leigh B said:
Hi Jerry,

Sorry to disagree, but... You usually get facts as they exist in the poster's world.

What you don't get is the entire context within which those facts exist, i.e. the education and experience of the individual, an insight into his practices and procedures, and quantitative evaluations of the accuracy of the measurements involved.

In short, you get a snapshot of a very complex environment.

- Leigh

You left out the most important variables; emotion, personality, and mood.

These factors make preferences too personal to be of real value to others.

IMO threads like this are inspired by the belief in magic bullets.

There are no magic bullets available off the shelf any more than there is a way you could tell me what I want to be "when I grow up".

"Best" developer for Fuji Acros

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