Best high acutance developer.

[Keith Tapscott.]

I read that Barry Thornton considered Johnson's Definol to be the best high acutance developer he ever used.

There have been many other such developers designed by Geoffrey Crawley such as Acutol, Acuspecial and FX39.

Also high definition developers by Tetenal such as Neodyn/Neofin.

Many here like Pyrogallol and Pyrocatechol types.

What do folks here consider to be the best high acutance film developer you have used?

 

[brian steinberger]

Ilfosol-3 and Rodinal

 

[cliveh]

Rodinal

 

[Ian Grant]

Original Agfa AP or APX100, and Rodinal, excellent fine grain with good acutance, or Tmax100 & Rodinal.

Ian

 

[Alan9940]

I've found that Rodinal, Pyrocat-HD and FX-55 provide all the acutance I could ever want.

 

[dpurdy]

I always use Beutlers formula. It is grainy but very sharp. I use it for sheet film and 120 Acros. For other roll films I use a Pyro.

 

[patioSlides]

Rodinal.

 

[Paul Howell]

Acufine and DK50, close to the Crowley formulas, grain a bit more fine.

 

[AnselMortensen]

Rodinal

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Very dilute Pyrocat-HD.

 

[pentaxuser]

Well so far the breaking news is that all the "swing" states have voted for the candidate Rodinal with only Canada expressing any dissent

pentaxuser ( tryíng to ímitate Walter Cronkite with limited success)

 

[Alex Benjamin]

FP4+ in FX-2 is the highest-acutance negs I've ever got.

Haven't tried FX-1.

Just another Canadian expressing dissent here .

 

[Pioneer]

I like developers I mix myself. I mix up my own PaRodinal and I have never been disappointed. I have also mixed and used FX39 and it works as well but PaRodinal is easier.

 

[Milpool]

I suppose this also depends on how you define acutance. Are you talking about traditional acutance (edge sharpness) or including edge effects? The other thing is emulsions have changed since the old rules were codified.

 

[Ian Grant]

Very dilute Pyrocat-HD.

It's excellent at 1 + 1 to 100, like Rodinal on steroids . I use in place of Rodinal.

Ian

 

[retina_restoration]

I read that Barry Thornton considered Johnson's Definol to be the best high acutance developer he ever used.

There have been many other such developers designed by Geoffrey Crawley such as Acutol, Acuspecial and FX39.

Also high definition developers by Tetenal such as Neodyn/Neofin.

Many here like Pyrogallol and Pyrocatechol types.

What do folks here consider to be the best high acutance film developer you have used?

You could easily choose any one of those and get excellent sharp, high acutance results. I don't really think there is a "best" among those you list, because most people who have used them have found the results to be similar. If you are chasing the extreme limits of what is possible, I suppose Pyrocat HD is one of the best for extreme acutance, but the differences aren't as dramatic as people expect.
Ultimately, your choice of film, negative size, lens performance, and your technique are far more important factors than the acutance traits of the developer you use.

 

[loccdor]

Low acutance in an image is almost never the fault of the developer. There are like five or ten other things you have to get perfect before you start worrying about that. The only developer I've noticed that has somewhat disappointing results for acutance is Caffenol, but even that isn't super bad.

 

[Sirius Glass]

XTOL stock, 1:1 or replenished.

 

[Ian Grant]

Low acutance in an image is almost never the fault of the developer. There are like five or ten other things you have to get perfect before you start worrying about that. The only developer I've noticed that has somewhat disappointing results for acutance is Caffenol, but even that isn't super bad.

The right shutter speed to avoid camera shake, or mirror lock on a tripod

Correct exposure and development

The right film/developer combination

The right choice of lens

The optimal aperture


It comes down to craft, Geoffrey Crawley stated that the best lens for high acutance work was the 50mm f2 Summicron. My experience backs that up, I was amazed when I shot my first images with a Leica M3 & 50mm Summicron in the late 1980s, I showed some photographer friends some prints and they thought I'd bought a new MF camera.

What's missed is there are sweet spots in film/developer combinations.

Ian

 

[MattKing]

I wonder if Joe Jackson did a special "acutance" version of this number?:

 

[loccdor]

The right shutter speed to avoid camera shake, or mirror lock on a tripod

Correct exposure and development

The right film/developer combination

The right choice of lens

The optimal aperture


It comes down to craft, Geoffrey Crawley stated that the best lens for high acutance work was the 50mm f2 Summicron. My experience backs that up, I was amazed when I shot my first images with a Leica M3 & 50mm Summicron in the late 1980s, I showed some photographer friends some prints and they thought I'd bought a new MF camera.

What's missed is there are sweet spots in film/developer combinations.

Ian

Yep that's a good list. But there are hundreds are very sharp lenses out there, especially considering that some of the current ones designed for digital cameras with 50MP sensors can be mounted on film SLRs. I never saw the need to buy Leica stuff, even the Soviet copies of German lenses are pretty good optically most of the time. As are quite a few Japanese designs... with a lot of third party lenses included. My sharpest 28mm lens is an Osawa... who ever heard of them? When it works it works.

 

[loccdor]

I wonder if Joe Jackson did a special "acutance" version of this number?:

The musical equivalent of sharp I think is Staccato!

 

[relistan]

Rodinal has been my goto when that's what I want. For example:

 

[MattKing]

It is important to remember that acutance is not the same as resolution. In many cases, procedures that enhance acutance actually result in reduced resolution, because the emphasis on the factors that increase the perceived sharpness relate to the edges of detail, rather than the entire contents of that detail.
That is why Tri-X in Rodinal looks "sharper" than T-Max 100 in X-Tol.

 

[GregY]

It's excellent at 1 + 1 to 100, like Rodinal on steroids . I use in place of Rodinal.

Ian

I stopped looking & testing once i hit on Pyrocat HD.....