Best possible push developer recipe?

[bendytwin]

I'm hoping some wisdom and recipes can be shared on coming up with an advantageous black-and-white developer recipe for push-processing 16mm three or more stops. I have used Microphen (though it's been 15 years) and I've taken Xtol out to 3200 on 35mm. But I'm primarily push-processing hundreds of feet of 16mm Double-X or Tri-X neg at a time, so buying prepackaged isn't an option at those volumes of chemistry.

A few things to note as parameters: 1) grain of course becomes an issue faster for me with a 16mm frame size than with 35mm; 2) I'm not keen on trying stand dev with 16mm, since the sprocket holes can create a pronounced "drag" effect without adequate agitation; and 3) though shelf life isn't necessarily an issue, I would prefer a recipe that can be reasonably mixed at least in gallon quantities at a time, since that's how much my 2x100ft roll tank holds.

So, given all that, mixing from scratch, what recommendations would you all have for a push black-and-white developer recipe with 16mm? Some of my rather geriatric bookmarks of ideas are below and I'd gladly take suggestions:

"Super Soup" (thank you Donald Qualls!)

https://web.archive.org/web/20180504011107/http://silent1.home.netcom.com/Photography/Dilutions%20and%20Times.html)

Homemade ID68 from the Darkroom Cookbook:

microphen formulae

Hey there, I know everybody seems to already have it but not me. So sorry if It feels like a re-run of an old question :Does anyone have the formulae for microphen? I am also intersted in your experience mixing it. I can't find it, and the only link I've got on the forum is outdated...

www.photrio.com

Ed Buffaloe's notes on XR-1:

https://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/XR-1/xr-1.html

Thank you all for the collective wisdom! Photo for fun of my drying rack after the last time I processed a couple hundred feet of 3378E.

 

[Paul Howell]

Pushing 16mm 3 or more stops? I would mix D76 from bulk, cheap, does well in a push, at least for 35mm, I've gone 3 stops in D76, 70s version Trix X, but there was fair amount of fog. If it were me I would try DK 50, you can find old stock on Ebay for not much money in the 3 to 5 gallon range for not much money use replenished, I bought replenisher as well, or 1:1 and dump. But the gain, oh for the love of grain. So I guess ID 68 might be your best bet after all.

DK 50 1:1 double x at box speed of 200 is 6 minutes, so 3 stops to 1600 would be 13 or 14 minutes. That is just a guess.

 

[Augustus Caesar]

Try FX-11 by Crawley.

Crawley FX-11 (Crawley's published Speed increasing developer)
Phenidone 0.25g
Hydroquinone 5g
Glycin 1.5g
Sodium Sulphite (anhyd) 125g
Borax 2.5g
Potassium Bromide 0.5g
Water to 1 litre
Use Full Strength

 

[koraks]

Glycin 1.5g

Good luck with that...

I've taken Xtol out to 3200 on 35mm

mixing from scratch

How about Mytol, which is basically XTOL. It's a fairly simple developer; there are plenty of recipes to be found online.

 

[dokko]

I would try Kodak D-96, because that is what Double-X 7222 has been optimised for, it's got a replenisher and is very well documented.

https://www.kodak.com/content/products-brochures/Film/Processing-KODAK-Motion-Picture-Films-Module-15.pdf

But I would also make a comparison test with XTOL (or Adox XT-3) and Mytol.
over 20 years ago I did a lot of filming with Super8 in low light situation and tested Tri-X Reversal 7266 developed as negative in several developers (D-96 was not among them but D-76 was).
My memory is getting a bit foggy, but I remember XTOL having the best shadow detail and smallest grain.

I've never run XTOL replenished, but many people here get good results (some even report better results than one shot, though I'd guess you loose a little bit of shadow detail). replenishing seem to be around 80ml per 135/36 roll, so that would be around 500ml per 100ft roll (possibly even less, because if you're pushing, you usually have rather thin negatives).
so that would only be 2EUR per 100ft roll even if you buy the prepackagd version, so cost seems to be a non issue here.

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

Fotospeed used to sell a speed enhancing developer called FD30.
It was a direct competitor to Paterson Acuspeed and gave very similar results.
Unfortunately, both have been long discontinued.
FD30 was one of Les McLean's favourite film developers. Maybe if there was enough interest, Fotospeed could be persuaded to reintroduce it.

 

[pentaxuser]

If Microphen was a success for you then try ID 68. However it may be a better developer for pushing but likely to be grainier than Xtol or presumably Mytol its homebrew equivalent

pentaxuser

 

[ntenny]

I’ve had results I liked at 3200 with that “Super Soup” recipe, with both TX and HP5+. I did some informal testing with HP5+ (in MF, though) and felt like that was about the right speed, with reasonable expectations for loss of shadow detail and so on.

-NT

 

[dokko]

I’ve had results I liked at 3200 with that “Super Soup” recipe, with both TX and HP5+. I did some informal testing with HP5+ (in MF, though) and felt like that was about the right speed, with reasonable expectations for loss of shadow detail and so on.

-NT

the wayback link above seems to have a closing parenthesis too much, below the relevant section for easier reference.
to me that looks like a very active developer highly diluted, so I'd expect rather large grain and little gain in shadow detail when pushing.
I'm a bit surprised it worked well, but probably the high dilution helped with contrast.

Super Soup

This developer was created in an attempt to salvage some Tri-X sheet film negatives that were loaded backward and exposed through the base, approximately five stops of antihalation between the lens and the emulsion. It works very well, and with the recommended process prints at near-normal contrast rather than showing the extreme contrast you'd get with a conventional push (which, in any case, can't come anywhere near this level). It seems to get literally everything possible out of any film on which I've treid it -- and given what's in it, is most likely developing to completion, which is what controls the contrast.

6 ounces water
24 ml Dektol stock solution
8 ml HC-110 syrup (or 32 ml stock solution)
1 g ascorbic acid
1/2 tsp washing soda (sodium carbonate monohydrate)
2 g potassium bromide (optional)
Water to make eight ounces

Develop for fifteen minutes, agitating very vigorously every thirty seconds. Stop and fix normally. Some fog is normal, and can be printed through. You will (of course) see an increase in grain, but it's not as much as you might expect; with large format and even the larger medium format negatives the grain increase may be barely noticeable (and isn't objectionable in comparison to super-fast films in 35 mm).

Film	Effective EI
Tri-X (ISO 400), 400TX	6400
Tri-X (ISO 320), 320TXP, TXT	5000
Forte 200/Classic 200	1000

 

[Donald Qualls]

The things you try when you find you had the film in the holder backward. Sometimes they work!

Warning: I don't know if this will still work with any of the post-2009 formulations of HC-110, though I'm confident homemade D-72 would replaced Dektol. And sorry about the mixed units -- at the time, I had US marked volumetric measures and a reloading scale that weighed in grains, for which I had a convenient conversion to grams.

 

[bendytwin]

Thank you all for your input and recommendations.

Koraks, I'd like very much to try a variant of Mytol like Ryuji's DS-10X, but I have to get some Dimezone S, unless for one-shot purposes phenidone can be substituted? Other than 17% wart remover from the drug store, I also have no salicylic acid on hand.

Donald, I gave Super Soup a try with some success. I used up my last pint of old HC-110 on scaling up the recipe to a bucket's worth. Alas, I was probably overly wary of fog formation even though this was fresh film stock so I added 1mL/L of 1% benzotriazole to the recipe, in addition to your 8gr/L KBr. In hindsight this was overkill and probably counter-productive to pushing .For one roll of 16mm Tri-X pushed 3 stops, I got good results from 11.75min @ 73.5F with agitation every 30sec or so. For a second roll which ostensibly needed a 4-stop push shooting under streetlights while up all night in Bologna last summer, however, I suspect I metered poorly. I was barely getting highlight detail at 10min, and it took until 20-30 to see much more on the neg by IR inspection. So I let it sit semi-stand for 1hr30min, after which it didn't seem to be gaining much image density, so I pulled it then. I think it'll be usable.

I also have glycin so may give FX-11 a try this week with more rolls shot at night.

Edit: Lo and behold, another option. I have two geriatric but unopened bottles of Ilfotec HC -- Donald, any feelings on my substituting this for HC-110 in Super Soup?

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

I don't know what the best developer is for push processing, but I know that the best negatives aren't push processed.

Usually, giving slightly more exposure than the ISO and avoiding over development gives the best negatives to print from.

 

[koraks]

unless for one-shot purposes phenidone can be substituted?

I use plain phenidone; it works fine. I do use the developer one shot, because I don't really trust the way I mix it for longer term storage. The phenidone is not so much the problem; I use that in other formulas that I do keep around for a long time and it's not an issue. It's the ascorbate/vitamin C that's the worry.

no salicylic acid

That's of little use here anyway. You want ascorbate or ascorbic acid, a.k.a. vitamin C.

 

[relistan]

That's of little use here anyway. You want ascorbate or ascorbic acid, a.k.a. vitamin C.

Ryuji used salicylic acid as a sequestrant to protect his ascorbic acid recipes. He found it quite effective. If @bendytwin was making that DS-10x formula, he’d need it.

 

[relistan]

@bendytwin having done no 16mm, nor super long spools, I don’t know if the same rules apply. However, I’d normally reach for a two bath developer in this scenario. The classic is Diafine, which has gotten expensive. But there are a few clones and other formulas that work well. Barry Thornton’s two bath is quite different but also effective.

 

[koraks]

Ryuji used salicylic acid as a sequestrant to protect his ascorbic acid recipes

OK, thanks, I wasn't aware of that.
I don't use it, and it works OK, but I never keep the developer around for more than a few hours, or max a day or so.

 

[relistan]

OK, thanks, I wasn't aware of that.
I don't use it, and it works OK, but I never keep the developer around for more than a few hours, or max a day or so.

It’s not used by other folks who’ve published formulas to my knowledge. Only Ryuji used it. I have not tried myself.

 

[Milpool]

It’s not used by other folks who’ve published formulas to my knowledge. Only Ryuji used it. I have not tried myself.

It was salicylic acid plus TEA, which in combination were supposed to provide decent iron chelation as a partial workaround for DTPA. DTPA has since become a little easier to source (at least in North America).

EDIT - misspelled salicylic lol sorry

 

[Donald Qualls]

geriatric but unopened bottles of Ilfotec HC -- Donald, any feelings on my substituting this for HC-110 in Super Soup?

I have no knowledge of the longevity of Ilfotec HC concentrate, but everything I've read says it's a direct replacement for HC-110 in other ways. I'd probably start with a single test roll before committing any film you care about...

 

[bendytwin]

Well, I'm glad I did a clip test first: "it's dead, Jim." I had two unopened bottles of Ilfotec HC, one so old (pictured) it had no website on it; the other was modern enough to have Ilford.com but both were dead. The older (darker yellow) after 5min at very strong concentration could produce medium gray, but the newer bottle was stone dead. I'll have to get some fresh HC-110 / equivalent and try another day.

Can anyone speculate a redeeming experimental purpose to keep the dead concentrate around, perhaps for the diethanolamine / diethylene glycol, if I'm preparing to mix some more developer anyway?

 

[koraks]

Can anyone speculate a redeeming experimental purpose to keep the dead concentrate around, perhaps for the diethanolamine / diethylene glycol, if I'm preparing to mix some more developer anyway?

None whatsoever. Discard it (responsibly).

 

[bendytwin]

OK, thank you.

After making it most of the way through a rather enjoyable 24-page read on the "New HC-110 Formula" thread from last year, I've ordered a liter of the new stuff from B&H to give it a try with super soup.

In the meantime, it had been a decade since I'd pushed Tri-X in Xtol more than a stop, so I mixed up 10L stock fresh today today and tried developing 2x100ft rolls of Tri-X pushed 3 stops to 1250 (artificial light from windows at night). The first roll I did 35min at 68.5F, Xtol 1:3.4 (dilution error on my part), bucket dev by inspection under night vision. The next roll must have been even more poorly exposed (checking my notes from the night of shooting I'm not sure how -- I've not had good luck with Tri-X pushed under artificial light), since it was still extremely thin even after 37min at 72F Xtol 1:2 (so warmer and stronger concentration).

 

[koraks]

it was still extremely thin even after 37min

Can't develop an image that's not there. Tri-X underexposed by roughly 2 stops won't record much (anything) in the shadows. The kind of scene you've set up for mostly consists of deep shadows that won't record; only the actual windows show up, and looking at the negatives, they made it just fine.

I think you're expecting something that just won't happen.

 

[Ian Grant]

Can anyone speculate a redeeming experimental purpose to keep the dead concentrate around, perhaps for the diethanolamine / diethylene glycol, if I'm preparing to mix some more developer anyway?

During WWII a BJP (& Almanac) article suggested re-using film developer for prints, essentially increasing the pH and adding extra developing agents. Here in the UK materials & chemistry were in short supply to the public, so it made sense.

Ian

 

[MattKing]

That bottle is probably labelled as being from the "Ilford Imaging" (pre-2005) version of Ilford, but it could be from even earlier than that. If you keep it much longer, it might soon qualify as a collectable antique!