D76

[nworth]

All developers have compromises. They try to balance film speed, contrast, grain, cost, toxicity, keeping properties, and a bunch of other stuff. D-76 happens to be an extremely good compromise, giving high speed, fine grain, decent sharpness, reasonable keeping properties and capacity, acceptable toxicity, and low cost. In addition, it has worked well will all films from all manufacturers. You can easily find developers that give finer grain or higher sharpness, but not usually both together (Xtol?, DD-X?). Pyro developers may give somewhat nicer gradation, but at the cost of toxicity and short life. The reason for D-76's survival is that it does everything well, and, for most people and purposes, its particular combination of doing things well is better than whatever else is around.

 

[TareqPhoto]

All developers have compromises. They try to balance film speed, contrast, grain, cost, toxicity, keeping properties, and a bunch of other stuff. D-76 happens to be an extremely good compromise, giving high speed, fine grain, decent sharpness, reasonable keeping properties and capacity, acceptable toxicity, and low cost. In addition, it has worked well will all films from all manufacturers. You can easily find developers that give finer grain or higher sharpness, but not usually both together (Xtol?, DD-X?). Pyro developers may give somewhat nicer gradation, but at the cost of toxicity and short life. The reason for D-76's survival is that it does everything well, and, for most people and purposes, its particular combination of doing things well is better than whatever else is around.

OK, it is like balancing all factors, and maybe this is why i chose it if i don't know what look i want or how to develop certain film, but when i develop some films with different developers i may go sometimes with finer grain frames and another times i prefer sharper or say higher contrast, often i may want just normal standard one, but seems most what i shoot is either high contrast subjects or i keep going with lowest ISO as i can [50-100], so when i feel my negs are not that finest grain or not contrast enough then i blame D-76, but knowing the characteristic of each developer and film will help much to understand which combination to use.

In fact, i started to list film by film with which best result i've got for different developer, i don't care to use 10 different developers with 10 different films if each combo will give me the look/result i want, but as someone told me is that experimenting a lot is kind of wasting time, and also not have some tests will not make it final, but he said it is better to settle with best combo you can get rather than trying more and going up/down up/down with results, 4 films i am done having best dev to me[not necessary for you] and i am moving to have another more to be settles with at least 6-8, i know 1-2 will be enough, but i can never tell when one certain film will be discontinued, so i must have some backups.

 

[nworth]

and i am moving to have another more to be settles with at least 6-8, i know 1-2 will be enough, but i can never tell when one certain film will be discontinued, so i must have some backups.

Experimenting isn't an entire waste of time, and it can be fun, but it does take time and concentration away from productive picture taking. The idea on standardizing on one developer and one film is a good one, but one film doesn't always work for all situations. A good general purpose developer like D-76 will get you excellent negatives for almost all situations. If you buy developer rather than mixing your own, a more modern formulation like Xtol may be somewhat superior.

Grain is often something worry a lot about. They shouldn't. Grain is mostly a property of the film, but even very high speed films have very fine grain these days. The developer can effect the appearance but not the amount of grain. Fine-grain developers like D-76 and D-23 produce developed grains that are somewhat mushy in appearance, and that hides the grain to some extent. High acutance developers like Rodinal develop the grains sharply, so they may be apparent on close examination, but they will not detract from the overall picture with modern films.

The advantage of a good general purpose developer like D-76 is that it works well with all films. You can standardize on it for all the films you commonly use. A small experiment may be in order. Choose a couple of standard developers - maybe D-76 and Xtol. Develop a couple of rolls each of the two films you use most in each of them. Look at the results, and decide on which developer pleases you the most on the average. That's the one you should standardize on. As you gain experience with it, your results will probably improve a bit.

 

[henryyjjames]

I think D76 is the best developer formulation in the history of film photography. Any thoughts?

I really have enjoyed using this developer and it's quite economical!

 

[miha]

I think D76 is the best developer formulation in the history of film photography. Any thoughts?

That would be Kodak D23, which is an improvement over the D76.

 

[Paul Howell]

Really, that's why Kodak dropped D 23 long ago, if it was ever offered in a commercial package, and still sells a ton of D76, ILford still offers ID 11, not to mention the clones, Legacy, Foma, and Ultrafine. I tried D 23, very soft, poor acutance compared to D 76. At one point Ansel Adams used a lot of D23, as film grain got smaller he preferred HC 110, by the mid 70s it just about all he was using.

 

[gone]

D76 straight used to be my favorite developer when I was shooting Tri-X. It made beautiful negs. It also went off quickly after it was mixed. In Florida, I never got more than about 6 weeks out of the stock solution before it started getting a little strange. Keeping my place below 80 degrees was not easy. If I need it now, I only get it on eBay in the old pouches or cans due to Kodak's packaging problems.

 

[miha]

Really. Clive would understand it as he is a Zen man.

D23

Photo

www.pictorialplanet.com

 

[pentaxuser]

Really. Clive would understand it as he is a Zen man.

D23

Photo

www.pictorialplanet.com

Yes an interesting article, Miha. In fact to a question about D76 type developers in another video he gets asked about whether D23 exhibits the same range of qualities at stock, 1+1 and 1+3 his reply is "Yes, it does exactly"

pentaxuser

 

[Lachlan Young]

That would be Kodak D23, which is an improvement over the D76.

Don't think D-23 was ever intended as such, least of all by the person who formulated it.

Henn seems to have aimed D-23 at showing that most of the supposed 'ultra fine grain' developers of the 1930s/ 40s were laden with needlessly toxic (and at the pH in question, inactive) ingredients. D-25, Microdol, Microdol-X were each intended as further evolutionary steps down the route of optimising very fine, sharp grain - the outcome of this research also seems to have been that Kodak found dilute Microdol-X could do the Rodinal thing better.

For what it's worth, Henn also seems to have overseen the creation of HC-110 & seems to have had involvement with research that led to understanding the more complex nature of what's actually happening in D-76 and similar (not really superadditivity, but more like an 'electron-transfer' relationship).

 

[markbau]

That would be Kodak D23, which is an improvement over the D76.

After using D76 for many years I agree that D 23 is a better developer for my purposes. D 23 keeps highlights that D 76 would blow out. I doubt I'll ever mix up another batch of D 76. At 1:1 D 23 has great acutance.

 

[cliveh]

Sliced bread is the best thing since D76.

 

[Ian Grant]

Kodak wanted to switch to a Phenidone Ascorbic developer in the 1950s which was superior to D76, but a Swedish company beat them to it with a US Patent that was broad in its examples. PE/Ron Mowrey posted here that Eastman Kodak Research used a Phenidin (Dimezone) Ascorbic developer to yest all their films for years.

When the Swedish company's Patent expired Kodak were able to release Xtol, and it was their best ever powdered developer, before recent issues.

D23 & D25 were just part of the steps that first lead to DK20, Microdol and later Microdol -X, beither were ever produced commercially because they weren't as good in all round terms as D76.

Ian

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

D-76 is very nice. Diluted 1+1, even better. But, Xtol beats it at 1+1, or replenished. Now if we are talking the best developer EVER...it's Pyrocat-HD. On second thought, D-23 is pretty neat... or was that Caffenol... Oh and don't get me started on Ilfosol-3!

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

...and lets not forget Obsidian Aqua!

 

[miha]

Don't think D-23 was ever intended as such, least of all by the person who formulated it.

Henn seems to have aimed D-23 at showing that most of the supposed 'ultra fine grain' developers of the 1930s/ 40s were laden with needlessly toxic (and at the pH in question, inactive) ingredients. D-25, Microdol, Microdol-X were each intended as further evolutionary steps down the route of optimising very fine, sharp grain - the outcome of this research also seems to have been that Kodak found dilute Microdol-X could do the Rodinal thing better.

For what it's worth, Henn also seems to have overseen the creation of HC-110 & seems to have had involvement with research that led to understanding the more complex nature of what's actually happening in D-76 and similar (not really superadditivity, but more like an 'electron-transfer' relationship).

IDK, I haven't heard of Henn before, but since you mentioned it, I noticed his name was mentioned several times in The Film Developing Cookbook, ed. 2. If you happen to have the book, you can read he believed D23 to be a superior developer.

 

[Craig75]

Is it just me who doesn't care about developers? I've used a lot of different ones but differences seem pretty trivial to me

 

[NB23]

Is it just me who doesn't care about developers? I've used a lot of different ones but differences seem pretty trivial to me

You could be correct... until the moment you try to enlarge a TMX negative developed in XTOL1:1 and you just cant get a grain focuser to discern the grain. That’s for 35mm enlarging to 11x14 prints. Imagine 120 film...

 

[pentaxuser]

You could be correct... until the moment you try to enlarge a TMX negative developed in XTOL1:1 and you just cant get a grain focuser to discern the grain. That’s for 35mm enlarging to 11x14 prints. Imagine 120 film...

Well we seem to get fewer of the kind of threads that ask for the "magic bullet " developer that all newcomers believed existed and it was only the mean old guys who refused to reveal what it was

Maybe your quote above should be the stock answer? It has a kind of understated beginning that suddenly delivers the knock-out punch


pentaxuser

 

[Bill Burk]

Sliced bread is the best thing since D76.

And a Samarai could have faxed Abraham Lincoln

 

[Bill Burk]

p.s. Since my 2012 post, my stats haven't changed much. Pretty much always use D-76 1:1

Used Dektol once or twice to try to get big grain. Added Kodak Anti-Fog a few times.

Bought a small bottle of Rodinal (R09) but it's still sealed. Looked at HC110 but didn't buy.

Bought some D-19 thinking of D-96 but a mouse just got to it.

 

[NB23]

Well we seem to get fewer of the kind of threads that ask for the "magic bullet " developer that all newcomers believed existed and it was only the mean old guys who refused to reveal what it was

Maybe your quote above should be the stock answer? It has a kind of understated beginning that suddenly delivers the knock-out punch


pentaxuser

Xtol is “so great” for shadow detail and all that kind of stuff, but ultimately it ruined a lot of prints for me. The sum of perfect features makes for suuuuch boringness that I can’t even explain.

Developing ONE film and alalyzing ONE print from a XTOL negative will impress anyone. Wow, no grain. Wow, shadow details. Wow, lotsa shadows. Wow, lots of grays. But print a small body of work and you will soon start questioning why your prints look so bland. Totally Half-Baked results.

Here’s my situation; I’m presently printing my negatives from 2018, on my last 10 boxes of 11x14 Oriental FB. That’s 500 sheets of extremely fine paper. Many prints don’t look good, they totally lack character and contrast that even a filter 4 or 5 cannot properly salvage.

At first I blamed myself for poor processing, for poor printing skills. But how could I be such a poor printer after 30 years of sustained work and after so many fine prints? I then blamed the paper that could indeed be unfresh. But how could it be unfresh and yet give me acceptable blacks and a lot of great prints as I was going through negatives? So then I blamed the fact that a few of the films were expired. Okay, that might explain why I’d have stellar prints as well as abysmal prints from my 2018 films. And then I thought that maybe the poor prints were coming from X-Ray zapped films. A lot of theories were on my mind until I understood what was going on: I used two developers for my tmax100 in 2018: xtol 1:1 and Microphen 1:1. And it became clear that all my prints involving tmax100 developed in Microphen 1:1 were gorgeous while all my prints involving Xtol 1:1 were pretty bland. The frustrating part is the time and papers lost during the process.
Basicaly, TMAX100 is a great film that looks great in Ilfosol-3 and Microphen, and looks really bad in xtol 1:1.

This is important to know because it dawned on me while perusing a few photobooks from the masters (Sergio Larrain and Bruce Gilden’s lost and found) that, while their shooting skills are undeniable, a lot of their mastery lies in the look of their prints. The film, the processing, the grain, the master printer, the retoucher: the final look. The character.
It dawned on me especially because I was quite fond of my own 2018 shots but yet I was sooooo far away in terms of the final look on a lot of my prints. It was depressing, and a lot of it was XTOL’s fault, which took me some time
to understand. Simply put, a lot of Larrain’s and Gilden’s shots wouldn’t have even made it into their respective books if they had been shot on tmax and developed in xtol1:1. The extra meaty blacks and thick grays in their images would have not existed, and those do account for at least 33% of the overall effect that their images induce to the viewers.

Anyhow, long story short: I will never use xtol again.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

The only thing that made me 'go away' from D-76 is it's human (and environmental) unfriendly components.
For a while I brew Chris Patton's E-76 and then moved to X-tol.
But yes, I used D-76 for all the non-AGFA emulsions.

 

[McDiesel]

I noticed that some folks type X-tol with a dash. Where is this coming from? Kodak packaging and datasheets say XTOL or Xtol. Is this from the good ole days?

 

[McDiesel]

@NB23 I enjoyed your comment. You must hate T-Max 400 then? Everything you said about Xtol is how I feel about T-Max 400. It prentends to be a digital camera in monochrome mode!