Developer for FP4+, HP5+ and Tri-X

Vaughn · Aug 26, 2014

FP4+ and Ilford Universal PQ developer is a nice combo for platinum printing (and carbon). Just seems to match up nicely. That is about as scientific as I can get on it.

cjbecker · Aug 26, 2014

jnanian said:
it makes me smile when i read this

thanks cj brightened up my day!

I was thinking of ya when I posted it.

JackRosa · Aug 27, 2014

What Dilution

cjbecker said:
Ansco130 (pf130)

The only developer I have for paper and film.

Thanks CJ. I use (1+1) for paper. What dilution do you use for film?

cjbecker · Aug 27, 2014

JackRosa said:
Thanks CJ. I use (1+1) for paper. What dilution do you use for film?

1-1 for paper

1-10 for film

fp4 at 160iso for 9 mins at 73

JackRosa · Aug 27, 2014

Thanks CJ

cjbecker said:
1-1 for paper

1-10 for film

fp4 at 160iso for 9 mins at 73

THANKS CJ. I will give it a try. If this developer performs with film as well as it does with paper, I am throwing out all the bottles of Rodinal and HC-110 and the D-76 packets! One developer for everything!

baachitraka · Aug 27, 2014

D-76(1+1) or its variants for HP5+. I personally use DK76b(1+1).

NedL · Aug 27, 2014

timor said:
That's what I do with cubical grain films with shortened dev time and additional 2-3 minutes bath of borax..

Can you expand on this a little? It is a compensating development, partly 2-bath? The goal of the borax is to continue development in the shadows while the highlights exhaust?

removed account4 · Aug 27, 2014

JackRosa said:
THANKS CJ. I will give it a try. If this developer performs with film as well as it does with paper, I am throwing out all the bottles of Rodinal and HC-110 and the D-76 packets! One developer for everything!

yep,
i did the one developer for everything for about 6 or 7 years ansco130 is great stuff ...

removed account4 · Aug 27, 2014

michael

have you ever used ansco 130 as a film developer ?
it gives sharpness and contrast and not huge grain ...
and you don't lose film speed. i have shot box speed
and had no issues ... no issues with poor sharpness or big grain or anything ...

i agree it is best to use and try for oneself and test ..

JackRosa · Aug 28, 2014

Absolutely - test

Michael R 1974 said:
Keep in mind 130 is very far removed from being a state of the art film developer. This type of use is a remnant from the "universal" days. It may or may not matter with sheet film as far as image structure goes (my bet is you'll get relatively big grain and poor sharpness), but you'll likely lose film speed too. Please test it before using it on pictures.

Absolutely! .. . I will conduct a few tests (130 developer with negs) before using it with valued negatives. My plan is to compare the results against my "standard" developer = Rodinal and also against D-76 (and possibly HC-110). As far as paper goes, notwithstanding Amidol, Formulary's PD-130 (1+1) is my one and only developer.

JackRosa · Aug 28, 2014

Why Ansco 130?

jnanian said:
michael

have you ever used ansco 130 as a film developer ?
it gives sharpness and contrast and not huge grain ...
and you don't lose film speed. i have shot box speed
and had no issues ... no issues with poor sharpness or big grain or anything ...

i agree it is best to use and try for oneself and test ..

Do you use 130 with film because it is more convenient to just have one developer for all, or do you like the results better than other film developers you have used?

removed account4 · Aug 28, 2014

its kind of a long story ......
but several years before i learned about ansco 130 i found a very old can of GAF universal in a studio i was renting. it was old dusty and most likely spent .. i was broke so i used it anyways ...
.. i got absolutely fantastic results, better than any other
developer i had ever used before that ... so i searched for a few years and a friend who runs equinoxphotographic told me it might be ansco 130' so i just bought some from the formulary hoping and thinking it was the same stuff ... maybe 15-18 years ago. i used the dilutions and
times off of the can and adjusted accordingly to suite my film&c. and i used it for prints, and realized in about 3 seconds i really didnt need to use anything else. it printed well and was getting nice crisp sharp not very grainy negatives in all formats ( and it liked expired film ) and it kept for more than a year as a stock solution. i have been evangelizing its use as a film developer to the formulary, here pnet ( when the large format site was moved there ) and the large format site since about 1999/2000 ... and a few people have
caught the buzz. i mainly used it because to me at least it is a real pain in the neck to have a darkroom filled with 20 developers when you can use just one, and when you can buy 6 gallons a year and it keeps so you dont have to deal with anything else that is icing on the cake ...
i have used it just about every way you can imagine, tanks , rotary, deep tanks, stand, semi stand in trays replenished, spent, 1shot, different dilutions &c so i got to know it pretty well ...
about 6-8 years ago i was bitten by the caffenol but and started to use that, and eventually started to put a squrt of good old ansco in there, and THAT eventually became my developer of choice, and unlike most coffee purists i make a huge batch with whole beans instead of instant, and use it with ansco 130 unreplenished for 3-5 months at a time ( when i do replenish i leave most of it in there to season the tank ) .. but in the last 7 months i have wandered back to using ansco for half the development and use spent caffenol as a second almost a borax bath and get stellar results too ... its hard for me not to use ansco 130 as a film developer because in my eyes it is the golden child, the only developer i will probably ever have to use, it keeps and uses well in all respects ...

( told you it was a long story ... )

JackRosa · Aug 28, 2014

Thanks jnaian

jnanian said:
its kind of a long story ......
but several years before i learned about ansco 130 i found a very old can of GAF universal in a studio i was renting. it was old dusty and most likely spent .. i was broke so i used it anyways ...
.. i got absolutely fantastic results, better than any other
developer i had ever used before that ... so i searched for a few years and a friend who runs equinoxphotographic told me it might be ansco 130' so i just bought some from the formulary hoping and thinking it was the same stuff ... maybe 15-18 years ago. i used the dilutions and
times off of the can and adjusted accordingly to suite my film&c. and i used it for prints, and realized in about 3 seconds i really didnt need to use anything else. it printed well and was getting nice crisp sharp not very grainy negatives in all formats ( and it liked expired film ) and it kept for more than a year as a stock solution. i have been evangelizing its use as a film developer to the formulary, here pnet ( when the large format site was moved there ) and the large format site since about 1999/2000 ... and a few people have
caught the buzz. i mainly used it because to me at least it is a real pain in the neck to have a darkroom filled with 20 developers when you can use just one, and when you can buy 6 gallons a year and it keeps so you dont have to deal with anything else that is icing on the cake ...
i have used it just about every way you can imagine, tanks , rotary, deep tanks, stand, semi stand in trays replenished, spent, 1shot, different dilutions &c so i got to know it pretty well ...
about 6-8 years ago i was bitten by the caffenol but and started to use that, and eventually started to put a squrt of good old ansco in there, and THAT eventually became my developer of choice, and unlike most coffee purists i make a huge batch with whole beans instead of instant, and use it with ansco 130 unreplenished for 3-5 months at a time ( when i do replenish i leave most of it in there to season the tank ) .. but in the last 7 months i have wandered back to using ansco for half the development and use spent caffenol as a second almost a borax bath and get stellar results too ... its hard for me not to use ansco 130 as a film developer because in my eyes it is the golden child, the only developer i will probably ever have to use, it keeps and uses well in all respects ...

( told you it was a long story ... )

THANK YOU. Interesting story and very good reasons to go with 130 for both, prints & negs.

I already use 130 as my one/only print developer (other than Amidol, which I use only seldom). I totally agree . . . better to have one(1) developer (that keeps forever) rather than many bottles, packets, etc. [that go bad after a couple of months].
I am going to do some testing in the next couple of weeks and suspect I may be one of those guys who will have one(1) developer for both, prints and negs

cjbecker · Aug 28, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
Is it really that much of a pain to have a developer for negatives and a developer for prints? (devil's advocate I guess). Remember, using your print developer to develop modern films inevitably entails compromising somewhere in exchange for having one bottle in the darkroom instead of two.

YES, haha no it's not but when you only have to mix once for a year or so, it makes it really easy and simple. Plus I like the results.

And correction, I develop at 75 not 73

removed account4 · Aug 28, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
Is it really that much of a pain to have a developer for negatives and a developer for prints? (devil's advocate I guess). Remember, using your print developer to develop modern films inevitably entails compromising somewhere in exchange for having one bottle in the darkroom instead of two.

i found it to be a nuisance to have a few different print and film developers
in a bottle that because i might not have processed
film or made prints for. a month or 2 so i have to dump it all in my waste barrel
because it went bad. it seemed like kind of a waste ...
a waste to buy it a waste of time to mix it and store it
especially when the rolls and sheets looked better when processed
by a130 than they did in tmax, xtol, dk50 and whatever else i
might have used at least for me it was kind of an easy decision ...
not to mention i started using it heavily when my process/print time was
curtailed so the lifespan was a huge issue..
i still use sprint for client work sometimes because it is local, and i like
supporting a local company, but that said i got rid of half a bottle of sprint
because my clients either wanted me to use ansco 130
or coffee instead. i didnt really find i compromised anything ...
space storing, time mixing, money spent on it, film that came out of it ...
maybe someone else might think there is a compromise in quality because they
have the idea developing in print developer will yield a certain type of negatives
so they scrutinize the film more heavily ... but i dont, since they print well, and scran well
too, and it cuts down the amount of stuff purchased unused, oxidized and wasted ...
not to mention spent/used a130 is great for paper negatives and i make lots of them
like with everything. YMMV

DREW WILEY · Aug 28, 2014

I use PMK pyro for all these films in all formats, 35mm right up to 8x10. It's so much easier to print the negs than back in my pre-pyro days.

removed account4 · Aug 28, 2014

no worries michael
you just seemed to be
pushing hard to dissuade
or suggest that there really isn't
any reason to use a130
because there are so many other "better"
alternatives ... but to some ( like me )
the "better" alternatives really aren't
better. they are just a waste of time and $$
but to others their needs, and tastes are different.

that's why so i gave you and jack more than 2 sentence answers.
because there are a lot of reasons why i have used a130
and they kind of make a heap ...

if jack wants to use something else after his tests
it doesn't matter to me one bit at least he tried and
didn't like it everyone has different tastes ...
on a side note, i disliked saurkraut when i was younger
now i ferment my own as often as i can ...

JackRosa · Aug 29, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
Is it really that much of a pain to have a developer for negatives and a developer for prints? (devil's advocate I guess). Remember, using your print developer to develop modern films inevitably entails compromising somewhere in exchange for having one bottle in the darkroom instead of two.

As much as I like the idea of one developer for everything, I would not - for the sake of having fewer bottles in the darkroom - compromise on quality. I think the point John and CJ are making is that 130 delivers results that they like every bit as much as D-76 and other film developers.

I conducted a test today and photographed a subject several times (under controlled conditions, camera on tripod, etc.). Tones ranging from deep shadows (Zone I) to bright highlights (Zone VIII and above) plus everything in between.

Well . . . I developed the FP4+ negs in (a) Rodinal 1+50, (b) D-76 1+1, and (c) PD-130 (1+10) and just got done inspecting the negs. I detect no more grain with the PD-130 negs than the ones developed in D-76. Naturally, the Rodinal ones show more grain. I examined the negs on a light table with a 20x loupe! I am telling you ... the PD-130 negs look fabulous.

Next step is to enlarge these 120 negs to 11x14 or larger and thoroughly evaluate the results.

So far (preliminarily), 2 thumbs up for PD-130 as a film developer. I think (1+10) is going to be too vigorous for my liking. I will probably experiment with weaker dilutions, perhaps (1+20)

End of report. Stay tuned.

JackRosa · Aug 29, 2014

Compromise

Michael R 1974 said:
Is it really that much of a pain to have a developer for negatives and a developer for prints? (devil's advocate I guess). Remember, using your print developer to develop modern films inevitably entails compromising somewhere in exchange for having one bottle in the darkroom instead of two.

---

Michael: I am curious about your statement that there will be a compromise somewhere. Where do you foresee a compromise and what is your rationale to conclude that there will be a compromise? I am not trying to be controversial;I ask this question respectfully and simply because I am curious and very interested in understanding your insight.

JackRosa · Aug 29, 2014

Pyro - yes

DREW WILEY said:
I use PMK pyro for all these films in all formats, 35mm right up to 8x10. It's so much easier to print the negs than back in my pre-pyro days.

Drew: I used to develop my negs in PMK pyro and found this developer to produce exquisite results. My problem lies in the fact that I use unsharp masks for all my serious work and the yellow stain throws my densitometer for a loop. I bought a color densitometer a few ago but for some reason was never able to integrate the data I got using this device into my MO :confused: to "scientifically" create unsharp masks vs. trial and error.

Xmas · Aug 29, 2014

It does not make significant difference which developer you use eg FP4+ won't turn into HP5+ or Tri-X.

If you want to print you need to expose for the look you want.

Shooting wearwolves with silver bullets is only in the movies.

removed account4 · Aug 29, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
But objectively I'd bet a developer such as XTOL (for example) will kick its butt when it comes to image structure, emulsion speed and/or tone reproduction.

michael

i used xtol from when it was released for a few years ... different dilutions, times uses methodologies ... and even with an extra 30-50% of development
i was unable to get contrast to my liking, i found it to be one of the WORST developers i have ever used hands down.
i used it again a few times maybe 7-8 years ago and again i found it to be consistently lame ... it was fun to mix though i liked watching the orange turn clear ..
but it got old quick
i'm glad others have found a use for it though
vive la difference !
john

laser · Aug 29, 2014

To paraphrase: There are three great developers" D76, D76, and 76.

If it ain't broke don't mess with it. Fine grain (sulfite is wonderful stuff), good speed, pushes well, predictable and controlable contrast, low fog. It is cheap (1:1 one shot) , keeps well, easy to mix.

Concentrate on making good pictures, not testing different combinations. What could be better than TX in D76 1:1? May be TMX in D76.

Thomas Bertilsson · Aug 29, 2014

JackRosa said:
I have used Rodinal for years as my one and only developer for above-mentioned films. I switched to Rodinal from Pyro and am happy with the results. I rate FP4+ at EI=50 and HP5+ and Tri-X at EI=200. I use these film in the following formats: 120, 4x5, 8x10

Wondering what developers you have had success with. I subscribe to the theory that if it works don't fix it but at the same time feel that experimenting a little every once in a while is healthy.

Thanks in advance.

Jack,

How do you print? Silver gelatin? Fixed or variable contrast? Or do you scan?

It matters a lot, because any pyro developer stains the negative, which will mess with the contrast of variable contrast emulsions. Especially PMK with its green/brown stain can be difficult to work around and get enough contrast when printing on VC paper. With graded paper it's an entirely different story.

With Tri-X, D76 is a classic beautiful look. Dilute 1:1 and have at it. I've had luck with HP5+ and FP4+ in that developer as well. Very good results.

If you like really intense and beautiful highlights, Developer 12 from Photographers' Formulary is really interesting. Completely different tonality to Rodinal. (It's the recipe for Edwal Developer 12 that they're using).

Otherwise, Rodinal is a great developer that is very flexible. D76 will give you less prominent grain, but the negs will not be as sharp. In the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't matter much.

Del Boy · Aug 29, 2014

For those that use PMK Pyro, what do you use for a fixer?

Developer for FP4+, HP5+ and Tri-X

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