Developer for FP4+ with no grain

Luxaeterna · Thursday at 11:05 AM

ADOX Atomal straight or 1:1.
No grain and full film speed.

The best things in life are analog | ATOMAL 49

www.adox.de

cliveh · Thursday at 1:53 PM

If you want a black & white film with zero grain, why not use XP2.

Donald Qualls · Thursday at 2:15 PM

cliveh said:
why not use XP2.

Or TMX. Or Acros II if you can find any.

Paul Howell · Thursday at 3:02 PM

This is a 5 year old thread, but In 35mm, Tmax 100, 200LPM, smallest grain, smaller than PanF or old Panatomic X, which is why Kodak discontinued PanX, Tmax 100 outperformed it. In terms of comparing PF4 for grain and contrast I would go for Tmax 400, gain is better with lower contrast. No matter how you slice it, getting a quaility 20 X 24 from 35mm is a challenge.

pentaxuser · Thursday at 3:20 PM

Paul Howell said:
This is a 5 year old thread,

True but the OP replied today saying he had found what he was looking for, namely good old plain and simple D23 undiluted

pentaxuser

DREW WILEY · Thursday at 3:48 PM

There will always be visible grain at the significant degree of enlargement under question unless you slightly de-focus the print. A lot depends on the contrast level, of course, and how close people approach the print when viewing it.

Curtis990011 · Thursday at 3:55 PM

I've always used FP4 simply because it's more affordable than any Kodak film where I live, its speed is suited for the photographs I do, and its flexibility makes it good for experimenting. If I had the time and money, I'd try every film and developer combination possible, although sticking to FP4 has helped me learn about the things we can control when exposing, developing and printing/scanning.

I never thought I'd be able to get 0 noticeable grain, but I was surprised by how smooth my prints were when I first started using D23 almost a year ago.

GregY · Thursday at 4:16 PM

Paul Howell said:
This is a 5 year old thread, but In 35mm, Tmax 100, 200LPM, smallest grain, smaller than PanF or old Panatomic X, which is why Kodak discontinued PanX, Tmax 100 outperformed it. In terms of comparing PF4 for grain and contrast I would go for Tmax 400, gain is better with lower contrast. No matter how you slice it, getting a quaility 20 X 24 from 35mm is a challenge.

"I'm trying to find a developer and dev time for Ilford FP4+ (120 6x7) so I can make relatively large prints".....

DREW WILEY · Thursday at 5:32 PM

Yes, much better odds with 6x7. But there will still be a tradeoff with acutance. FP4 wouldn't be the ideal candidate for that degree of enlargement. Something like Tmax 100 might be realistic.

Old thread, yeah, but these kinds of questions will come up over and over again.

john_s · Thursday at 6:36 PM

Old thread, sure, but isn't it good that the OP got back to us, even if it took a while?

John Wiegerink · Thursday at 9:33 PM

john_s said:
Old thread, sure, but isn't it good that the OP got back to us, even if it took a while?

Yes, my hat is off to the OP! How often do you see this happen? Very rare.

RalphLambrecht · Friday at 1:51 AM

Lachlan Young said:
ID-11/ D-76 or Perceptol. Try all the dilutions from stock to 1+3 - you might be surprised at which one actually gives the best granularity/ sharpness balance. Aim for an EI of 50, start from Ilford's times. If you want a liquid, DD-X is a fair starting point. Ignore the magic bullets people promise you, it's mostly about balancing your exposure to be just enough to hold the shadow details you want & keeping your processing times from making excessively dense highlights.

How big is 'large' by your definition?

I 2nd that, It's my go-to option an grain was never an issue for me.

albireo · Friday at 3:41 AM

Luxaeterna said:
ADOX Atomal straight or 1:1.
No grain and full film speed.

The best things in life are analog | ATOMAL 49

www.adox.de

@Luxaeterna, I'm experimenting with this developer with a few film types I'm using and I'm flabbergasted. It is just incredible.

I agree with you completely - I'm getting full ISO usage, beautiful tonality, incredible sharpness and very, very little grain compared to other developers.

Seems like a much better Xtol/XT-3 based on my initial tests.

Why is it not better known?

miha · Friday at 3:52 AM

@Luxaeterna & @albireo What has your experience been with the shelf life of the mixed solution? Adox says it lasts up to 6 weeks, which seems substandard compared to something like D-76.

albireo · Friday at 4:09 AM

miha said:
@Luxaeterna & @albireo What has your experience been with the shelf life of the mixed solution? Adox says it lasts up to 6 weeks, which seems substandard compared to something like D-76.

Can't comment I'm afraid. I'm at my second 1L bottle, I've only used the first one stock, developing 8 35mm rolls in 2 weeks and then dumping the content of the bottle. I prolonged dev after the 4th roll as per leaflet. Again, I need to test further, but so far this looks like an astonishingly good product.

Keith Tapscott. · Friday at 7:16 AM

Curtis990011 said:
Hi guys, I'm trying to find a developer and dev time for Ilford FP4+ (120 6x7) so I can make relatively large prints with no visible grain. I also need to have good shadow and highlight detail.
I use a tripod so I can pull the film down as low as needed.
Thanks!

I can recommend a book by George E Todd called From Seeing To Showing in which he used medium format FP4 for the majority of his images.

One photos in the book was taken with a Plaubel 67 camera using FP4 processed in Perceptol and enlarged to around 32x40 inches if my memory is correct.
He mentions that Ilford used the print at their promotional shows.

Try it and see if you like the results.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeing-Showing-Creative-Photography-Workshop/dp/1902538110

pentaxuser · Friday at 9:42 AM

albireo said:
@Luxaeterna, I'm experimenting with this developer with a few film types I'm using and I'm flabbergasted. It is just incredible.

I agree with you completely - I'm getting full ISO usage, beautiful tonality, incredible sharpness and very, very little grain compared to other developers.

Seems like a much better Xtol/XT-3 based on my initial tests.

Why is it not better known?

It will be now

pentaxuser

DREW WILEY · Friday at 11:54 AM

Keith - a small repro of a 6X7 FP4/Perceptol image in a book is one thing; an actual 30X40 print would have looked pretty darn fuzzy in person. I've seen a lot of "trade show" prints that looked downright awful. And I've worked quite a bit with this particular film/dev combination and know its realistic limits.

Alan Johnson · Friday at 12:35 PM

A bit academic these days but finest grain in my test was obtained using p-phenylenediamine in Jay DeFehr's Halcyon developer:

Halcyon p-phenylenediamine developer test

Opinion is divided over PPD, some say it has unique properties, others that it was replaced by Microdol (now discontinued) and by Perceptol (still available) as an ultrafine grain developer.(See the Film Developing Cookbook by Anchell and Troop for more details) PPD can cause permanent allergy...

www.photrio.com

K-G · Saturday at 3:35 PM

A few years ago I made a few attempts with FP4+ in 135 size at 80 ISO and developed with Rodinal 1:100 for 22 minutes at 20 deg C , agitating with two twists of the tank every two minutes. The results were brilliant.
Just se to that you have enough liquid at this dilution. I think it is recommended wit 6 ml of concentrate for each film , so 600 ml solution per roll was needed. Give it a try.

Karl-Gustaf

Curtis990011 · Sunday at 6:55 AM

K-G said:
A few years ago I made a few attempts with FP4+ in 135 size at 80 ISO and developed with Rodinal 1:100 for 22 minutes at 20 deg C , agitating with two twists of the tank every two minutes. The results were brilliant.
Just se to that you have enough liquid at this dilution. I think it is recommended wit 6 ml of concentrate for each film , so 600 ml solution per roll was needed. Give it a try.

Karl-Gustaf

I've done something similar. FP4+ 135, EI 100, Rodinal 1:100 at 20ºc, 45min for contrasty light or 60min for flat light, twist-inversion agitation for the first minute, then leave it alone for the remaining time. I always did a 5min presoak at 20ºc too, a few inversions at the start of each minute.

You get high acutance and a fair amount of grain. Scans and prints nicely, I think I was using grade 2 or 3.

Slixtiesix · Sunday at 1:19 PM

As others recommended, try Perceptol. This is my favorite developer for FP4+. Try stock solution for smallest grain possible. Diluted 1+3 you will get more sharpness, but the grain will be slightly more noticeable. 1+1 is considered a sweep spot by many. I cannot say that the grain will be invisible, but with this developer, it will turn out so unobtrusive that you may barely notice it.

Developer for FP4+ with no grain

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