Development Question

[osella]

I primarily use replenished Xtol mostly due to the lower toxicity and how economical. It works nicely for my medium format films and generally they print well using a grade 2 filter.

My question comes as I begin to get more serious about palladium printing. I have made a series of exposures on 8x10 fp4 and am trying to work out the development so I can get the correct density range of around 2.0. It was an overcast day so the light was fairly flat so I metered at 160 to hopefully increase contrast. Developed in Xtol for 20min(my usual time is around 11min) I achieved a density range of approximately 1.4.

In an effort to see if the negative could indeed achieve the correct density range I developed one of the negatives in PQ universal 1+9 for 8 minutes. The negative ended up being very close to what I wanted but was slightly over developed with a density range of 2.2-2.4. It printed well but as expected was a little dense in the highlights.

I may have rambled a bit, but ultimately my question is would I be able to achieve the same density range using Xtol by just developing longer or would there be a point of diminishing returns where it wouldn’t get any more density?

 

[Bill Burk]

The closest comparison I have is TMAX-100 that I develop in D-76. After 20 minutes in stock XTOL, if you only got 1.2 density range you probably would get 1.6 density range after 50 minutes. So I think you need more light, or you were wise to switch to paper developer in this scenario.

 

[koraks]

Yep, something like 20 minutes in stock xtol should get you close. And don't underexpose "to boost contrast" - you want pretty much all the shadow detail and highlight density you can get. Although 1/3 stop underexposure is of course virtually negligible in a real world setting...

And yes there's a "law of dimishing returns" but you should be able to easily get beyond 1.4 with xtol, so nowhere near that point yet.

 

[osella]

Well I think the PQ will do for this set of negatives. But I’ll have to look at the way I am metering and make sure I’m giving the film plenty of exposure the next time I’m out.
I think I was wary of having printing times that were excessively long from an overly dense negative, but if I can’t make a suitable negative that doesn’t matter anyway.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Vaughn]

FP4+ in Ilford PQ Universal is what I have used with great success for platinum/palladium printing (I use pt/pd at a 1:2 ratio and no contrast agent). Depending on the SBR, the phase of the moon, current weather conditions, and the process to be used for printing, I have used PQ from 1:19 to 1:9. Jobo Expert Drum (3005) on a motor base. For carbon printing, I use the same routine for developing the film, though usually at 1:9 and higher temp/time (DR of 2.8 to 3). I keep notes, but usually can't find them.