Development times for Delta 3200 in Perceptol 1+3

This is probably certifiably insane...but I was wondering if anyone has tried D3200 in Perceptol 1+3 and what sort of development times & EIs they got. I guess an EI of about 1000ish would be correct and dev times would be in the region of 30 minutes - is this about right? I would be shooting the stuff in medium format.

All help much appreciated,

Lachlan

it wont say, but stock for 3200 speed is 18 min

I haven't tried Perceptol 1+3 with Delta 3200, but I have used it with many other films with excellent results. I don't think it's insane. Film speed should be about the same as D76 1+3, but the lower pH of Perceptol should give you finer grain. The catch is the long developing time, but you can speed that up by processing at 24C (or even higher), rather than at 20C. It should work fine after you run a test or two.

momonga said:

...but the lower pH of Perceptol should give you finer grain...

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What is the pH of the Perceptol under these conditions? How does the Perceptol pH affect the grain size?

Same questions about Kodak Microdol-X.

Which version of D-76? What is the D-76 pH under these conditions?

Tom,

I might have given the impression that I know more about this than I actually do. But from what I've read, there is generally less 'grain clumping' with a lower pH. I assume 'grain clumping' to be the grainy quality we see in the print. D76 has a pH around 8.6, XTOL about 8.2; XTOL does in fact give slightly finer grain than D76. Microdol-X and Perceptol are about 7.6, undiluted, so you would expect either to give finer grain than D76 or XTOL, and this does seem to be the case. (Microdol-X and Perceptol are apparently similar, although not identical, formulas).

What happens to the developer pH when diluted? I'm not sure, but my guess is that there should not be a great change with the usual dilutions.

'Which version of D76'? I think the standard formula gives a pH of 8.6, after it has settled down for a day or two. However, the Kodak version is different and the pH is slightly lower.

That's about all I can say. I hope someone will jump in at this point.

momonga said:

Tom,

I might have given the impression that I know more about this than I actually do. But from what I've read, there is generally less 'grain clumping' with a lower pH. I assume 'grain clumping' to be the grainy quality we see in the print. D76 has a pH around 8.6, XTOL about 8.2; XTOL does in fact give slightly finer grain than D76. Microdol-X and Perceptol are about 7.6, undiluted, so you would expect either to give finer grain than D76 or XTOL, and this does seem to be the case. (Microdol-X and Perceptol are apparently similar, although not identical, formulas).

What happens to the developer pH when diluted? I'm not sure, but my guess is that there should not be a great change with the usual dilutions.

'Which version of D76'? I think the standard formula gives a pH of 8.6, after it has settled down for a day or two. However, the Kodak version is different and the pH is slightly lower.

That's about all I can say. I hope someone will jump in at this point.

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Take a look at Ryuji Suzuki's comments on D-76 and some of the D-76 variants.

http://www.silvergrain.org/wiki/index.php/D-76

Lachlan

What magic do you want to occur ?

d

df cardwell said:

Lachlan

What magic do you want to occur ?

d

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The usual magic of dilute perceptol

Fine grain, good acutance, fine gradation, mild edge effects etc - nothing too ultra definition like Rodinal or FX-2 - I would prefer something a little gentler with this potentially rather grainy film although I intend to use MF to mitigate the worst of the grain.

Hope this helps,

Lachlan

'Fine grain, good acutance, fine gradation, mild edge effects'. Yes, I believe Perceptol 1+3 will do all that, and that's why I thought it was not an insane idea. I've used it with many films, but never with Delta 3200 or Kodak p3200, so I'm curious how well this combintaion works.

I brought up D76 1+3 as a well known reference point. For me, Perceptol 1+3 gives similar results, yet seems to be slightly sharper looking with slightly finer grain. (I'm referring to the standard D76 formula here, not Kodak's buffered, packaged version). The catch is the longer developing times. However, since metol is the only developing agent in Perceptol, you can process at higher temperatures with much shorter times. I regularly use 27C, 28C in August with this developer without any problems. That is, at least with film from Fuji, Kodak, Agfa or Ilford. I don't know how film from other manufacturers would react to higher temperatures. You can't or shouldn't do this with a MQ type developer; I notice Ryuji Suzuki suggests no higher than 22C for D76 type developers.

Something else interesting: Richard Henry's tests in Controls... show basically identical results for straight and 1+3 dilutions for granularity and acutance (p225ff) for Microdol-X (which can be considered to be a stand-in for Perceptol). However, he used machine processing, with constant agitation. This suggests that you could adjust your agitation scheme to get the best combination of fine grain and adjacency effects. Ie, if your photographs look too sharp, too 'edgy' or if the grain is not fine enough, you could increase agitation.

Another good feature of Perceptol: no hydroquinone to dispose of.

Tom, thanks for the link. I was familiar with Ryuji's earlier versions.

Regarding the change in developer pH with dilution: I found one reference in Henry's Controls..., p35. Essentially very little should be expected; experimentally, he noted a drop of 0.1 from undiluted to 1+3 in Dektol.

Let's see ... "'Fine grain, good acutance, fine gradation, mild edge effects."

Sounds like Xtol to me.

momonga said:

....edit.....I found one reference in Henry's Controls......... edit....

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Good to mention Henry: brilliantly flawed work that focusses so strongly in the WHAT in photography that it ignores the HOW.

This suggests that you could adjust your agitation scheme to get the best combination of fine grain and adjacency effects.

Dead right.

No experience with XTOL, but if it's anything like Fuji's PC Fujidol-E, I'd have to say Perceptol looks sharper to me (both at 1+3).

momonga said:

No experience with XTOL, but if it's anything like Fuji's PC Fujidol-E, I'd have to say Perceptol looks sharper to me (both at 1+3).

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Xtol is Kodak's recomended developer for maximum shadow detail combined with highest acutance and fine grain.

Recall that Perceptol is the Ilford analog of Kodak's Microdol-X. Microdol-X and Perceptol are both Metol based developers and are variants on Kodak's D-23 Developer.

See: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/prof...y/filmBWmain.jhtml?id=0.2.20.14.18.14.7&lc=en

Also see: Dead Link Removed

I have recently been using Perceptol and I am a convert to it. At least as far as HP5+ is concerned. As far as speed reduction is concerned with HP5+, EI 250 seems fine. This is slightly less than a stop. My understanding is that Perceptol is about a one stop reduction developer. Lachlan is suggesting more than a stop reduction at 1000.

As far as I can see no-one is suggesting that about a stop reduction(1600) is as much as is needed. With a higher speed film such as D3200 does it need more than a stop reduction with Perceptol?

The prevailing philosophy, as I understand it is that a finer grain film pushed to the same EI is better than a higher speed film reduced with a finer grain developer. So would HP5+ (or D400) pushed to 1000 in say a speed increasing developer(Microphen?) result in finer grain than D3200 reduced to 1000 in Perceptol?

There may be a characteristic of D3200 that Lachlan wants to retain which he couldn't get with a lower speed film pushed to 1000 but that aside I'd be interested in comments about the pros and cons of pushing lower speed films such as 400s compared to reducing 3200s to EI 1000.

pentaxuser

Perceptol 1+3 or Microdol-X 1+3, for that matter, Fuji Microfine 1+3, all look sharper to me than PC Fujidol-E 1+3 (which I'll use as a stand-in for XTOL), and that's why I use them. By 'sharper', I mean greater, more visible adjacency effects. A small difference, but still noticeable to me. Consistently so.

If you want these adjacency effects, a metol-only developer, or metol and ascorbic acid type, are the way to go. Theoretically, anyway. Phenidone or hydroquinone reduce adjacency effects. Eg, Ryuji's DS-2 high acutance developer uses metol and ascorbic acid, the Beutler formula uses only metol.

Of course, the differences in perceived sharpness could be considered insignificant, and XTOL seems to offer the best compromise among standard developers. But that's something the individual will have to try and decide for himself. For me, I'll take the extra sharpness over a 1/3 stop gain in film speed.

Phenidone/ascorbate developers are indeed capable of high acutance and Kodak Xtol is an excellent example.

P-aminophenol based developers and Glycin based developers are also capable of delivering high acutance. Crawley's FX-2 Glycin based developer is one of the best known examples.

My personal experience with both Microdol-X and Xtol shows that with duplicated exposures and subject on the same same Lot Date Code of film, Xtol gives finer grain, higher acutance and better microtonality than Microdol-X. I would expect that Perceptol results would be similar.

I would also expect that controlled tests with duplicated exposures of the same Lot Date Code of film with one neg properly developed in Kodak's current packaged version of D-76 and the other neg properly developed in current packaged version of Kodak Microdol-X; the resulting negatives will be virtually identical.

Tom, I am looking at two similar photographs from the Oregon coast, taken about 1998. Some coarsely grained rocks in the foreground, horizon in the distance. Delta 100 in Fujidol-E 1+3 for one, Perceptol 1+3 for the other. Both look very sharp, with equal detail, yet in the Perceptol 1+3 print, that detail 'pops'. (BTW, negatives developed to the same CI, printed on the same grade of paper). I developed half my Delta 100 from that trip (35mm and 120) in Fujidol-E 1+3, half in Perceptol 1+3. The Perceptol negatives look sharper.

I've used Fujidol-E quite a lot since it first came out about 10 years ago, and Perceptol/Microdol-X much longer than that. The latter has consistently looked sharper to me. Not just sharper, but there is also a more delicate modulation of tones in the details. I continued to use Fujidol-E because I kept hearing how 'better' it was than the old formulas, and I actually wanted to switch to something more modern. But I've used it enough now to trust my own eyes first: I prefer Perceptol 1+3.

The complicating factor is we are not talking about the same PC developer. XTOL may be a superior developer to Fujidol-E, or they may be very similar. But here's Barry Thornton's comment on XTOL: '...full speed, very smooth looking grain, but lacking in apparent sharpness through acutance effects' (Edge of Darkness, p88). That's how I would describe Fujidol-E. BTW, Fuji says Perceptol and its own Microfine fine grain developer are the best choices for Neopan Acros to obtain the highest quality, while Fujidol-E and XTOL are just 'good'.

I understand and appreciate that you get superior results with XTOL. It is just not my experience.

I'm currently testing several film types in Xtol, D-76, Suzuki's D-8 developer and Rodinal. I'm primarily looking at development uniformity for various dilutions and agitation methods with these developers. I'm including a Stouffer step wedge and a resolution target in some of the frames. I'll post my results.