Discuss DD-X

Marc Leest · Jan 19, 2007

Hello,

I am looking for a new look in my negatives: till now I used Rodinal but thinking to change developer. I read some good reviews of Ilfords DD-X but I am undecided. I use HP5 and Delta100 in 4x5.

thx, Marc

Roger Hicks · Jan 19, 2007

Marc Leest said:
Hello,

I am looking for a new look in my negatives: till now I used Rodinal but thinking to change developer. I read some good reviews of Ilfords DD-X but I am undecided. I use HP5 and Delta100 in 4x5.

thx, Marc

Finer grain than Rodinal, more sharpness and more speed (Ilford's tests, not mine). At 4x5, none of the above matters much. Whether you like the tonality as much, no-one can tell you.

Cheers,

R.

Pete H · Jan 19, 2007

You'll certainly get a different look with DD-X than with Rodinal. I went the other way.
I still like DD-X with faster films (400 up) and especially for pushing, because of the grain control mentioned by Roger. Delta 100 in DD-X can be very contrasty and personally I prefer its tonality in Rodinal (normally I use 1+50).

What look are you looking for?

mario Ag+ · Jan 19, 2007

Personally I don,t like the look of Delta 100 in DDX but HP5 in this soup gives easily printable negs with a lovely tonal range. In my opinion nothing beats Delta 100 in Rodinal for sharpness.

Keith Tapscott. · Jan 19, 2007

Pete H said:
Delta 100 in DD-X can be very contrasty and personally I prefer its tonality in Rodinal (normally I use 1+50).
What look are you looking for?

I would have thought shortening the development time or using a slightly weaker dilution than usual would help to keep excessive contrast in check. e.g. 1+5 or 1+6.

Black Dog · Feb 3, 2007

DDX is especially good for the faster films like HP5+ and Delta 3200-second above comments about dilution.

ContaxGman · Feb 3, 2007

I have never used Rodinal with HP5+ but used to use Ilfosol-S and the acutance is definitely less with the DDX, so I suspect there will be a reduction from Rodinal for sure. But it still looks sharp enough for me and the speed is better (I shoot 35mm at 400 with excellent shadow detail). And the tonality is extraordinary - it prints easiliy on MGIV. I usually keep my enlargements small (per the excellent book by Mr. Hicks and his wife, Quality in Photography) and am very happy with the technical quality. Using large format your enlargement factor will probably be even less than mine so I think you will be pleased.

aldevo · Feb 3, 2007

I still keep a bottle of DD-X around when I need really good film speed, but otherwise I prefer other developers for every-day purposes.

DD-X and Rodinal are very different developers.

DD-X will give you much more film speed (1 stop better, in my experience) and is finer-grained. I'd be inclined to disagree with Roger that DD-X is sharper. But my experience is limited in that the only film I have tried with both Rodinal and DD-X is APX 100. You can also perform semi-stand or stand development of film with heavily diluted Rodinal solutions. I'm not aware of people using DD-X for this application.

Rodinal has its own unique tonality. DD-X is sort of similar to XTOL, D-76, etc. I like them both.

DD-X will be quite a bit more expensive per roll than Rodinal. On the plus side, a bottle of DD-X seems to last a year or even a bit more after it's opened - that's very good for a liquid concentrate. Of course, Rodinal doesn't suffer at all in the shelf life department...

buze · Feb 4, 2007

You can use DDX at 1+9 with no negative effect I can find. It's considerably cheaper that way... and gives me reasonable development times (10 minutes ish for most films) when I use it at 24C.
I've posted 1+9 times for various films to the Massive Development Chart in the last few months.

Lee L · Feb 4, 2007

I recently tried semi-stand with DDX 1:9 and Delta 100 in 35mm.

I gave a 2.5 minute presoak in water, then 40 minutes in DDX 1:9 at 20C.
I used 60ml DDX + water to 600ml with two rolls of 135-36 with 30 seconds initial agitation, then 2 inversions and a rap on the counter with the 4 reel tank in ten seconds every 5 minutes.

This gave me about N+2 contrast, a gamma of about 0.83, so I'll reduce the time on the next try. Looks like about EI 125, but that might drop a bit with the development reduced to give normal contrast. The curve does indicate some compensating effect in the highlights.

I haven't had time to print the negatives yet, so can't make a final judgement on tonality yet, but I like what I see in the negatives.

Lee

Discuss DD-X

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