I agree with the XTOL recommendations. Its a well rounded developer in many (nearly all) situations. You can certainly that get classic film-look with 1:1 dilution and a 2-stop push.
But, try some HP5 at box speed with stock XTOL, it controls the grain nicely.
Gabriel, I feel you clearly have several longings/desires to try several combos and these desires are what I have deduced as visceral. Visceral feelings run deep and therefore can only be ignored at your peril as the problem with ignoring them is that the feeling of "what if?" keeps coming back to haunt you. It nags at you forever
So on the assumption that you are still a relatively young man who has many years ahead of him I suggest you indulge these visceral feelings and try all the combinations you have visceral feelings about even if this takes several years.
The upside is that you will then know which feelings were 1.great; 2. about right; 3. OK but not worth trying again; 4. to be confined to the scrap heap of life in that sort or order
Then let us have your findings if you will . Some of these findings may be rejected by others for a variety of good or bad reasons but others may help fellow photographers with similar visceral feelings.
I attach the words of "Our Gracie" who was that famous Lancashire( county in the U.K.) lass who sang to us. Please note that in the context of your quest to find these combinations Gracie's "Goodbye" should not be read as goodbye to the forum but as the period in which you try the "Great Trek" into the world of film and chemicals
Here are her words: "Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye
Cheerio, here I go, on my way
Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye
Not a tear, but a cheer, make it gay"
PS in those days the word "gay" has no relationship to sexual orientation
Best of luck
pentaxuser
I need to look into XTOL replenishment. Lately, I am liking XTOL at stock strength. Do you have any links to more information, and I wonder how you determine strength/replenishment needs. After all, it needs to be pretty consistent for good results, I would think, for the dilutions to work.With any luck at all, we'll learn that Adox XT-III supports indefinite self-replenishment the way Xtol does. In all other ways, it appears to be an even more eco-friendly and user-friendly Xtol work-alike.
I need to look into XTOL replenishment. Lately, I am liking XTOL at stock strength. Do you have any links to more information, and I wonder how you determine strength/replenishment needs. After all, it needs to be pretty consistent for good results, I would think, for the dilutions to work.
I tried a number of developers and I found that XTOL was very forgiving and has a number of advantages. When I started using replenished XTOL the developer got even better tonality.
View attachment 270756
How would PMK Pyro sit on that chart? I've lately been considering Kentmere 100 and 400. All the examples I like on Flickr seem to be processed in it.
I am only interested in pushing (800 or 1600). I read some posts about XTOL being flat (similar to DD-X) which are putting me off a bit. I will give HC a few more tries before giving up on it. I suspect that ultimately it might be Microphen who is the best candidate for me, given that I tend to push and this seems to be the recommended developer.
If you are set on 800/1600 ISO, then maybe try Ilford Delta 3200 developed in Microphen. You'll be using it in it's sweet spot.
Using film camera for outdoor work and a good digital camera for indoor low light scenes is perhaps the best solution if you are worried about losing "a lot of potentially valuable memories".
In low-light, you could shoot film at box-speed and bounce a flash off the ceiling.
Or use direct flash, if its harshness doesn't bother you. At least you'll get gray-eye instead of red-eye.
Like many others, I prefer to avoid flash. I've tried to shoot indoors with no flash at 800. But underexposed film looks poor, and shutterspeeds were low enough that camera-shake, motion-blur of my subjects, and poor DOF were often problems. I found that direct flash usually gave me better shots indoors, so I think it's worth reconsidering even if he dislikes flash. I dislike flash, but use it anyway. A powerful flash bounced off the ceiling plus a little frontal fill might be best, if the ceiling isn't too high, as it avoids those problems without adding harshness.You're right - flash is definitely an option. However, I thought OP implicitly ruled out the use of flash when he wrote "that's why I chose to push to 800 or 1600 so I can shoot in both low light (indoors) and day light (outside)."
I'd use caffenol c with a shot of print developer mixed in
it will work extremely well in any situation push pull box speed
and you don't have to worry about manufacturing issues
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/kodak-xtol-trade-concern-announcment.180508/
good luck with your project Gabriel !
Hello Gabriel,
I think the most important question is "am I trying to get at least the best from any of those films or not?" That's one of the things you should do: seek the best possible image structure at least for one film.
Maybe you want to, or maybe you don't... If you want to, you'll need to decide which film you will use for that. In my opinion films produce their best image when in metol only developers with a stop more light than box speed.
Then you can decide if, for that case, you prefer a fast (ISO400) film for handholding, or, a medium/low speed film for tripod work. For such technical case, I've done it for both types of film, so I use PanF+ and TMX for tripod, and HP5+, Tri-X and TMY-2 for street.
Then ask yourself which film you'll use for pushing, knowing there you won't seek best possible image structure, but best tone after a two-stop push.
Developers like ID-11/D-76 and Xtol are common standard developers, good for, say, EI400 and EI800 for common fast film, but they are not the best option for EI200 nor EI1600. I've found Perceptol is the best option for image quality for both classic and modern grain, and Microphen and FX-39 II are the best options for pushing classic and modern grain.
So, you could try doing both things with HP5+ (Perceptol and Microphen), or with TMY-2 (Perceptol and FX-39 II), for EI200 and EI1600.
Standard developers, for box speed or close to that, will give you -in both cases- results below what you can get with developers designed for slow/high EIs.
Try one film you like, for both cases, with two very different and specialized developers, and see if what I'm saying is true.
Have fun!
A friend of mine uses almost exclusively HP5 at ISO 1600 developed with HC-110 dilution B. His results on paper are great.
The best way to increase effective film speed with Rodinal is decreasing dilution. If stand-development is short on shadow detail try for example 1+60 or 1+75 instead of 1+100.
OP
do you have examples of your own photos that you've taken that you want to keep shooting? sometimes its better not to
try to fit a square peg in a round hole ( use someone else's style ) and just go with your own strengths and style.
That's a very good observation. I actually regularly look back at my older photos to see how I like them now, after a year of continuously shooting film (I know, not that long). I did notice that most photos I liked, and ended up printing (digitally) came from either Tri-X or T-Max and what I liked was the tonality of both of these. For some reason I haven't managed to pull out the same out of HP5, exception being 1600 with Microphen - that did gave me a look close to Tri-X and with good tonality
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