Film and developers compared

Grim Tuesday · Aug 7, 2019

I remember seeing a feature from one of the photography magazines where they developed a few films with a few developers and published the results with respect to accutance, contrast, and grain. The interesting thing was, contrary to the classical chart from Kodak where some devs are better at some things than others in this test it seemed that some devs were better for some particular films at some things and not for other films. Has anyone done a similar test with modern films?

Here is the test I am referring to https://d1ro734fq21xhf.cloudfront.n.../1462717_0745760db3de58244f93de442781acb5.jpg

bernard_L · Aug 7, 2019

https://www.fotoimport.no/filmtest/filmFP4.html
Most complete survey, AFAIK.
Click to choose film, developer. Switch to English if you're not fluent in Norwegian.

My take-home after looking a their results is that, apart from a few bad combinations, the differences are not worth worrying about, and even less discussing. What has been written here several times: better to know fully one or two film-dev combinations.

Grim Tuesday · Aug 7, 2019

Thanks, this is fantastic! At the risk of causing an international incident and derailing my thread, does it look to anyone else like hc-110 is the least grainy, but also least sharp and least acute of any of the devs for just about every film?

MattKing · Aug 7, 2019

Grim Tuesday said:
Thanks, this is fantastic! At the risk of causing an international incident and derailing my thread, does it look to anyone else like hc-110 is the least grainy, but also least sharp and least acute of any of the devs for just about every film?

Nope - compare T-Max 400 in X-Tol and HC-110 (as an example).
Generally speaking though, I agree with bernard_L.

John Wiegerink · Aug 7, 2019

I've reviewed that film/developer test before and I'm staying with Xtol since it seems to be well rounded with all films and serves me well. I also see why many folks swear by Rodinal/Adonal. It seems to work well with many films at the cost of grain, but it's some of the sharpest grain you'll see. Atomal49 has the finest grain, but lacks the "snap" that I like. I stick with two developers and it makes life easier for me instead of bouncing around trying to figure out how to get the best results from five or six different developers.

cjbecker · Aug 7, 2019

I played chase for a long time looking for the best combo. Like 10 years or so, try 20 roll of this, 20 rolls of that, do 10 is this developer and 10 in that. (It was never plained out tho, i would just want to try something new) I did see differences, and it was always very obvious which ones I did not like. Played the same game with paper developers. But i have settled on pf a130 paper developer for all. 1-10 for film and 1-1 for paper. I mix up a few gallons at a time. Put in small bottles for film, and larger ones for paper.

Its by far my favorite for each.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Aug 7, 2019

cjbecker said:
But i have settled on pf a130 paper developer for all. 1-10 for film and 1-1 for paper.

Is this Ansco 130? Interestingly, @jnantz also rates this developer highly for both film & paper. I used it for film a couple of times some time ago & perhaps I should try again. Do you reuse the working solution for film?

pentaxuser · Aug 7, 2019

Unless I have misread the fotoimport information it has as its development time for HP5 10 mins at 20 C and 1+1 Both Ilford in its specs for HP and Xtol and Kodak likewise suggest 12 mins as does the MDC. This is a 16% decrease in time for fotoimport but agrees with the . There may be a good reason for this but a difference of 16% from both Kodak's and Ilford's time seems quite a lot. Fotoimport may thrive for a different contrast index.

I use the Kodak/Ilford time and my film never looks overdeveloped at 12 mins. The fotoimport time for FP4 in Xtol at 1+1 is 8 mins at 20 C whereas Ilford is 8 mins at full strength as is Kodak but Kodak at 1+1 is 10 mins. It may be as simple as a typo. I haven't checked the fotoimport times for other films against the makers' specs

pentaxuser

cjbecker · Aug 7, 2019

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Is this Ansco 130? Interestingly, @jnantz also rates this developer highly for both film & paper. I used it for film a couple of times some time ago & perhaps I should try again. Do you reuse the working solution for film?

Yep, its ansco 130, I just buy the kit from photographers formulary. Nope, I dump after each use, But it does not use much each time.

The last batch I mixed up lasted 8 years in amber glass bottles. (Went threw a stage without much printing or developing).

And it also needs to be used at 75 degrees, makes the tones brilliant.

Sirius Glass · Aug 7, 2019

The answer is always XTOL for the reasons shown below:

markbau · Aug 7, 2019

Sirius Glass said:
View attachment 228546 The answer is always XTOL for the reasons shown below:

It's interesting that they chose to use D76 stock, I would estimate that the vast majority of D76 users use it at 1:1. I wonder where the grain slider would be for D76 1:1, I would guess it would move as far left as XTOL.

John Wiegerink · Aug 7, 2019

markbau said:
It's interesting that they chose to use D76 stock, I would estimate that the vast majority of D76 users use it at 1:1. I wonder where the grain slider would be for D76 1:1, I would guess it would move as far left as XTOL.

The sodium sulfite would be cut with the addition of the extra H2O, which means less grain dissolved. It will likely look sharper, but at a very slight gain in grain size. I said "very slight", but probably should have said very, very slight.

JensH · Aug 8, 2019

Hi,

thank you for the great link.
I found it very interesting how the curve of PanF Plus changes with different developers...

Best
Jens

bernard_L said:
https://www.fotoimport.no/filmtest/filmFP4.html
Most complete survey, AFAIK.
Click to choose film, developer. (...)

Grim Tuesday · Aug 9, 2019

Yes indeed... Perhaps we should choose dev based on desired curve, not necessarily sharpness.

I wish there were chart entries for some of the Ilford devs like DDX and ilfosol 3. Anyone have an idea of what DDX should be most similar to?

bernard_L · Aug 9, 2019

Grim Tuesday said:
Perhaps we should choose dev based on desired curve, not necessarily sharpness.

+1
To each his/her own, but to me tonality is on top of the list, above sharpness and grain.

Sirius Glass · Aug 9, 2019

bernard_L said:
+1
To each his/her own, but to me tonality is on top of the list, above sharpness and grain.

Why settle for one when replenished XTOL will produce all three?

Neil Grant · Aug 11, 2019

bernard_L said:
https://www.fotoimport.no/filmtest/filmFP4.html
Most complete survey, AFAIK.
....it's very interesting. Most film/developer combinations fall short of box speed - I think the two exceptions are FP4 and HP 5 in D76 and that's rather surprising. The light source for step wedge exposures is described as a 'Metz' flash - which implies a short exposure duration. I wonder if we are seeing the effects of high-intensity reciprocity law failure (a reduction in speed and lowering of contrast).
I think most sensitometers have a longer exposure time of around 1/100 second - which is very different from the test conditions at 'fotoimport'

Film and developers compared

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