film categories: which are "retro" and which are not?

[Pixophrenic]

Regarding tabular grain films, we know based on John Sexton's involvement that D-76 was the test/release developer for Kodak's T-Max films. Similarly when it comes to Ilford's Delta films, Ilford still recommends ID-11. Fuji's Acros falls under the same general category.

XTOL was essentially the first (and last) solvent developer to "beat" the D-76-type when it comes to the overall balance of granularity/sharpness/speed, and the improvement is very slight.

Don't pay too much attention to Anchell when it comes to films/photochemistry/theory. His book is best used as a reference for accurate historical formulae.

I got an email saying that "Ilford still recommends ID-11 for highest image quality". Apparently this was deleted. If order is any indication, the first developer listed for Pan F and Kentmere 100 in the leaflets I have on hand is Ilfotec DD-X. IMO, this is the best "universal" developer for current Ilford films, not ID-11/D-76.

 

[Pixophrenic]

For the record, I've developed Rollei Retro 80S in dilute homebrew Perceptol and probably got a true ISO40. Not box speed, has a pronounced S curve, but perfectly usable. Actually looks very nice. I wouldn't call Perceptol exotic. Given some testing, I'd bet that it gives good results in D76 too, but not at box speed.

There is no point in developing 80S for ISO 40, unless you are a die-hard D-76 user, as there is RPX25, a fine grain pictorial film that can be easily pushed one stop. Or Pan F. That issue, however, is kind of solved as in a parallel thread we were talking about H&W Control which on 80S can give EI 80-160 with pictorial contrast.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Today, there is a variety of film types and emulsion types. Film types can be single emulsion, mixed emulsion ( 2 or 3) or double coated emulsion (2 or 3). The emulsions can be single run, single run ammonia digest, double run or double run controlled. They can be further divided by being bromide or bromo/iodide, and the latter can be uniform or core shell. The grains may be Kgrain (klunkers of any size and shape), they may be cubic, octahedral, t-grain, triangular (Ilford Delta). The curves can be straight or bumpy, or may sag downward or bow upward (the latter two being characteristics of older emulsions). The older emulsions may be polydispersed and the newer ones may be monodispersed.

Manufacturers generally don't tell us any of the above.

There, did that help anyone?

My final statement will summarize - they all go through D76 or its analogs very well. They also tolerate Xtol and HC110.

PE

 

[Pixophrenic]

Rodinal and many other developers may give excellent results with t-grain films. I was just addressing OPs assertion there are films which "behave badly" in D-76. General purpose t-grain films wouldn't fall into that category. Of course there might be some specific and/or special purpose films which don't work in a D-76 type developer, but I cannot think of a general purpose film which would fall into that category.

You may be forgetting that many people do not use D-76 at stock concentration. In effect, this is just a palliative solution for many films, which would have been better served by other developers. A lab, however, will probably develop all films at stock conc.

 

[Pixophrenic]

Today, there is a variety of film types and emulsion types. Film types can be single emulsion, mixed emulsion ( 2 or 3) or double coated emulsion (2 or 3). The emulsions can be single run, single run ammonia digest, double run or double run controlled. They can be further divided by being bromide or bromo/iodide, and the latter can be uniform or core shell. The grains may be Kgrain (klunkers of any size and shape), they may be cubic, octahedral, t-grain, triangular (Ilford Delta). The curves can be straight or bumpy, or may sag downward or bow upward (the latter two being characteristics of older emulsions). The older emulsions may be polydispersed and the newer ones may be monodispersed.

Manufacturers generally don't tell us any of the above.

There, did that help anyone?

My final statement will summarize - they all go through D76 or its analogs very well. They also tolerate Xtol and HC110.

PE

Current examples on the open market, please. I already gave a list of films above.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Please read the second paragraph in my post then. We generally have no idea.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

My final statement will summarize - they all go through D76 or its analogs very well. They also tolerate Xtol and HC110.

PE

That's rather an understatement because Kodak themselves claim Xtol gives better results than D76 (ID-11) with Tmax films, that's backed up by many peoples experience, however Kodak don't make similar claims for HC110.

People need to see Kodak's own comparison chart of their own developers

Ian

 

[Photo Engineer]

I agree Ian. I keep mentioning that chart myself! I just hate to keep re-mentioning it. These developers work well for all films. The user should determine which two of these (speed, grain or sharpness) they wish to emphasize in any particular exposure.

PE

 

[MattKing]

I am not a fan of Tom Waits, but what is your association about exactly, Matt? Is it about the repetitive nature of the song, or is it as in "I am getting suspicious of the true agenda of the original poster?"

My association is that I smile as I consider the mental image of all the neighbours wondering about what us photographers are "building in there" as we mix our "potions" and waive our hands in the dark magically over our creations.
If you ever get a chance to hear that Tom Waits piece live, among other things it is very funny.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Thanks Michael.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I agree Ian. I keep mentioning that chart myself! I just hate to keep re-mentioning it. These developers work well for all films. The user should determine which two of these (speed, grain or sharpness) they wish to emphasize in any particular exposure.

PE

Do you mean this one??

 

[MattKing]

The charts are great, but people do tend to assume that they indicate differences that are orders of magnitude larger than what actually occurs in real life.
Even those developers and usage combinations that have a "not recommended" indicator beside them in the Ilford chart can function usefully in most cases (with the possible exception of Perceptol for push processing).

 

[Pixophrenic]

Do you mean this one??
View attachment 188457

I am sorry, this chart is a deception. It does not say which films were included. Besides, the phrase starting with "factors" is such that no one can dispute the results. They will say you were unable to adhere to proper conditions. This chart looks like it was made to push XTOL over the older recipes.

 

[Craig75]

I am sorry, this chart is a deception. It does not say which films were included. Besides, the phrase starting with "factors" is such that no one can dispute the results. They will say you were unable to adhere to proper conditions. This chart looks like it was made to push XTOL over the older recipes.

Then run your own tests.

 

[Pixophrenic]

Agreed, Matt. In reality many of these differences are very slight. For example when it comes to emulsion speed, the total distance along the Kodak "slider" is a small fraction of a stop.

The charts for reference:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...ilm-developer-characteristic-matrices.138642/

XTOL's slight edge in "DQE" (or basically the grain/speed/sharpness triad) over D-76 was documented by its formulators. It is the most up-to-date solvent developer we have at our disposal.

The interesting question is do we really NEED a solvent developer with today's films? Besides, if you consider that many use dilutions, at 1:3 its solvent action is very weak. The same is true for D-76. Somebody mentioned that T-grain films develop well in Rodinal where working concentration of sulfite may be very very low. So, could the entire concept of solvent developers be an anachronism?

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Well, of those available in Canada, which groups are those in:
1. Current Rollei Films, 80S, 400S, RPX series, ATP 1.1, Superpan
2. Current Adox films, i.e. Silvermax.
3. Current ORWO films, UN 54 and UN 74
4. Current assorted BW, like Ultrafine Extreme series
5. Bergger Pancro
6. Fujifilm Acros
There are more, only available in Europe.

As for D-76, I shall not be repeating Riuji Suzuki's article "75 years of D-76". There was also a related very long thread here that I personally enjoyed very much. If one reads the Jacobsons' book a little between the lines, they question the overabundance of formulas, which in their opinion can be reduced to a few, and that "fine-grain developers" of a certain kind are not really advantageous to even the films available in the 1970s. But this will drive us away from the subject of films.

These are brands of film and not types.

The Rollei and Ultrafine films are rebrands of other films. AFAIK Rollei does not manufacture any films.

 

[Craig75]

It is true that today's films are less grainy (especially t-grain films, and in particular, Kodak's t-grain films) so it can be argued there is less need for solvent action in a developer. In that case, dilute the solvent developer, or use a non-solvent developer. With respect to Rodinal and graininess, all other things being equal it should be grainier than a stock or mildly diluted solvent developer. But this is a touchy subject.

making an 8x10 from 16mm double x - a solvent developer gives much less grain than rodinal for me so I'd say they are still invaluable.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Do you mean this one??
View attachment 188457

I am sorry, this chart is a deception. It does not say which films were included. Besides, the phrase starting with "factors" is such that no one can dispute the results. They will say you were unable to adhere to proper conditions. This chart looks like it was made to push XTOL over the older recipes.

Not based on my experience.

 

[Sirius Glass]

It is true that today's films are less grainy (especially t-grain films, and in particular, Kodak's t-grain films) so it can be argued there is less need for solvent action in a developer. In that case, dilute the solvent developer, or use a non-solvent developer. With respect to Rodinal and graininess, all other things being equal it should be grainier than a stock or mildly diluted solvent developer. But this is a touchy subject.

Maybe but I use traditional grain blac & white film not tabular gain film, so it makes a difference to me.

 

[Photo Engineer]

That chart is generic based on film emulsion properties themselves and although the absolution results may vary, the relative results are as depicted in the chart. For anyone to dispute it, I would have to hear their test methods and see their data.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

That chart is generic based on film emulsion properties themselves and although the absolution results may vary, the relative results are as depicted in the chart. For anyone to dispute it, I would have to hear their test methods and see their data.

PE

I totally agree, that chart also matches many comparative tests I've done over the years with more than one film and Xtol ID11 (D76), Tmax,and HC110 developers. The differences in terms of sharpness and grain aren't really noticeable with 120 or LF but are quite obvious with 35mm, the differences in shadow detail etc are noticeable regardless of the format.

In one way it's a touch unfair on Microdol-X where Kodak recommended using down rating film speed by a full stop, the same as Ilford's Perceptol, it doesn't reflect the now common use of using these developers dilute, where there's a very slight (barely noticeable) increase in grain but significant increase in sharpness. It does highlight the down sides to HC110 in terms of overall loss of speed and increased grain compared to Xtol.

Back in the 1980's looking for a better developer to replace ID-11/D76 along with 2 other commercial photographer we tried HC110, it was before the release of Xtol, we were all quite unimpressed. Instead we moved to Adox Borax MQ (replenished) but the disadvantage was I had to mix up batches of developer and replenisher for the other two and later we'd moved to separate locations, It would have similar characteristics to Xtol on the Kodak comparison chart. Ironically it was commercially available as Fotokemia FR-2 but not distributed outside the Eastern Block.

Ian

 

[Pixophrenic]

I totally agree, that chart also matches many comparative tests I've done over the years with more than one film and Xtol ID11 (D76), Tmax,and HC110 developers. The differences in terms of sharpness and grain aren't really noticeable with 120 or LF but are quite obvious with 35mm, the differences in shadow detail etc are noticeable regardless of the format.

In one way it's a touch unfair on Microdol-X where Kodak recommended using down rating film speed by a full stop, the same as Ilford's Perceptol, it doesn't reflect the now common use of using these developers dilute, where there's a very slight (barely noticeable) increase in grain but significant increase in sharpness. It does highlight the down sides to HC110 in terms of overall loss of speed and increased grain compared to Xtol.

Back in the 1980's looking for a better developer to replace ID-11/D76 along with 2 other commercial photographer we tried HC110, it was before the release of Xtol, we were all quite unimpressed. Instead we moved to Adox Borax MQ (replenished) but the disadvantage was I had to mix up batches of developer and replenisher for the other two and later we'd moved to separate locations, It would have similar characteristics to Xtol on the Kodak comparison chart. Ironically it was commercially available as Fotokemia FR-2 but not distributed outside the Eastern Block.

Ian

That's some very valuable info, Ian. However, it supports my thoughts that a) current films produce excessive contrast in those "classic" developers, hence a tendency to dilute, and b) by diluting you reduce the initially intended solvent effect, but apparently nobody is complaining, so solvent effect appears to be of marginal importance, except for specific films.

 

[Pixophrenic]

I totally agree, that chart also matches many comparative tests I've done over the years with more than one film and Xtol ID11 (D76), Tmax,and HC110 developers. The differences in terms of sharpness and grain aren't really noticeable with 120 or LF but are quite obvious with 35mm, the differences in shadow detail etc are noticeable regardless of the format.

In one way it's a touch unfair on Microdol-X where Kodak recommended using down rating film speed by a full stop, the same as Ilford's Perceptol, it doesn't reflect the now common use of using these developers dilute, where there's a very slight (barely noticeable) increase in grain but significant increase in sharpness. It does highlight the down sides to HC110 in terms of overall loss of speed and increased grain compared to Xtol.

Back in the 1980's looking for a better developer to replace ID-11/D76 along with 2 other commercial photographer we tried HC110, it was before the release of Xtol, we were all quite unimpressed. Instead we moved to Adox Borax MQ (replenished) but the disadvantage was I had to mix up batches of developer and replenisher for the other two and later we'd moved to separate locations, It would have similar characteristics to Xtol on the Kodak comparison chart. Ironically it was commercially available as Fotokemia FR-2 but not distributed outside the Eastern Block.

Ian

If Jacobsons' book is any authority, by downrating the film one admits that either the developer produces excessive contrast when rated speed is achieved, or it is only usable when the film is effectively underdeveloped. In regard to this, Ian. I have a separate question. I can start a separate thread if necessary. It is about the density of the fogged leader and margin labels in a developed film. Are these a reliable measure of how well the film is developed?

 

[Pixophrenic]

These are brands of film and not types.

The Rollei and Ultrafine films are rebrands of other films. AFAIK Rollei does not manufacture any films.

Sure, these are brands, but how can they be grouped?

 

[Pixophrenic]

making an 8x10 from 16mm double x - a solvent developer gives much less grain than rodinal for me so I'd say they are still invaluable.

Isn't bringing in a 16mm film into your argument kind of extreme? And where in the world does one get a double-X film today?