Forte 100 dev times

[jim appleyard]

Shot some Forte 100 in the local park today (120 size) of fog, cedar trees, pond, other junk and would like to make the fog come out well. I'm thinking about Rodinal, 1+100 or Pyrocat HD, but can find no info re: times and agitation. Can you fellow APUGers help out? EI 100 spot meter.

 

[Black Dog]

Have you looked on digitaltruth.com?The massive dev chart has times for everything you can think of ,and then some.

 

[jim appleyard]

Yes, I looked there first, but only 1+50 for Rodinal and no P'cat.

 

[Uhner]

I have only used Fortepan 100 in 135 format. Anyway, I did some tests developing the film in Rodinal 1 + 100 and I would advice you not to use this dilution since it produced negatives with very low macro and micro contrast despite shooting high contras scenes. But, then again, this was in my environment and I know that others have used this dilution and film successfully.

 

[jim appleyard]

Thanks. I do have other options: I could use D-76 1+1 (not exactly a loss there) as this is in the MDC, Rodinal 1+50 (again no loss) or I could test using the bulk roll of 35 I have. But, seeing as this is the Seattle-rondacks, it will be foggy again and I can shoot these scenes again, I'd just thought I'd do whatever I could to make the fog "sing".

 

[mongo141]

I did some early tests with the stuff but I was using 510 pyro. It seemed that 8 min @ 21c with Ilford agitation schedule was a good starting point. It looked pretty good but I haven't had a chance to work further with. I should get busy with it since I have over a hundred rolls of 120 in the freezer. Dave

Shot some Forte 100 in the local park today (120 size) of fog, cedar trees, pond, other junk and would like to make the fog come out well. I'm thinking about Rodinal, 1+100 or Pyrocat HD, but can find no info re: times and agitation. Can you fellow APUGers help out? EI 100 spot meter.

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

Shot some Forte 100 in the local park today (120 size) of fog, cedar trees, pond, other junk and would like to make the fog come out well. I'm thinking about Rodinal, 1+100 or Pyrocat HD, but can find no info re: times and agitation. Can you fellow APUGers help out? EI 100 spot meter.

All of my Fortepan experience is with Fortepan 400. However, I would expect that my Fomapan 100 numbers would give you a starting point for Fortepan 100..

With Pyrocat HD and Fomapan 100 I use the 1+1+100 dilution at 21 C.
1. 5 min presoak in 21C water.
2. 30 seconds of gentle agitation in the developer.
3. Stand without agitation for 7 minutes.
4. Agitate gently for 30 seconds.
5. Stand without agitation for 7 minutes.
6. Dump developer and rinse film in plain water at 21C.
7. Fix, Wash and dry

 

[jim appleyard]

Ahhh, semi-stand? That's one I hadn't thought of! Thanks, Tom.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Shot some Forte 100 ... fog, cedar trees, pond, other junk and would like to make the fog come out well...

You have a very low contrast subject, so you want to boost contrast in developing. Especially so as you want to increase the contrast in the light-greys/highlights, where there isn't much contrast control with VC papers.

Try 25-35% over development (~N 1 1/2). Use a well behaved developer that will boost contrast linearly and won't block up, like D-76. Highlight blocking shouldn't be an issue in any case because the subject doesn't have any highlights to speak of. You don't want to use a compensating developer like dilute Rodinal. Pyro is probably a bad choice as well since results can be quite unpredictable without prior experimentation.

T-Max 100 would have been a better choice of film, old-style emulsions don't take nearly as well to developer manipulation.

When printing let the highlights go light grey so they are off the toe of the paper. Bleach them back to white carefully with Farmer's.

 

[jim appleyard]

Nicholas, Thank you! What I think I'm going to do is to invest a few rolls of 35mm Forte 100 and try the methods above. That shouldget me in the ballpark. And waiting for more fog around here (we don't have winter anymore) isn't a big problem.

Actually, what I shot was a group of fairly high-contrast scenes; dark cedars against snow and fog.

I was thinking about P'Cat HD (it's already mixed and does a great job with APX100) because Gordon Hutchings (I think) mentions that fog comes out well in PMK and I thought P'Cat HD would be as close as I could get to PMK.

Hey, I'm open to anything...

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Actually, what I shot was a group of fairly high-contrast scenes; dark cedars against snow and fog.

Then increasing the contrast of the negative may be the _wrong_ thing to do.

My best luck with snow and sun is to meter the blackest bit I want any detail in, close down 3 1/2 stops and pray. Normal development seems to work best - the print is contrasty, but then the scene is contrasty... Bracketing is always a good idea in high contrast situations as you are always skirting with the shoulder or toe of the curve.

With low contrast scenes the negative exposure isn't very critical as long as the scene ends up somewhere towards the middle on the HD curve.