HC-110 dilution recommendations?

pbromaghin · Aug 18, 2023

I'm starting a film photography program at a local Community College next week and they use HC-110 for their film developer. Being a D76/D23 guy, I've never used it, but it's provided with the class, and it won't hurt to learn something new, so what the heck. I shoot Hp5, Fp4, PanF and SFX and hate grain. What dilution and agitation would anybody recommend?

rcphoto · Aug 18, 2023

I use dilution B (1:31) whenever possible. Constant agitation for first 30 seconds (ish). Then 2-3 inversions every minute. However, it's probably safe to assume your professor will make a recommendation on dilution and agitation.

Paul Howell · Aug 18, 2023

I agree with the B 1:31 or A 1:15 , the less diluted the silver solvance and smaller the grain. Well then again FP4 which has finer grain the HP5, you might to try E 1:47.

Steven Lee · Aug 18, 2023

@pbromaghin There are hundreds of old discussions still available online about HC-110 dilutions. You can spend a full weekend googling and reading them all. I do not believe you'll get a fresh perspective here, just more of regurgitation of what has already been said.

Compared to D76, HC-110 loses some film speed. To be more specific, the shadows seem more suppressed. And if you hate grain, you should stick to lower dilutions, as grain gets rougher if you dilute more. Caveat: I never used the Kodak's HC-110, my experience is based on the Ilford's variant called Ilfotec HC.

My use case is the rotary development of 4x5 sheets. HC-110 family is famous for not being limited to minimal amount of developer concentrate per roll, so you can have really high dilution ratios. With rotary/constant agitation development, dilution is the only tool I know for compensating action, so I stick to HC. For intermittent agitation there are better developers out there for grain haters, like the Xtol family which includes XT-3 or Eco Pro.

pbromaghin · Aug 18, 2023

Steven Lee said:
@pbromaghin There are hundreds of old discussions still available online about HC-110 dilutions. You can spend a full weekend googling and reading them all.

Boy, don't I know it. I've read a quite a bit. That's why I'm asking.

Alex Benjamin · Aug 18, 2023

pbromaghin said:
they use HC-110 for their film developer.

They might not use it for very long if they don't have many bottles in stock.

That said, as others mentioned, dilution B is the most often used. There's a lot of good info here about dilutions: https://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/

Note that even though HC-110 is a solvent developer, it is used at such high dilutions that it doesn't really act like one. This means that, depending on film and format, you will get more grain than with D-76. If you want less grain, rate you film at a lower ISO and under-develop a bit. If you don't at least lower development times, you might end up with very contrasty negs with Pan F (already a very contrasty film) and FP4+.

Also note that, as opposed to Rodinal, there isn't much proof around that different dilution actually give different results, in terms of grain, contrast, etc. They are mostly practical because they allow you to avoid times that might be too short.

I don't use HC-110 but its Ilford equivalent, Ilfotec HC. I follow Ilford's agitation pattern, i.e., four inversion in the first ten seconds, followed by four inversions (in ten seconds) every following minute.

mrosenlof · Aug 18, 2023

The link in Alex Benjamin's post is a good one. I've used it as a reference for years now. Note that it predates the latest formulation of HC110

Alex Benjamin · Aug 18, 2023

mrosenlof said:
The link in Alex Benjamin's post is a good one. I've used it as a reference for years now. Note that it predates the latest formulation of HC110

Yes ! I should have mentioned that.

Also note that there is The Unofficial HC-110 Helper website and app (ios and Android) that's very practical to quickly calculate the amount of syrup you need for each dilution, depending on how much total liquid you need.: https://ludwig-hagelstein.de/the-unofficial-hc-110-helper/

Nicholas Lindan · Aug 18, 2023

pbromaghin said:
... hate grain.

Well, you are probably not going to fall in love with HC110 and certainly not if the class uses 35mm. The stuff is meant for commercial labs where throughput is Job 1 and quality is, unfortunately Job 3, behind Job 2 - being cheap (er, 'cost effective'). Grain is not only large but it is also mushy.

If you want to give it a try then I'd follow Kodak's (or whoever it is these days) instructions first; after you get that working satisfactorily (should take about 1 roll) then try all the tres-chic homeopathic dilutions and over-night stand development protocols.

You may have guessed I'm not a fan. Others are. You will have to decide for yourself.

At university, when I worked in their darkrooms, I brought in a large cardboard box with all my own chemicals: D-76 1:1 & M-X 1:3, both 1-shot; and some vials of H&W control. The uni had D-76 replenished, yeah... not exactly confidence inspiring: "Do you know where your developer was last night?"

With medium speed films, ~100ASA, D-76 1:1 gives a very nice, very fine, salt-and-pepper grain.

* * *

Lets put it this way - you will be better off using the developing schemes you already know and are comfortable with. You will learn nothing of much value by using HC-110 instead; there are better things to learn about.

pbromaghin · Aug 18, 2023

Thank you all for the really great responses! The Covington site was one that I went through before asking the question - it really doesn't have a lot about grain, except to say that one guy really thought Dilution B has very fine grain, but less accutance than D76. It looks like I am best off sticking with my D76, which I'm perfectly happy to do. I bought the rest of the ingredients beyond D23 to start making D76 when 2 remaining bags run out.

Steven Lee · Aug 18, 2023

@pbromaghin To give you an idea what kind of grain to expect, here's the full-sized scan of a 35mm HP5+ negative developed in Ilfotec HC version using 1+31 dilution.

pbromaghin · Aug 19, 2023

Steven Lee said:
@pbromaghin To give you an idea what kind of grain to expect, here's the full-sized scan of a 35mm HP5+ negative developed in Ilfotec HC version using 1+31 dilution.

Oh, my. Very, very nice. I have been somewhat turned off to HP5 in 35mm because of the grain, but that is certainly within my preferences! My most recent work with it, developed in D23 was severely disappointing (nothing like this), but I have since switched back to D-76 1+1.

MattKing · Aug 19, 2023

I used to use Jason Brunner's 1 + 49 dilution, and was very happy with it.
https://www.photrio.com/forum/resources/hc110-made-simple.220/
HC 110 is a good developer, and extremely flexible in use.

Paul Howell · Aug 19, 2023

pbromaghin said:
Thank you all for the really great responses! The Covington site was one that I went through before asking the question - it really doesn't have a lot about grain, except to say that one guy really thought Dilution B has very fine grain, but less accutance than D76. It looks like I am best off sticking with my D76, which I'm perfectly happy to do. I bought the rest of the ingredients beyond D23 to start making D76 when 2 remaining bags run out.

If you use a higher dilution ration you will get somewhat more gain and increased acutance. I recommend experimenting with HC 110 from dultion A to E and see if any meet your expectations in terms of the balance between grain and edge sharpness.

cmacd123 · Aug 19, 2023

if you kook at the chart that Matt Posted in Post #4 of this thred, https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/some-kind-of-comparison-chart-for-all-developers.174637/ you can see what Kodak (at the time) considered the strengths and weaknesses of their 4 then available B&W developers.

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