HC110 and Fomapan 100

HC110 is not a recommended developer for Fomapan 100. Let us discuss why this might be so.

I have been able to glean the following possible reasons, based on comments I have seen on various web pages as well as some of my own testing.

1) There is a large loss of film speed with this film/developer combination.
2) Development times are too short when using reasonable dilutions of HC110.
3) There is an excessively upswept density curve with this film/developer combination.
4) Contrast tends to be hard to tame, perhaps a reflection of the interaction between items 2 and 3.

What do you think? Are any or all of these reasons true? Are there other issues to consider as well?

It being a standard general-purpose developer, I would be surprised if HC-110 is specifically not recommended by a manufacturer for any b/w film. Did you actually read a manufacturer's recommendation to not use it, or is it just not on a development chart?

The differences in results between HC-110 and D-76 are there, but they are not large. Both are extremely versatile general-purpose developers, with the largest practical difference being how they differ in use (i.e. in how the working solutions are prepared). Additionally, if you use a double dilution of HC-110 B (unofficially known by many as dilution H), the differences between the results from this and D-76 straight or 1:1 would be hard to spot at all.f

alanrockwood said:

HC110 is not a recommended developer for Fomapan 100. Let us discuss why this might be so.

I have been able to glean the following possible reasons, based on comments I have seen on various web pages as well as some of my own testing.

1) There is a large loss of film speed with this film/developer combination.
2) Development times are too short when using reasonable dilutions of HC110.
3) There is an excessively upswept density curve with this film/developer combination.
4) Contrast tends to be hard to tame, perhaps a reflection of the interaction between items 2 and 3.

What do you think? Are any or all of these reasons true? Are there other issues to consider as well?

Click to expand...

Seems a good summary of why I wouldn't use HC110 with Fomapan 100 or 200.

I've used quite a lot of Fomapan 100 & 200, I'd guess over a 100 rolls of 120 and a few boxes of LF and compared to all other manufacturers films it requires 2/3rds to 3/4qts the development to reach similar contrasts.densities and the contrast rises very quickly with over development.

HC110 may be a very convenient developer but it doesn't have all the required attributes of fine grain and reasonable film speed and sharpness which Kodak acknowledge in their developer comparison chart.

So yes I agree with all those points.

Ian

Fomapan 100 seems to look very nice with HC-110:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10239287@N06/3600331849/

Bundesphotograph said:

Fomapan 100 seems to look very nice with HC-110:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10239287@N06/3600331849/

Click to expand...

Indeed it does.......HC-110 has an upswept curve with every film I've used it with, but I can't say much about the claim of an "excessive" upswept curve.

If you look at that shot, the dorway shadow (bottom right) leaves a better clue why it is high contrast. It was taken from 11:00 to 1:00 on some sunny day. Not a good example.

I have found that HC-110 works quite well with Foma 100 in higher dilutions. But I tend to want all my films to be developed over 10 mins for everything I do.

Any additional thoughts or experience with this film/developer combination?

When exposed and developed properly, I see no reason why HC-110 wouldn't be a good choice. I've seen it work well a couple of times in a lab I was working at. I can see how it would be finicky though as we had some extreme results with a seasoned HC-110 developer that was much more forgiving than the fresh stuff. However, I would blame that more on the photographer's exposures being all over the place.

Part of the issue is that Fomapan 100 & 200 are much more responsive to slight changes in exposure and development (time or temperature). So slight under-exposre and over-development means the contrast shoots up considerably whereas it would be just a slight increase with other films like Tmax, Delta , FP4, HP5, Tri-X etc.

It's particularly important with these Foma films to run your own film speed/development time tests, and the issue with using HC110 is the very short times involved, Foma films typically need 66% to 75% of the times of other films. That shortening makes HC!!) far less practical as it's much harder to be consistent.

Once the film speed/dev time issue is resolved for your own way of working these films easy to work with.

Ian