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HC110 popularity

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alanrockwood

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It seems to me that in the comments at the forum HC110 seems to be gaining in popularity. Do you suppose this is just my imagination, or could it be real?

If true then what factors are supporting the increased popularity. (Let's just stipulate right off the bat that Ansel Adams used a lot of the stuff.)
 
For a lot of people, HC-110 is a great, all purpose developer - I use it for just about everything (albeit in a replenishment regime).

For many others though, it serves as their go-to backup. As you can leave a half-used bottle on your shelf for years, you can rely on it always being available if your "regular" developer isn't at hand.

It works well with older, partially fogged films. And as it can be effectively used in a wide variety of dilutions, it is very flexible. It even travels well - with what other developer can you pack twenty rolls of film development in a 120 ml container?
 
APUGuser19 said:
No, I think APUG is an HC110 and Rodinal fanboy site, which is OK. I ignore it. Ansel Adams used a lot of D-23 too. I use D-23, home made Microdol, and Willi Beutler's because I can buy metol and sulphite in small quantities on ebay. And kosher salt and baking soda at the grocery store. When I need sodium carbonate, I fry up a pan of baking soda.

There's another guy on here who thinks coffee is the cat's pajamas. And there's a ton of Ilford people.
Click to expand...

Well, I don't use none of these.
All I use is Foma and Champion (fixer) chemistry. Cheap and good quality.
 
Although it's not my favorite, it's convenient and economical to use, lasts forever as concentrate and produces good results. What's not to like?
It's a good solution for those who don't want to deal with storage of mixed-from-poweder developers or who don't want to go the home-brew route.
 
Never used it. I nearly always use Mic-X, D76 and Rodinal, (Fomadon RO9). While I love the look of Arista EDU Ultra 100 in straight Mic-X, every now and then I look at shots from straight D76 and Tri-X and think that the tonality is so lovely that's all anyone would ever really need. But some films work better w/ some developers, and if someone knows what they're doing the choice of developer is not that critical to my mind when making the print.
 
alanrockwood said:
Do you suppose this is just my imagination,
Click to expand...

It is your imagination.

HC110.jpg
 
HC-110 has replaced D76 as my regular developer. I've had D76 go bad (or just start to look funny) waiting to be used. I like that HC-110 keeps a long time and can be mixed on demand from concentrate for one-shot use. The mixing is easy and I don't have to fuss with keeping a stock solution viable (marbles, inert gas, smaller bottles and all that).
 
I picked HC-110 as my main developer because of its longevity (and related low cost) and ease of use (I use JBrunner's excellent process found here: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)) I know for some people much of the joy of photography is in the process and the experimenting (this developer adds half a stop extra speed, this lens is best at F8, this emulsion gives the best mid tone separation etc). But that's not really something that interests me. I much prefer The Americans to Weston's green pepper.
 
IMO it's a good developer for LF but is too grainy for smaller formats for my tastes. Also it puts a long toe in any film I've used it with and to get rid of that you need to use much slower film speed. So beware of blowing highlights if you don't manage it carefully.
Yes Adams liked it and it does work well when used highly diluted on LF negs as a compensating developer to control hilights but these days I don't do LF and use other developers.
 
APUGuser19 said:
No, I think APUG is an HC110 and Rodinal fanboy site, which is OK. I ignore it. Ansel Adams used a lot of D-23 too. I use D-23, home made Microdol, and Willi Beutler's because I can buy metol and sulphite in small quantities on ebay. And kosher salt and baking soda at the grocery store. When I need sodium carbonate, I fry up a pan of baking soda.

There's another guy on here who thinks coffee is the cat's pajamas. And there's a ton of Ilford people.
Click to expand...

For carbonate, just buy "washing soda" in the laundry section of your local store. A few pounds for a few dollars.
 
I like it, because it's easy to use. It lasts (I shoot a lot of colour for months, than might do bw again). It's high contrast, I like high contrast with crushed blacks and highlights. Hc110 + trix are great combo.

For pushing I use tmax developer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Oooo, this reminds me that I found an old bottle of HC110 that I said I was going to test, but haven't yet managed to play with, errmrmmm, I mean 'carefully and scientifically examine' of course.

I bought it as a reserve developer (if I ran out of ID11) for home use when I worked in a lab that had a Kodak account, so that was 27 years ago, +/- two years. The bottle has never been opened and looks a mid orangey/straw colour . . .

More news after the weekend.
 
bvy said:
You need to plot this along side other developers for this to have any meaning.
Click to expand...

The graph shows HC110 as a search term is less popular than a few years ago. Only you have mentioned comparison to other developers.
 
Started with D-76, then tried and committed to HC-110.. but found with Arista 400, got so frustrated in trying to tame the highlights, that I tried D-76 again. It worked... so it has made me more aware of what shots I take, contrasty, a lot of sky.. D-76, very little sky.. HC-110 which I like the best.
 
I use HC110, generally 1+63 as a one shot. I find I'm able to get what I want with that. As someone whose film shooting is not large in quantity and often occurs in fits and starts, I see having fresh developer every time as a Good Thing(tm). I even have been doing my 8x10 x-ray films from pinhole work in it! The mixing takes seconds versus the stuff where you have to mix the powder in warm water, etc.

I'm not sure what search hits actually tell us about use or popularity. (Those of us who know don't search any more ... :munch: )
 
I like it because it's easy to use and lasts a long time because of how little it takes, and because of shelf life. I previously used Rodinal for everything and noticed I had huge unsightly grain with Tri-X and HP5+, now that I've switched to HC-110 dilution H I really like both Tri-X and HP5+.
 
momus said:
Never used it. I nearly always use Mic-X, D76 and Rodinal, (Fomadon RO9). While I love the look of Arista EDU Ultra 100 in straight Mic-X, every now and then I look at shots from straight D76 and Tri-X and think that the tonality is so lovely that's all anyone would ever really need. But some films work better w/ some developers, and if someone knows what they're doing the choice of developer is not that critical to my mind when making the print.
Click to expand...

Kodak initially created HC-110 as a replacement for D-76 for machine processing by photo-finishers. The developer was designed to give results as close to D-76 as possible. Knowing this you should give it a try. Read the following article.

http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
DWThomas said:
I'm not sure what search hits actually tell us about use or popularity. (Those of us who know don't search any more ... :munch: )
Click to expand...

It tells you nothing unless you put some context around it. Our company's stock price is down today. Is it a bad day for our company, or a bad day for the stock market?
 
RattyMouse said:
Kodak pulled HC-110 out of China so I no longer use it.
Click to expand...

You mean the distributor who has the rights to Kodak products in China decided to stop importing HC-110 into China, so you no longer use it.
 
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