Help with development times for SBR 12 Negatives

[Jim Moore]

While photographing yesterday I shot several negatives that had an SBR of 12.

Although my ExpoDev program gave me the exposure information needed it does not give me the development time.

Looking at the development chart in WinPlotter the information stops at SBR 11.67 and lists a time of 3 minutes in XTOL 1:1.

Before I destroy any negatives I would like some opinions on how to develop them.

I'm thinking XTOL 1:2 for 5 minutes.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks!

Jim

 

[clay]

5 minutes at 1:2 sounds like a very intelligent guess to me. FWIW, I would not sweat this too much. If you are printing on multigrade paper, the latitude you have is pretty impressive in terms of the printable density ranges it can accomodate. There is nothing magic about nailing a grade 2 right on the head. Personally, I would err on the side of being a tad overdeveloped so you can have adequate internal and shadow contrast. One of the big problems with abbreviated, high SBR development is that often the shadow contrast is not as snappy as you would like.

 

[Jim Moore]

Thanks for the reply Clay.

I've never used XTOL @ 1:2 before, so this is just a W.A.G.

Jim