Home brew acutance developer for slosher tray development

timeUnit · Oct 23, 2006

I like Rodinal, but it's more and more difficult to find here in Sweden. I'm thinking of switching developers, and also start mixing my own. As I like grain/sharpness, an acutance developer would be preferable, right?

Any recommendations on a developer that could suit me? I've found a few in Darkroom Cookbook, but don't know what to expect from them.

It doesn't hurt if it's easy to mix and cheap...

DeBone 75 · Oct 23, 2006

If you can mix your own, Beutler High Definition. Cheap, easy to make. Sharp as a tack.

Jordan · Oct 23, 2006

One of Pat Gainer's developers -- PC-TEA or PC-Glycol. Ingredients are pretty simple to come across, easy to mix, and work very well. There are formulas listed on my site.

dpurdy · Oct 23, 2006

I will second the Beutlers suggestion. I use it as my personal developer for both sheet film in trays and roll film. If you use Tmax 100 or Agfa 100 in 120 it is amazingly sharp without much grain. Using a little bit of potassium iodide in the formula is like using a sharpening tool in photoshop. The chems are common and cheap, and mixed in two parts they last a long time on the shelf... so you can pre mix a pretty large quantity of the stock solutions ..which dilute 1 to 1 to 8. good stuff

matti · Oct 23, 2006

I don't want to lure you away from mixing your own. But you know you can order Calbe R09 from www.photax.se ? It is an older Rodinal like mix. It can be handy to have some stached away.
/matti

Peter De Smidt · Oct 23, 2006

How about FX-1? Cheap, simple and very sharp.

dancqu · Oct 23, 2006

dpurdy said:
I will second the Beutlers suggestion.
I use it as my personal developer for both
sheet film in trays and roll film.

Good for prints as well. Beutler's, Mason's, and FX-1
film developers and Ansco 120, Beer's 1, and Kodak's
Selectol Soft print developers are all of the same
group; carbonated metol, sulfite developers.

The ratios twixt the three ingredients vary with the
film versions longer in sulfite and carbonate. A 1:4:4
ratio I think is a very good compromise. Use it for film
and prints. A little lower contrast than Dektol but still
plenty active for film and paper and with enough
sulfite to see it through as a one-shot.

Actually the same ratio Ansco/Beer's print developers
at 1:3:3 will do just fine with film. Those two represent
a case where in the print versions of a same group of
developers are milder that the film versions. Our now
a day thinner emulsions may do better with the
milder brews. Dan

ronlamarsh · Oct 24, 2006

Acutance developer

Personally I prefer D-23 1:1 or 2:1 its very simple to mix and if i want to boost the shadows and increase the edge effects I follow my normal developement with a sodium carbonate bath. D-23 is about as simple as it ges and diluted 1:1 it is well below the threshold where the sodium sulfite starts to remove silver. I really can't tell the difference between Beutlers,dilute D-23, dilute perceptol or FX-1. I can see a difference between
the aforemntioned developers and rodinal....rodinal seems to give just a little bit extra sharpness due probably to its more contrasty nature as the metol based developers all tend toward the softer side. All in all if I couldn't find rodinal anymore I wouldn't slit my wrists as D-23 does just fine.

timeUnit · Oct 30, 2006

Will Beutler HD, PC-TEA or PC-Glycol work or benefit from using minimal agitation? I use 5 seconds per 5 minutes and get nice results in Rodinal 1+50. I'd like to continue that routine with roll film at least, unless it's not advisable with these developers.

Ole · Oct 30, 2006

Beutler's works fine with that agitation. If you can get hold of Glycin, FX-2 is supreme for minimal agitation and stand development.

Home brew acutance developer for slosher tray development

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