HP Combiplan dev. tank and Perceptol questions

ok...so the next thing Im gonna do is develop some 5x4's for the first time ever....

I have a Combiplan T tank and im confused as to how much developer etc to put in...is it 1000ml or 1250ml for 5x4 sheet film????

I have some Ilford Perceptol at the ready for my T-Max 100 and Fuji Acros sheets (ordered some today)...actually....the Perceptol comes in a sachet to mix up 1 litre so if the Combiplan is for 1,250ml how do i get round using the Perceptol if you have to use it all up no???

You can squeak by with 1L, but trust me, you don't want to just squeak by. Use 1250 ml. Some might leak out while inverting and with only 1000 ml, there's no room for error. You can always use the Perceptol diluted 1+1, and it will deliver only a bit less of the fine grain effect it is known for. With 5x4 negatives, that's not a problem anyway. Ilford gives times for the developer at that dilution for the films you're using in their fact sheet. Be advised though that when diluted the developer is essentially a one shot developer, that is, use once and discard.

thanks Frank....one thing.....if by mixing a stock solution (the amount it says on the Perceptol box is 1 litre) I can only get 1,000ml then what do I do to get the 1,250ml necessary for the Combiplan tank? what would you do.....mix up 2 litres worth and use up 1,250ml and then for example develop a 120 roll film using 500ml inside a Paterson daylight tank?????

any other ideas for using up the developer without waste????? the problem is Fuji Acros is only recommend to be used with stock solution as opposed to T-Max 100 which i can use at stock, 1+1 and 1+3 according to the Ilford pdf you sent me.....

Then at 1+1 thats 1 part Perceptol and one part water.....so to make the 1,250ml that would be 625ml of Perceptol and 625 ml of water yes.....

.....and the the 1+3 that would mean 312.5ml of Perceptol and 937.5ml of water yes?????

Your arithmetic is correct. I'd make up the stock solution and use it as necessary. No need to make up the full 2L at once. To make measuring easier, I'd round the amount down to 1.2L.

A large-size pack of ID11 giving you five litres of stock, then using it 1+1, could do the job in future (well, I admit I use it for everything). I am curious if there is a noticeable benefit to using Perceptol with such large negs ?

In my case, these days 4x5 is only in a self-made pinhole camera, so my negs have 'characteristics' that Perceptol might not noticeably improve (oops).

sperera

The developer recipes and times are just starting points.

Dilution of my standard XTOL to 1+1 or 1+3 increases grain and apparent sharpness. You may not want any extra graininess. Dilution also means the keeping qualities are lost and it is suggested that you throw it out when done. Stock solutions of XTOL can be reused. (I'm not suggesting that you switch, XTOL is just what I'm familiar with right now.)

In your situation I'd just add a little extra water, say 200ml. This might require that the film be in the soup a few seconds extra and this 1+0.2 solution might only keep half the time true stock would, but that would be okay by me.

You should be close to the original properties for grain and sharpness too.

fschifano said:

Your arithmetic is correct. I'd make up the stock solution and use it as necessary. No need to make up the full 2L at once. To make measuring easier, I'd round the amount down to 1.2L.

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thanks Frank....yes, 1.2l is better to get your head round it i guess

Welcome. Actually you shouldn't dilute the stock 1L solution down UNTIL you are ready to use it. It doesn't keep once diluted. Sorry, I should have mentioned that earlier.

ID-11 or D-76 might be a better choice the next time around. D-76, at least in the US, is dirt cheap, costing maybe $6 - $7 US retail to make 3.8L of stock solution. ID-11 is functionally identical to D-76 and both are capable of producing extremely high quality negatives. What makes D-76 so attractive is the wealth of documentation, both official and anecdotal, for this developer and just about any B&W film you can think of. It is a de-facto standard developer against which all others are compared.

I use dilute Perceptol nearly all the time and find it so good I rarely ever use anything else. Just done some HP5 5X4 last night in Perceptol 1:2 and the negs look awesome ! Am going to try it at 1:3 next time.
Diluting down is very economical and it should increase apparent sharpness. Stock solution, undiluted, it smooths out the grain but looses the edge effects.
If you took 500ml stock and diluted 1:2, this would give you 1500ml of one shot working solution - a little over what you need but still fairly economical.
Important thing to remmember with this developer though is it decreases film speed and the usual practice of downrating film to get good shadow detail etc often calls for even more reduction in speed. I actually rate HP5 at 100 - 160 iso. Pan F I rate at 12 - 16 iso. All this depends on your metering technique though and I guess I'm really saying this is what works right for me.

Having said all this though, I think the modern emulsions your'e using (Tmax and Acros) would probably be better in good old ID11, especially since they're on sheet film. I dont think Perceptol will give you any great advantages.

So far I have used Perceptol stock for 120 format HP5+ rated at 250 iso and Perceptol 1:3 dilution for 4x5 FP4+ rated at 80 iso. I couldn't have liked the results more so it's my current preferrable developer. This is some recent work: http://andriy.smugmug.com/gallery/8200503_FPZb8. What is written in my Combiplan lid is "10 x 15cm = 1250ccm" and "4 x 5 in. = 36 ozs.". The latter (36 ozs) should be around 1050ml. I prepare 1060ml of working solution because some developer will leak out even though my Combiplan doesn't tend to leak much. I think that with 1000ml you would be on the safe side as well.

fschifano said:

Welcome. Actually you shouldn't dilute the stock 1L solution down UNTIL you are ready to use it. It doesn't keep once diluted. Sorry, I should have mentioned that earlier.

ID-11 or D-76 might be a better choice the next time around. D-76, at least in the US, is dirt cheap, costing maybe $6 - $7 US retail to make 3.8L of stock solution. ID-11 is functionally identical to D-76 and both are capable of producing extremely high quality negatives. What makes D-76 so attractive is the wealth of documentation, both official and anecdotal, for this developer and just about any B&W film you can think of. It is a de-facto standard developer against which all others are compared.

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thanks for all your help everyone....I think D-76 is the kind of developer im looking for as an all-rounder....

nice shots by the way...thanks for your comments everyone!

I use ID11 in my CombiPlan for HP5 film.

I make up ID11 from 5L packets and then use 500ml for ID11 with 550ml of water.

I started with the processing times from the Ilford Data Sheet and adjusted my film exposure and develoing times from there so suit my personal choice.

Martin

Martin Aislabie said:

I use ID11 in my CombiPlan for HP5 film.

I make up ID11 from 5L packets and then use 500ml for ID11 with 550ml of water.

I started with the processing times from the Ilford Data Sheet and adjusted my film exposure and develoing times from there so suit my personal choice.

Martin

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so this is a powder developer you can use i parts and dont have to use it all at once?

sperera said:

so this is a powder developer you can use i parts and dont have to use it all at once?

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ID-11, and D-76 are powder developers, as well as Xtol is a powder developer. You need to mix up the whole lot of powder to get uniformity in your stock solution. The issue could be are the individual powder components in the bag evenly distributed throughout the powder? Impossible to tell, therefore you avoid this connundrum by mixing up the whole bag.

Probably the most popular liquid all-purpose film developer is Kodak HC-110 which comes as a syrup and you can mix up very small amounts of working solution from the syrup. The directions for this are not on the bottle, but are on Kodaks web site on the technical data sheet for this developer. It gives similar results to D-76 for most people. HC-110 syrup is almost eternal in shelf life.