Ilford Orth Plus and PQ Universal

pkr1979

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Hi all,

Im about to finish a pack og Ilford Ortho Plus (8x10" sheet film) and a bottle of PQ Universal. I've never developed Ortho Plus in PQ before so I was wondering if anyone has any experience developing Ortho in PQ, preferably in a Jobo?

Cheers
Peter
 

Ian Grant

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I used to shoot the earlier version for work and process in PQ Universal, the issue is contrast will be higher unless you dilute to 1+19 rather than the recommended 1+9, 6 mins would be a starting point dev time time. Years ago Ilford listed times at 1+19, that's for tray use so a touch less in a Jobo..

Ian
 

Lachlan Young

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There are starting point guidelines for 1+19 PQ Universal and Ortho + in the Paper Developers data sheet. You may end up wanting to go to 1+29 or more to get more reasonable dev times.

Are you aiming for normal contrast (G-bar 0.62 or similar) or high/ very high contrast for various alternative processes?
 
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pkr1979

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Thanks guys. Im looking for a normal contrast.
 
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pkr1979

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Also, I figured Id rate 80 (for daylight).
 

Ian Grant

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I have processed FP4 in PQ Universal at 1+29, the disadvantage of PQ Universal is a slight drop in film speed compared to ID-11/D76 around half a stop. May & Baker used to list times for Suprol at 1+29 in their datasheet (many pages). Suprol was the M & B equivalent of ID-11.

Ian
 

Ian Grant

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No however it will work well with Pyrocat like FP4 & HP5, I always found it similar in many ways to FP4 aside fom the different spectral sensitivity, In fact if I ran out of Ilford Ortho I'd use FP4 same development times for similar contrast just a different EI. I should add I used Ilford Ortho as a copy film for an applied application.

Ian
 

Lachlan Young

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Ian Grant said:
I have processed FP4 in PQ Universal at 1+29, the disadvantage of PQ Universal is a slight drop in film speed compared to ID-11/D76 around half a stop.
Click to expand...

I've never been quite sure why Ilford suggest such a significant drop in speed for Ortho + in PQ Universal (80 to 25) at G-bar 0.62. Something to test, I guess - my usage of PQ and Ortho + has been largely darkroom based & I've tended to make a test strip anyway, so effective speed in PQ Universal is not really an issue I've ever bothered to get too involved in.
 

Ian Grant

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There's a big drop with FP4 as well, I think there's chages due to the switch to Dimezone instead of Phenidone.

Ian
 

Lachlan Young

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Ian Grant said:
There's a big drop with FP4 as well, I think there's chages due to the switch to Dimezone instead of Phenidone.

Ian
Click to expand...

I'm not convinced about the difference in phenidones - Ilford suggest that if you develop to G-bar 0.8-1.0 you'll largely get full speed, or maybe a bit over it. I suspect it may have more to do with curve shape - it seems to deliver a potentially quite a short toe (from what I recall of using it with Delta 100) and then a fairly solidly straight line thereafter. It would be interesting to compare to Ilfosol 3 in terms of sharpness (especially in terms of the use of what seems to be phenidones' inhibition-based sharpness).
 
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