Ilford PQ Universal Dev... for Alternative negs?

I went to a presentation yesterday of an alternative printer at my local club, he has a range of fantastic salt prints and cyanotypes (rex) made primarily of 8x10 fp4 contacts...
He develops his sheets in Ilford PQ Universal developer, for 2 minutes... I was quite surprised since I'd /never/ heard of using this method to get alternative negatives in all my researches on alternative processes; I had a look at one of his sheet and it's quite a dense thing to behold !

So, does anyone else uses this ? How would it compare to other methods, like Pyro based or more traditional developers?

His initials would not happen to be TK would they?

This method works okay, but it does not offer a lot of fine control over contrast since the developing time is so short. Plus if my memory is correct, it is at the expense of 2 stops of film speed. There are other, more flexible ways to accomplish the same thing. You would not get any of the other touted benefits of benefits of tanning (pyro) developers such increased sharpness and highlight control, good film speed and fine grain. I would take any other alternative photography tips you heard from this source with generous heaps of salt.

It him, but clearly a student of some sort...

I'm fairly new to this, but there seems to be a few "popes" of alternative processes and such, and they are all "at war" of some sort... Mike Ware vs Terry King vs a couple of others ? Tough to get straight information sometime.

I had asked him how this compared to pyro, but he replied rightly enough that he had good results with that (clearly outstanding results in fact) and didn't see a reason to try something else..

Now it seems Pyro would get me more sharpness, more speed and a neg that still is printable in other processes due to the stain... ?

I've been using Ilford PQ developer since the 1970s - as a paper developer -. Sometimes I also use it as a high contrast developer for film (like using Dektol). As Clay said, PQ Universal is not a good choice for contrast control, development times are way too short.

For film that I'm going to contact print, I develop with Pyro.

buze said:

It him, but clearly a student of some sort...

I'm fairly new to this, but there seems to be a few "popes" of alternative processes and such, and they are all "at war" of some sort... Mike Ware vs Terry King vs a couple of others ? Tough to get straight information sometime.

I had asked him how this compared to pyro, but he replied rightly enough that he had good results with that (clearly outstanding results in fact) and didn't see a reason to try something else..

Now it seems Pyro would get me more sharpness, more speed and a neg that still is printable in other processes due to the stain... ?

Click to expand...

Very interesting. A few years ago TK was proclaiming far and wide that there was no equal to amidol film developer.

Personally I don't think that PQ Universal developer is a particulary good choice because there is little or no flexibility to control conrtast. On the other hand, if you match the developer to a film that has gamma infinity the Universal developer will quickly develop the film to its maximum contrast, which might be exactly what you need for processes such as salted paper. You could get the same thing with about four minutes of development in D11 or D19.

Sandy King

When I tested PQ I got an EI of about 200 with FP-4 for palladium negatives. Terry grossly overexposes the film to move the relevant image portions out of the toe. He rates at 32 if I recall correctly.

The developer produced a family of curves similar to most other developers, except the times were very short. I think it would be possible to increase the time a bit by diluting a little more than recommended, but you have to be careful to ensure the developer is not exhausting as you dilute, which could cause some unusual curves.

I'm including the test results I made a few years ago in a PDF format.

I think it could be made to work very well with good control of the temperature of the developer, which would be key.

---Michael

I have been using it.

I have been using it with 8x10 FP4 with success. I did read Terry King's recommendation and thought I'd give it a try. My exposure times using Pyro (for carbon prints and pt/pd prints) were way too long with stained negs, so I was up for something different.

I use it in a Jobo drum at a dilution of 40ml Universal PQ : 960ml of water. If I meter 6 or 7 zones in the landscape, I might process at 68 degrees F for 5 or 6 minutes to get a nice pt/pd negative -- longer if the negative is for carbon printing.

Higher contrast scenes I will develop at 62 degrees or so. Lower contrast scenes might have me working with a stronger dilution...up to 60:940 and times up to 10 minutes.

Your results may differ....

Vaughn

Ilford's PQ Universal is actually an excellent normal film developer when used dilute at 1+19, 1+29or even greater dilution, extremely clean working, and so excellent for copy negatives.

Used at 1+9 it's goood for producing negatives for alternative processes. I used it for many years with both FP4 and Ilford Ortho film. It is very similar to Suprol the Champion developer, and they (May & Baker - now Champion) used to produce an excellent detailed leaflet on all its uses.

Ian