Just discovered Barry Thornton’s developers. Would Exactol Lux work well with Fomapan 100 in 135 format?
I shoot the Fomapan 100 at iso 50 and 100. Hoping this will tame down the grain a little.
I also shoot HP5. Usually at 400 or 320 but occasionally at 1600 and 3200.
Thornton was a considerably better journalist than photochemist. Bear that in mind.
I found that TriX and Foma 400 in 35mm were just too grainy for my taste.
jodad, it might be worthwhile for you to look at the video below The presenter John Finch develops and then prints from the negative using Barry Thornton's 2 bath developer. What he has to say about the advantages of 2 bath,why the amount of sodium sulphite is what it is and the times to use may be instructive for you. Some of the comments on the video may be worth reading as well
If the advantages of 2 bath for your film do not prove to be enough to tame the grain as you want it to be tamed then D23 may be the way to go
Here it is:
pentaxuser
One problem with how B&W developers are often discussed is that lots of (lofty) qualifications are attached to it, but not much in the way of objective measurement or comparison. It's neither advertising, nor lies, necessarily.
Imagine this: you're a reasonably proficient B&W photographer with an interest in pictures and enough darkroom experience to mix up a developer if the instructions are provided. Not only that - you actually enjoy the aspect of handling chemicals and making something by yourself. It's fun! So in an adventurous mood, you mix up a developer, develop some film in it and...the negatives are glorious! Every scene just seems to glow, the light is golden even though the film is B&W, and the grain...oh, the grain is there, but it's the most beautiful, fine pattern....so you go online and post an enthusiastic 'review' of this developer, because surely, it must have been this magic soup that gave such a convincing result. Trying to put your subjective experience of these gorgeous images into words, you speak of things like "tight and well-controlled grain", "a beautiful rendering of the tonal scale" and some other statements rich in well-chosen adjectives.
But what, actually, does it mean? Maybe you nailed the exposure a little better than you did last time. Maybe the photos were of your freshly-arrived grandchildren and even if you had recorded them on an early model Sony Mavica they would have 'glowed' to you. And maybe the negatives are really fine - but not necessarily much better than if you had developed them in D76 or some other profoundly boring developer.
However, the glowing praise of this developer remains on record, and it turns up in the search results every time someone keys in "Billy Anchovis grainulator developer experience".
Evidently, there are differences between developers. The main problem is, that 98% of what we read about developers online is barely or not at all substantiated by objective testing, or even subjective side-by-side comparisons. And even if it is, there's still the issue that one person's "glowing tonal scale" is another person's "chalk and soot", or that the massive enlargement of a quarter square inch of mid-grey grain (we need to isolate that and study it, after all) says little about how the entire negative looks when printed at a normal enlargement.
This is not to disqualify Thornton's or anyone else's work. Neither is it intended to discourage you from trying different developers. It's just a gentle reminder of the sometimes prosaic realities of how people talk about their hobbies. We get carried away, sometimes. Q.E.D.!
A recent version is based on phenidone - pyrocatechol.
I had actually originally considered Xtol for its widely touted smooth grain but was put off by the fact that it was a powder and didn’t have a particular long life. When I discovered that Exactol lux was fine grained (allegedly) and was a syrup and easy to make a working solution from, I was quite pleased and excited.
Little disappointed at this point I must say.
I suppose replenished Xtol it’s going to have to be…
Just discovered Barry Thornton’s developers. Would Exactol Lux work well with Fomapan 100 in 135 format?
Why don't you try to get the answer?
No need to be disappointed - at least not yet.
If you want to explore alternative developer recipes to fund one that gives a result you like, that’s great. But I highly recommend that you approach it systematically and with rigorous method. I often try a new (to me) developer to compare and evaluate how it interacts with the films I use, but it’s important to employ the compare part of the process! Here’s what I suggest:
Take a roll of your chosen film (Fomapan 100, if that’s what you generally prefer) and expose an entire roll of the same scene (choose a scene that remains consistently lit for the duration of the roll, to eliminate variation in exposure as much as possible).
Next, select two or more developers that you want to compare, cut a section of film off that exposed roll (at least 8-10” of film) and develop it in the first developer. Do the same for every other developer you want to evaluate. Scan (or print, if you’re doing this test for darkroom purposes) each sample and evaluate the results. This is the only meaningful way to determine if a developer has properties that will give you the results you seek. I do this whenever I adopt a new film; most recently I bought some 120 rolls of Adox CHS 100 II and I needed to find a way to expose and develop it to suit my needs. I exposed two rolls and processed the sample pieces in several different developers, including Mytol, Thornton 2-bath, FX-15, PMK, and BER49. I got a chance to see how this film behaves in a range of developers, and choose what works for me. (None of these gave poor results, but grain characteristics, contrast, and film speed varied some)
I’ll see if I can post a comparison image of two developers, side by side so you can see what I observed.
So I suggest you go ahead and try Exactol Lux, but do a comparison test with at least one other developer, and see for yourself what the film performs like in different recipes.
And I have to concur with what Kodak’s said - developers cannot perform magic, the differences - grain size, acutance, tonal scale, speed etc. are all baked into the film type, and your choice of developer is only going to modify these properties with modest affect.
Thanks Alan. Have to admit though, I don’t know what this means I.e. I’m not knowledgeable enough to understand how this answers my question. Could you please expand on your comment?
Here is the write up of it by Photoformulary.
Thanks.
Specifically with BT’s developers or do you mean generally as film stock?
With BH developers, I shoot a lot of Foma 400 as my walk around film. On the other hand 6X9 Foma 400 is quite nice, gain of course is not a problem. For many years I used Edwal 12 and MCM 100, replenished, only reason I switched was cost, MCM is up to $48 (U.S) a gallon. Might buy another batch of BT developer for MF.
If you want meaningful, personalized data about the films you work with and how you use them, this is the least painful, most direct route to it. You could flounder for months (or years), playing around with developer formulas others have suggested, only to find that little of what you learned was of any value to you.Thanks Retina Restoration, it seems this is simply what I am going to have to do.
Since I am going to have to run some tests and experiments, may I ask: what would you suggest I test alongside Exactol Lux if seeking a good balance between fine grain and acutance on what is a relatively grainy film stock.
I suppose I should try get a single dose of Xtol from someone in my town to test alongside.
Anything else?
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