Maybe it was I who was confused since you mentioned Thornton's 2 bath as one you had just discovered and seemed to be asking about which finer grainThanks for the video link. I came across it but wasn’t sure that it was suitable for my investigation because is Thornton’s “2 bath developer” the same thing/another name for his Exactol lux?
Or am I really confused?
That may be true, but I can tell you from personal experience, his D-23 type Two Bath Developer is quite excellent - better than DD-23 or other divided developers of that family.
I shoot the Fomapan 100 at iso 50 and 100. Hoping this will tame down the grain a little.
In my experience Fomapan 100 in 35mm is extremely fine grained in some of the most common, widely available developers. D76, D23, Xtol, Excel, Fomadon LQN - all good, provided it is not underexposed and/or overdeveloped.
D76 1+1, 2 inversions per minute. Exposure and development according to the curves in the official Foma leaflet (D76 plot, gamma = .6, 20°C - plot here https://www.foma.cz/en/fomapan-100)
I find that developer choice has a relative minor impact on perceived grain, while exposure and development time choices have the highest impact.
I haven't seen your negatives, but I would keep your developer choice fixed (D76 is great to start with) and optimise your development time to taste.
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.!
Thanks Paul. May I ask, which of the Barry Thornton developers did you use with the foma 400?
although I'm not sure that “quod erat demonstrandum” is entirely appropriate in this context
I have been experimenting with Thornton's 2bath developer and have given up on it. On normal scenes I found I was printing at grade 3 1/2 at a minimum, often grade 4. The negs, for me, just are too soft.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
I buy mine from Photographers Formulary, don't think they ship outside the U.S.
Barry Thornton's Exactol Lux (Liquid)
Developer Exactol Lux Barry Thornton Film Chemistrystores.photoformulary.com
Ah, that was in fact a joke, but it seems to have gone lost; it's not a reference to the 'proof' (quod non!) of the subjectivity of many developer discussions - it's a reference to the brief sentence preceding the Q.E.D. - the one about getting carried away!
The remainder of my post should also be read as a tongue-in-cheek observation and not as a discouragement to anyone to experiment with developers, or to discuss such experiments in whichever terms they choose.
I have been experimenting with Thornton's 2bath developer and have given up on it. On normal scenes I found I was printing at grade 3 1/2 at a minimum, often grade 4. The negs, for me, just are too soft.
I have been experimenting with Thornton's 2bath developer and have given up on it. On normal scenes I found I was printing at grade 3 1/2 at a minimum, often grade 4. The negs, for me, just are too soft.
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