When ever possible I use the manufacture's datasheet as my starting point, the MDC comes in handy when using a third party developer, last was Clayton F76. I agree that testing is sometimes need, just would need 6 rolls of film, maybe 2 at the outside, first roll to determine working ISO, second roll, if needed, cut into small strips to nail time for highlights in Zone VII with grade 2 paper.
Mass Dev chart, versus...?
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And that then repeated for about 3 or 4 typical light situations, low contrast, high contrast scenes, snow scenes and a black cat in the dark wood scene
not experimentation but evaluation.
This is why I don't like the MDC. Bad data quality.
Better check out manufacturers' data sheets, developers' data sheets and blog posts where the development process is described in detail.
Well said.
Even if you don't want to waste too much money, you can always take some 5 or 10 exposures off a 36-exp roll, remove the exposed film using a changing bag and develop it as a test.
IMO there's no better site in the world to check development times and comments than Photrio.
And the advanced search tool is very powerful.
And the advanced search tool is very powerful.
I found that at times the MDC is so inaccurate that if I cannot find any customer technical data sheets or some other calibrated source, I would ask my ex who knows nothing about photography before I would use the MDC. 
I found that at times the MDC is so inaccurate that if I cannot find any customer technical data sheets or some other calibrated source, I would ask my ex who knows nothing about photography before I would use the MDC.
Can your cite an example?
No, I got burned a number of times years ago, so I just stay away from it.
I disagree. Manufactures test the other films in their developers. There reputation depends on it. The error come from wannabes thinking that they know more than the manufactures and come up with their own times based more on what they had for breakfast than rigorous scientific testing. Amateurs can never be as thorough in testing as the manufactures. Within a database and MDC is a database, once corrupt data has been inserted, it is very difficult to remove it.
MattKing
Moderator
The MDC is a clearing house which contains a bunch of information. The quality of that information varies a lot.
If you cannot find reliable information from manufacturers or other sources you have previously been able to use, the MDC is a useful resource.
But start first at more traditional sources.
If you cannot find reliable information from manufacturers or other sources you have previously been able to use, the MDC is a useful resource.
But start first at more traditional sources.
Where I have had problems is when the manufacture has not published development time for films, then the MDC times are too often too short. If I need information like that I search first then if necessary post a question on APUG Photrio.
Today I reviewed the MDC again just for fun and found this. Here's an example:
So how the time for Neopan Acros can be 10 minutes at EI 200 and also 10 minutes at EI 400 ? (yeah with a 1 degree heat increase... lol)
And of course they have mixed "acros II" with "acros" which are not exactly the same film.
There are many many many many other examples, for example you find a time X for a certain film at ISO 100, and then you find time Y for the same film at ISO 200, yet Y<X. And nonsense like that.
Like Tmax 400, Kodak recommends the same time for Tmax at 400 as 800, but I noticed that Fuji recommends a standard push for Acros 100, but different time for ID 11 than for D76.
https://asset.fujifilm.com/www/us/f...dd14a9bdfc/films_neopan100acros2_135_01_0.pdf
https://asset.fujifilm.com/www/us/f...dd14a9bdfc/films_neopan100acros2_135_01_0.pdf
Well... yes, and no. Last year, when I was in a more "experimental" frame of mind (a pandemic will do that to you), I tried a few new film/dev combos. Amongst them, some of the times were based on Photrio members recommendations, some on the MDC. There weren't that much, but the two Photrio and one of the MDC were total disasters - absolutely unprintable negs.
This just to say that there's much more than time involved in getting the negative that'll give you the print you want.
Well, mistakes, typos and bad QA happen in every organisations. There is the famous case of kodak times for Tri-X in HC-110 (lot of threads about it), or for a recent personnal exemple, ilford's time for fp4 in HC-110, way too long. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't use the official datasheet as starting point, of course not, but it's not absolute gospel either.
The MDC is a pretty good starting point if you don't have any manufactures recommended times, etc.. I just recently tried to find a starting point for a developer that is not widely popular and the MDC was about the only source I had with any information on the combination film and that developer. Well, I checked out what the MDC had listed seemed like a fairly reasonable time and temperature. That is, until I looked a little closer and the info. The times for box speed were like 8 minutes at 20C and the time further down the list for pushing one stop with the same film, same temp, same dilution was 6 minutes. Anyone else see a red flag here???? JohnW
The film, rate ISO, developer, time at temperature are posted but not vetted, most seem to on target, others WTF.
I've put up a test how I think developing times should be online:
- easy to search and use / modern JS search
- reliable data only, manufacturer datasheets mostly - experimental flagged separately
- always source for the data, be it thread here or personal webpage - dev characteristic curves etc. -> so no "blind" data
- times in minutes+seconds - easy to understand
- developing method described
- fulll data available to everyone / non-proprietary model
I got Ilford data imported quite easily but for example Kodak is another case. Their data is in multiple tables with multiple developing styles & film types. For example Kodak should be done manually, probably others too. If there is any interest helping doing this, we could probably get most of the manufacturer data entered. We could split and organize the work. Plan is NOT to use MDC
The data entered would probably in non-commercial. Creative Commons license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) because I think the ownership for the data is at the manufacturer. I would guess copying the public data to non-commercial service would be OK for the manufacturers. My plan is (if this takes off) provide direct data file access to anyone get the data and further use it (as long as they follows the by-nc-nd license). We could ask Kodak and others if this data can be put online. I'm pretty sure Ilford gives this permission. Ilford itself is referring to MDC for some developing times, which is a pretty worrying. If anyone has direct contacts to manufacturers, that would be awesome.
You can test my idea here (so far only Ilford datasheet times for demonstration purposes): https://jouni.kapsi.fi/filmdev2/ - just type for example "hp xt 80" in to the search box and magic happens
- easy to search and use / modern JS search
- reliable data only, manufacturer datasheets mostly - experimental flagged separately
- always source for the data, be it thread here or personal webpage - dev characteristic curves etc. -> so no "blind" data
- times in minutes+seconds - easy to understand
- developing method described
- fulll data available to everyone / non-proprietary model
I got Ilford data imported quite easily but for example Kodak is another case. Their data is in multiple tables with multiple developing styles & film types. For example Kodak should be done manually, probably others too. If there is any interest helping doing this, we could probably get most of the manufacturer data entered. We could split and organize the work. Plan is NOT to use MDC
The data entered would probably in non-commercial. Creative Commons license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) because I think the ownership for the data is at the manufacturer. I would guess copying the public data to non-commercial service would be OK for the manufacturers. My plan is (if this takes off) provide direct data file access to anyone get the data and further use it (as long as they follows the by-nc-nd license). We could ask Kodak and others if this data can be put online. I'm pretty sure Ilford gives this permission. Ilford itself is referring to MDC for some developing times, which is a pretty worrying. If anyone has direct contacts to manufacturers, that would be awesome.
You can test my idea here (so far only Ilford datasheet times for demonstration purposes): https://jouni.kapsi.fi/filmdev2/ - just type for example "hp xt 80" in to the search box and magic happens
So the MDC is 13.6% low. That is typical of the erroneous data that I found in the MDC [Maximally Defective Chatter].
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For all but exotic films or developers, the Massive Chart has often proved a useful starting point for me; better than guessing at least. One still has to do their own testing, relative to their own specific technique and planned applications. My own standard for FP4, for example, is ten minutes flat for "normal" in most developers, including 76 1:1, though I haven't used that combination in a long time. A lot of this has to do with specific agitation method. No one shoe size fits every foot.
Some of the alleged obvious errors cited in previous posts are not necessarily such at all. For example, given the native gamma steepness of TMY400, sometimes it makes no difference in this case whether it was shot at 400 or 800 for the same development time, like it would for many other films. It was engineered to be different. Rating it at 800, one is just lopping off a stop of shadow gradation down at the bottom in a full contrast range scene, that's all. The rest of the film curve will probably stay the same. The recommendation someone contributed to the Chart all depends what they were actually after in look, and what they regarded as successful. None of this is cut-and-dried. One man's medicine is another man 's poison.
Some of the alleged obvious errors cited in previous posts are not necessarily such at all. For example, given the native gamma steepness of TMY400, sometimes it makes no difference in this case whether it was shot at 400 or 800 for the same development time, like it would for many other films. It was engineered to be different. Rating it at 800, one is just lopping off a stop of shadow gradation down at the bottom in a full contrast range scene, that's all. The rest of the film curve will probably stay the same. The recommendation someone contributed to the Chart all depends what they were actually after in look, and what they regarded as successful. None of this is cut-and-dried. One man's medicine is another man 's poison.
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