Microphen & Xtol VS "ID-68" & "Mytol" homebrew

This is my first post here, so hello to you all. I started out developing 135 film (mostly t-grain films) using Xtol with great results, for a general purpose developer. Lately I've been shooting 135/120 FP4+,PanF+, & Fomapan souped in Rodinal. I've been wanting to expand my arsenal with a fine grain developer like Microphen. I have the ingredients to mix up ID-68 (described as similar to Microphen in DR Cookbook) & was curious how similar these are? Same for Xtol & Mytol. Planned use is for portrait work.
On a side note, which could be it's on thread possibly, I've been wanting to try Acufine or Diafine, but other than their data sheet I couldn't find out much more about it besides reading many people love the results.
Anyways, any input on this would be greatly appreciated.
Best,
~ Ryan

Microphen and ID-68 are inter-changeable, the only difference is Part A of Microphen contains a trace of Sodium Metabisulphite as a preservative (anti-oxidant), As the Metabisulphite is acidic there's a minor adjust ment of the buffering in Part B to compensate. This is/was quite typical with a number of pre-packed dry powder developers.

Over the years I've used a lot of Microphen/ID-68 it's ideal for push-processing which is all I used it for, preferring ID-11 (D76) and later Adox Borax MQ for finer grain particularly with 35mm films. I switched to Rodinal in the late 1980s with AP100 and later APX100, or Tmax100 and always had exceptionally fine grained, sharp, negatives with an excellent tonal range, I found Xtol which I used replenished gave very similar results. I've never tried Mytol so can't comment but Xtol definitely gives finer grain than Microphen/ID-68

Ian

How does Adox Borax MQ compare to XTOL (which I use 1+1 in a Jobo) in image quality?

Slightly off topic but having moved over to the T-Max films a few years ago, have noticed recently that TMX in particular doesn't seem very widely stocked these days. Perhaps I'll have to move back more towards ILFORD.

There Is No Silver Bullet

Tom Kershaw said:

How does Adox Borax MQ compare to XTOL (which I use 1+1 in a Jobo) in image quality?

Slightly off topic but having moved over to the T-Max films a few years ago, have noticed recently that TMX in particular doesn't seem very widely stocked these days. Perhaps I'll have to move back more towards ILFORD.

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I only ever used Adox Borax MQ replenished, it's slightly finer grained than ID-11/D76, sharper and gives better shadow detail. There is someone on this forum using it 1+1 I think in a JOBO (either quite a recent posting or maybe a PM).

My preferred films were APX25 and APX100, Tmax100 as a backup, then when Agfa ceased all Tmax100 or 400 but I had problems getting Tmax film when living abroad dso switched to Ilford Delta 100 & 400with Fomapan 100 or 200 as a back-up. For hand-held 5x4 I use HP5.

bernard_L said:

There Is No Silver Bullet

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No but there are some magic film/developer combinations that give far better results than others, and it's a case of discovering those. Rodinal and APX100 or Tmax100 was one of those.

Ian

Ian Grant said:

Rodinal and APX100

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Agreed. In fact I have Rodinal just for my stash of APX-100 (original). Other than that I have just D-76 and HC-110. Once I've converged on the dev times and contrast for a few films (FP4, Neopan-400, 400TX) and if HC-110 at TBD dilution/time reasonably duplicates the proven D-76 1+1, only HC-110 will stay for very practical reasons: reproducible.
Whenever I'm tempted to go out on a silver bullet chase (Xtol, maybe, so wonderful...??), I just have a look at https://www.fotoimport.no/filmtest/filmFP4.html (change film and dev as you like) to (re-)convince myself that apart from a few special cases (Rodinal, Caffenol) the differences are small/nil. Maybe it's just me and I don't see the obvious, but in practice that is the conclusion.
In the OP I see: Xtol, Rodinal, ID-68, Acufine, Diafine... Time better spent (IMO, but of course it's the OP's time) getting to know well one or two combinations.

Good point Bernard. I've spent some time finding the right dev/film combo. I don't push film a lot, & already have HC-110 for fast films & pushing. Maybe on a rainy day I'll try pushing w/Id-68.

Ian Grant said:

I've never tried Mytol so can't comment but Xtol definitely gives finer grain than Microphen/ID-68

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Thanks Ian.
I think I'll give Mytol a try & see how it compares. Of course I know it's all relative - as everyone has their own preferences.