most powerful push developer recipe?

Just wanting to know whats the most powerful developer for extreme pushing recipe on APUG articles (or external site), I want to try mixing up something new and fun

Athiril said:

Just wanting to know whats the most powerful developer for extreme pushing recipe on APUG articles (or external site), I want to try mixing up something new and fun

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Unless you give adequate exposure for detail to be recorded on the film for the shadows, then you will not get any details in the shadows.
No fancy developer formula is going to reveal details there if the film hasn`t captured it. The brightness contrast of the subject and the latitude of the film used are all factors as well.
For developers, Microphen, T-Max/T-Max RS and DD-X should work well.

Could I have an on topic reply please?

I didn't ask how much shadow detail I can maintain.

I also specifically wanted a recipe to mix up mysef, not a commercial developer, I have Xtol, though its no use telling me to use Xtol or something else, because "I want to try mixing up something new and fun."

I've heard that blending Rodinal and Xtol along with a couple extras (I think it was extra ascorbic acid and borax) for stand development gives good results that's better than either individually, but that wasn't in a context of extreme push.

Recently tried out (there was a url link here which no longer exists) and developing using plain jane rodinal and some frames did survive, so I imagine any improvement in chemicals would take me up from there.

Google
'super soup' site:apug.org
Don Qualls idea
Murray

ID-68 (Microphen) is a good start it works very well with HP5 & Tri-X.

I do have a couple of formulae from Patents that claim substantial push processing abilities, I've never seen them published elsewhere, over the Winter I'll dig them out again.

Ian

Super Soup, worth some investigation.

Thanks guys,

Super Soup is the exact one I had in mind I saw on a site detailing shooting film through backwards accidentally, but couldnt remember the name of it! Though I dont think I can get HC-110, I can get LC-29.

I made up a 15g acetaminophen/20g hydroxide (aminophenol), 20g ascorbic acid, 1g phenidone, and 13g hydroquinone developer, with 10g borax, 10g potassium carbonate (after the ascorbic acid was converted to potassium carbonate), 30g sulfite and 4g benzotriazole to 350ml concentrate... I'll see how that goes in what dilutions.

When speed mattered more to me than anything else I used to use Kodak 2475 recording film in Diafine developer. Shot at 6400 - 12800 ISO, speeds unheard of in the early 80's.

In contrasty lighting situations, like street photography at night, you might experiment with the Perfection XR-1 formula described in an article on unblinkingeye.com. I found I could get two real stops of speed from it, but contrast was lower than I wanted. Most speed developers like Acufine and Microphen will get about 1 to 1-1/2 stops of real speed with most films, and you may be able to squeeze out more with techniques like stand development.

Then there are other methods like "hypering", pre-flashing and such.

While I have a dozen or so packets of Perfection still, I find HC-110 Replenisher perfect for pushing. You'll need to work out what works for you, as I've compared notes with several people and no two are even close.

Kodak has discontinued it, so if you find you like it, I'd stock up.

Dear athril,

A second vote for Perfection XR-1: http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/XR-1/xr-1.html

Neal Wydra

Fleath said:

Super Soup, worth some investigation.

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That's on my "play with" list sometime between now and an August festival where I might want to try to stretch limits.

Ignorant question: That formula mixes to 8 fl.oz. How do I scale that? For example, my single-reel tank takes 10floz/300ml. Should I scale it up proportionally, or dilute it?

There are some exotic formulas out there fore extreme pushing - like:

High emulsion speed developer SD-19a (Kodak)
Solution A
6-nitrobenzimidazole nitate (0.2%) 20 ml
Hydrazine hydrochloride 1.6 g
WTM 1 l
Solution B
(Kodak D-19)

Add 30 cc of solution A to 1 liter of solution B and mix thoroughly. Prepare immediately before use. For maximum emulsion speed, develop a time for the fog to reach a density of about 0.4 (usually 12 to 20 minutes).
For high speed development of normally exposed negatives, develop 2 minutes at 18C or 1 minute at 30C.

and

Kodak D-82 High-Energy Developer
Use for underexposed negatives and low-temperature processing.

Water (52C) 750 ml
Methanol 48 ml
Metol 14 g
Sodium sulfite, anh. 52.5 g
Hydroquinone 14 g
Sodium hydroxide 8.8 g
Potassium bromide 8.8 g
WTM 1 l

Use undiluted. Develop about 6 minutes in a tank or 5 minutes in a tray at 20C.
Note: The prepared developer does not keep for more than a few days. If methanol is not added and the developer is diluted, the solution is not as active as in the concentrated form. This developer gives the greatest possible density with negatives having a minimum of exposure.

SD-19a uses exotic chemicals (hydrazine) and D-82 may be a bit outdated.

Use the D82.

To keep things simple, I'm experimenting with D-23 as a push developer ;-) Here is Hp5+@1600 in D-23 (7min@20C) followed by 0,1M Sodium Carbonate bath (3min). Shadow detail looks good enough to try @ 6400 in 10min/3min next time

There is a lot of suggestions here to try, thank you all very much I shall file them away