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My developer choice woes part 2

wogster

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Okay, so HC110 is out, because I can't get it from my usual supplier without ordering it. So, here are my other choices, remember I am a strict low volume user, with maybe a couple of rolls a month:

1) Rodinal - Blazinal $16 for a 1L bottle
2) Ilfotec HC - $60/1L bottle, uh forget it,,,,
3)special order the HC110....

4)Use the ID11 I am familiar with, 1L is about $5 in powder form,
a) diluted 1:1, one shot, and toss it if it heads South....
b) stock and simply use it pouring back in the bottle, when it heads South, toss it...

It's a pilot project to test cubic grain films, Delta 100, Delta 400, TMax100 and TMax400

Any recommendations?
 
As a low volume user, shelf life is priority #1, all else being equal. So:

1. Order the HC-110, since it has a virtually limitless shelf life and is dirt cheap; and/or
2. buy metol, sulfite, and borax to make your own D-76, also dirt cheap;
3. Look at TMAX developer, also with a long shelf life, and a very good, underrated developer.
 
DD-X has decent shelf life- but you should definetly use a developer optimized for T-Grain films if you are testing with them.
 
$60 for a 1L bottle of Ilfotec? Holy crap!

Try Edwals FG-7. It's the best dev that no one talks about. I've only used it once, but it did a nice job. I'm more a mix- your- own guy and would also go for Mike's suggestion of making your D-76, D-23, MX, etc.

However, I see you're testing. If your're testing, maybe you should go for D-76. IIRC, it's the dev that used for ISO test by the film companies. I think you can still get it in 1L sizes and you should be able to easily go thru 1L in a month.
 
Rodinal is nearly immortal but it's not the best choice for fast films unless you like the grain. I do like it for slow films though.

I'd mail order some HC-110 (check darkroomcentral.ca if Henry's isn't stocking it, or order it from Adorama or B&H, although with them you'll have to order enough other stuff, e.g. film, to make up for the expensive shipping to Canada).

D-76 is good and Ilford ID-11 is essentially identical, plus you can order bulk ingredients and make it yourself. It's another option.
 
If you are testing film with the idea of publishing the results for others to use, it's best to use a well known developer. Many who know PC-TEA for example will also know D-76, while the contrary may not be true. OTH, 1 liter of PC-TEA might not cost you any more time and money than 1 liter of D-76 and will do as many as 100 rolls of film at the 1+50 dilution, each as fresh as the first. If I were doing the tests, I would consider doing the bulk of testing with PC-TEA first and then establish the relationship between D-76 and PC-TEA. I think you would save time and money and be just as effective. You realize, of course, that I have no prejudice in this matter.
 

Let me tell you what I am up to, way back when I shot B&W, and loved it, switched to colour at some point, because B&W film was getting very expensive, but still found that B&W was where I belonged, but it wasn't possible to do, for lack of space, and getting it done at a lab, was quite dear, so I put up with colour. About 4 years ago, I was able to return to B&W by
processing my own films again and scanning, and the results were quite good. About 2 years ago, I went over to the dark side (digital), was planning on retiring my two film cameras, however, I found that converting digital to B&W was doable, but I have not been happy with the results, the conversion is not fine enough.

So I am returning to shooting film for B&W, and using the digital for colour, which is mostly family crap anyway. I will return to scanning for printing though, until I can find the space to make optical printing practical again. I actually have a box with the enlarger in it, that I used back in 1979 when I taught myself darkroom printing.....

Now, cubic grain films are worth a look, higher speed and less noticeable grain seems like a nice bonus. So my pilot project is for my own use! Will probably use the ID11, I used it many years ago, and still have a couple of rolls of FP4 in the freezer, so that's the bench mark. Will be going to Henry's on Saturday to pick up the chems.....
 
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Infrequent use, long storage life, versatile application (works with many films) - my vote would be HC-110. Sure, you have to order it, but not that often, use it 1-shot. While you're at it, get a narrow graduate, something that holds only 10 - 20cc's, to measure accurately.

I find almost everything has to be ordered today anyway, unless you live in a big city.
 

I do live in a big city, Toronto is the biggest city in the country, what gets annoying is. The Kodak warehouse is in Toronto, and I have to order stuff from a guy in Winnipeg, who orders it from Kodak in Toronto. Just checked a couple of other places and they list it as in stock, so I may check them out.
 
Look into Ilford LC-29 - it is less concentrated than Ilford HC, but it still proceses a lot of film.

I bought a darkroom lot from someone just out of a photo course at school. In it there was a 1l bottle of LC-29, price marked from Henry's for about $30.

I use it excatly as I use HC-110B - pull the right amount of concentrate out of the bottle, and dilute stright to a working strengh solution.

I recall that if I only used it in 300mL working solutions one shot to process 35mm one roll at a time there were over 250 films worth of develper in the 1L of developer syrup.
 
It's funny. Everyone seems to have their wacky developer of choice these days - when probably the best all-around choice is the almighty D-76 (or equivalent).
 
clayne said:
It's funny. Everyone seems to have their wacky developer of choice these days - when probably the best all-around choice is the almighty D-76 (or equivalent).
Click to expand...

I agree, but, and I just can't help it saying it, PMK Pyro works very well for me. Back in the '70s, when I was in high school, I thought D-76 was a synonym for developer!
 
nocrop said:
I agree, but, and I just can't help it saying it, PMK Pyro works very well for me. Back in the '70s, when I was in high school, I thought D-76 was a synonym for developer!
Click to expand...

Yeah, with all I said, I'm just beginning to experiment with PMK myself:



And when I say, "experiment," what I really mean is I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
 
George Collier said:
I agree - D76 is best (or at least great) all around, but it doesn't have the shelf life of HC110, for an infrequent user.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking that ID11 or D76 is about $6/L, at $12/yr for developer, I think it wouldn't really be an issue, heck I can pick up a couple of packs at the same time.
 
wogster said:
I'm thinking that ID11 or D76 is about $6/L, at $12/yr for developer, I think it wouldn't really be an issue, heck I can pick up a couple of packs at the same time.
Click to expand...

I picked up a big box of 1-gallon-mix D-76 cans from an estate sale a while back ago so I'm fairly set on D-76 for quite a while.
 
clayne said:
It's funny. Everyone seems to have their wacky developer of choice these days - when probably the best all-around choice is the almighty D-76 (or equivalent).
Click to expand...

Well, I don't know if I'd like to label D-76 with the adjective, almighty; because that, it's not. Otherwise, I couldn't agree with you more. It is a very good, general purpose developer that is hard to beat. Why else would D-76 be the de-facto standard against which all other developers are compared? And it is cheap. Here in NYC, $6 will buy enough pre-packaged D-76 powder to make a gallon of stock solution. If stored correctly, in full bottles, it will last at least 6 months by Kodak's conservative estimate. Is it more expensive than HC-110? A bit, yes; but the difference in price is nothing compared to the other costs associated with photography.
 
clayne said:
It's funny. Everyone seems to have their wacky developer of choice these days - when probably the best all-around choice is the almighty D-76 (or equivalent).
Click to expand...

If I had to stick to a single developer for a wide range of uses, D-76/ID11 would be about #2 on my list (after the far more expensive TMax). It's very flexible and can be used competently for pretty much any use. But there's usually another developer that does any specific use better than D-76. So if your uses are fairly specific, specializing makes sense. If you tend to do a bit of everything D-76 is an excellent choice that covers all the bases.
 
I agree with the specialization part. My point might have been that for that the generalized behavior that D-76 does exhibit, it does it VERY well. The specialist developers don't have a magnitude worth of difference over D-76 (but they do have a tangible and noticeable one).
 

This is very true, one of the advantages with D76/ID11 is that practically everyone who knows B&W, knows what they results from these developers looks like. Which is one of the reasons why, after thinking about trying HC110 or Rodinal, I thought about going back to ID11 for my project that started this thread. The fact it's relatively inexpensive doesn't hurt, even if it doesn't last as long.
 
Of the ones you list ID-11/D76 is the best choice. I would run your tests with one of those and then run another set of tests with XTOL 1-2 or 1-3 and/or TMAX. I think those developers are better suited for the tabular grain films you mention. I would also experiment with Pyrocat-HD. It is pretty economical even as a one shot developer and I especially like it with Delta 100.
 

Well, I just got back from Henry's....

The winner is D76, it was $4 for a 1L packet, ID11 was $6.99 for the packet, so the search is over. I do need to mix it up and process a roll of film I have here ready to go.... I picked up some Ilford Rapid Fixer as well. Total came to $12 something, I may order from darkroom central next time, as every time I go into the Henry's Church St Store, their darkroom section is smaller again and has fewer items in stock.

Will mix up the D76 later, then do a clip test to make sure it and the fixer are okay, then I'll run through the roll I have. I'll scan the results and then draw my conclusions.
 
I've never personally liked the way HC-110 affected the curve of the film compared to D-76. D-76 has always seemed more fair to tones whereas HC seems to pump the contrast up. HC-110 has always seemed like a "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" developer to me. My split decision on where I use is XTOL is a simple basis of if I'm pushing the film or not. That being said, I've used D-76 with pushed films and also had excellent results. Both D-76/XTOL can pretty much handle any combination of needs in my eyes (I also use Rodinal and am now experimenting with PMK).

I'm quite fortunate that we have these various formulae from which to affect developing in whatever way one likes. Variety is the spice of life.
 
Well, I souped the first test roll of FP4, and other then the fact the rebate was a little faint, the negatives scanned okay, probably a little low on the developer time, and the scanner always needs a levels adjustment. I don't have my enlarger set up at the moment so scans of negatives will have to do. I'll post some of the results on my Photo Bucket account and post another update here with a link.
 
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