NEWBIE in film development

[Juan Valdenebro]

Any reason why xtol over say d76 or any other developer for that reason? I was looking at stand development for that specific roll of hp5 I had pushed 4 stops. Thoughts?

Hello Roi
If your photographs are important, I'd say the best possible development in that case (HP5+400 underexposed at 6400) could be using Ilford's Ilfotec DD-X. Even with that developer, your negatives will be light years from a normal useable tonality for wet printing, and even for scanning they'll be poor. Honestly, some people would call all of it wasting materials... HP5+ can look great at 800 for overcast light, and at 1600 you can wet print it but all the qualities of the image structure (detail, sharpness, nice grain) are destroyed because of the underexposure: and that's after just two stops: two stops is wild pushing.
If you don't want to buy DDX, I'd use the TMaxDev, even though it was designed for pushing modern films.
Rodinal produces the worst look I've seen on HP5+.
For HP5+ I recommend you D-76 1+1, metering at 400.
All tales about stand development as a great procedure for pushing are untrue: wrong metering and/or scanning poor negatives for digital manipulation, reaching tonal situations that are not those of the film scanned.
Playing the game of very well exposed and very well developed film is a lot more fun! Hope you're enjoying that part too!
Have fun!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

By the way, if you want to use Rodinal well, you can experiment with it at 17Celsius, with little and very gentle inversions, twice every minute or second minute, but not with HP5+... Rodinal is better for ISO100-125 films, and exposing for two thirds of a stop more light than box speed... Say 80 for FP4+125 under soft light.
That gives you beautiful sharp grain and decent tone.
Enjoy and experiment!

 

[Donald Qualls]

Any reason why xtol over say d76 or any other developer for that reason? I was looking at stand development for that specific roll of hp5 I had pushed 4 stops. Thoughts?

One potential reason to prefer Xtol over D-76 if you're trying to get that last photon worth of density out of your already underexposed film is that Xtol's chemistry (phenidone/ascorbate) is good for about 1/3 stop additional real film speed compared to D-76 (metol/hydroquinone). Generally, phenidone-based developers will produce higher film speeds and work better for pushing than those that use metol, though metol is itself better for speed and pushing than p-aminophenol (the developing agent in Rodinal). The Super Soup I posted above contains (by way of the developers I mixed) phenidone, metol, hydroquinone, and ascorbate, and has carbonate alkali (hence higher pH than Xtol or D-76, which are borax based) -- making it more aggressive, and taking advantage of four superadditive pairs (both hydroquinone and ascorbate are superadditive with both phenidone and metol).

Stand development will tend to maximize shadow detail, but it won't push contrast up the curve in a way that will let you fool yourself into thinking you've gotten useful images at four stops above box speed.

 

[jvo]

welcome to photrio...

the best advice i was given when starting out was "use 1 film, developer and paper for a year, get to know them, then change one."

 

[Roi]

welcome to photrio...

the best advice i was given when starting out was "use 1 film, developer and paper for a year, get to know them, then change one."

Thanks for that. I am thinking of Xtol to stick with for a year or so. Thoughts on that ?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thanks for that. I am thinking of Xtol to stick with for a year or so. Thoughts on that ?

That has been my go to developer for over a decade.

 

[Roi]

That has been my go to developer for over a decade.
View attachment 268898

Oh wow thanks for that chart. Does it pair well with pushed 120
Film?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Oh wow thanks for that chart. Does it pair well with pushed 120
Film?

XTOL provides a small ISO boost, but I never pay attention to that. The instructions show development times for varying the film speed.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Hi Roi,
You can think of Xtol as D-76: the very small advantages Xtol offers are really, visually, minimal, so you won't make any of your photographs better because of using Xtol instead of D-76.
A truer graph, instead of Kodak's graph, should show sliders (speed, sharpness, grain) nearly in the same position for all developers: that's how small real differences are.
Apart from manufacturing and packaging problems now and then, Xtol dies looking transparent and yet fresh, so some of us don't like it very much: we see it as a risky developer... It's also quite sensitive to minerals in tap water. Kodak wanted to make Xtol replace D-76 in the world, but it didn't happen, even though labs developing lots of film like to buy it because it's cheap when used replenished...
For sure there are chances, if you try Xtol, you'll have no problems... I've used it a few times, and I've had a few problems: plain bad luck.
Honestly there's so much to learn about the standard developer (D-76/ID-11), that I recommend any student to master D-76 first, and that takes years, seriously...
All this, if you wet print. Scanning is a different field, and nothing matters that much, as you don't create a physical original, but use sensitive materials as a base to create a digital file with different tone: the new tone of a new digital photograph taken by the scanner. And that file continues to be created inside a computer. And everything can be changed, as there's no real original tone: just an array of ones and zeroes...
Some say for making digital files, using negative film makes no sense: better to use a digital camera from the beginning...
Making negatives that can be perfectly printed in the darkroom, makes more sense, and those can be scanned too...
Good luck!

 

[jvo]

you can't go wrong with xtol... you'll find every photographer has their favorites and reasons why... choose a developer and you'll learn to make it work for you, and you'll learn what you like.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Any reason why xtol over say d76 or any other developer for that reason? I was looking at stand development for that specific roll of hp5 I had pushed 4 stops. Thoughts?

No, you can't get more from that wild underexposure by doing any stand... With DD-X you'll get a little less grain than with Microphen, but those negatives will be basically useless for good darkroom prints no matter what you do... As Andrew told you, 1600 is a limit. 3200 is far from what's truly photographic. 6400 is a web joke...

 

[pentaxuser]

Any tips on developing pushed HP5 to 6400 using D76? I have read stand development might be great, but I have no idea which method to use. Using stand development I think it's around 25 minutes...
But I am all ears here so any would be super useful! Thanks again.

Have a look at videos on stand development, then summarise the evidence presented by them and decide if it can do this for you to your satisfaction.

You will certainly get an image but it is the last three words in bold that count. Let us know how it goes.

pentaxuser

 

[Donald Qualls]

those negatives will be basically useless for good darkroom prints no matter what you do

Note that this is true for certain definitions of good darkroom prints. There have been many good photographs made with pushed film, the black, empty shadows, enhanced grain, and increased contrast being part and parcel of the image (that is to say, the same composition exposed and printed with a full tonal range and fine grain would have a very different look, different from what the photographer chose).

 

[pentaxuser]

Roi have a look at the current thread on push processing HP5+ The OP gives examples of what was possible in D76 at 12,800 so one stop more than what you are contemplating. OK it is not stand or semi-stand but as far as I know stand or semi-stand is not per se rendered incapable of speeds that a standard developer such as D76 in standard development regime can do

Note that a number of members appeared to believe and possibly still do, that the OP was not in fact using 12,800

pentaxuser

 

[Sirius Glass]

No, you can't get more from that wild underexposure by doing any stand... With DD-X you'll get a little less grain than with Microphen, but those negatives will be basically useless for good darkroom prints no matter what you do... As Andrew told you, 1600 is a limit. 3200 is far from what's truly photographic. 6400 is a web joke...

Friends do not let friends do stand development.

 

[cliveh]

Try to walk before you run.