Plus-X is Dead; Help me with FP4!

[Ken Nadvornick]

I chose not to lengthen my already longish overall development time since any additional wet time, I felt, would only degrade the negative.

Mind explaining this bit?

You bet.

There is a fairly large body of anecdotal evidence out there that suggests a possible link between increased time spent in the developer and changes in the appearance of the resulting grain structure in the negative.

To quote one reference,

"Graininess can be significantly altered by the developer and by the time film spends in the developer."
-- Stephen Anchell & Bill Troop, The Film Developing Cookbook, 1998, vol. 2, p. 2.​

My need was to slightly increase the contrast in FP4+. The two most effective ways to do that were to either increase overall development time, or increase agitation frequency.

Both would do the trick. But the former would additionally expose the film to the possible risk of significantly altered grain, while the latter - as far as I am aware - would not. So for me the choice was simple.

Unfortunately, as I did not explore the mythological implications of the above modified development procedure, I cannot comment on that aspect.

Ken

 

[john_s]

.........Like an earlier poster, I found FP4+ to be a bit less contrasty than Plus-X. Consequently I increased my agitation cycles protocol from a single inversion every 60 seconds to dual inversions in the same period..........

I read this recently:

Expose for the shadows,
Develop for the midtones, and
Agitate for the highlights.

Maybe it alters the shape of the curve in a way that longer development doesn't?

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Sure. But if you slow down agitation, you have to compensate by developing a bit longer, which also alters shadow detail / film speed.

So, it does change the film curve, while just changing development time does not.

I will often agitate every 3 minutes or every five minutes, depending on the lighting while taking the picture. But I have a condensor enlarger, which needs calmer negatives than a diffusion enlarger.

- Thomas

I read this recently:

Expose for the shadows,
Develop for the midtones, and
Agitate for the highlights.

Maybe it alters the shape of the curve in a way that longer development doesn't?