Suggest for me a developer ...

Andrew Moxom said:

Jeff, sounds like you need to try Pyrocat HD in Glycol. Shelf life of solution A and B in their own containers is years! You can stop development with water, and fix in TF-4 or Ilford Hypam. A very consistent and bullet proof system.

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Good to hear from you again. We wanted to make it to Minnesota, but had to work an art fair that weekend.

This sounds like an intriguing idea. I am going to look into pyrocat hd some more.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

Hey Jeff, been a while since June. How are ya?

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Good to hear from you! I have been enjoying the beautiful work you've been posting.

Rodinal sounds tempting too. Choices choices ...

jp80874 said:

Jeff,

I hope you will bring some images to OH. Do you make a pin hole in the daylight tanks or is there a certain lens board that they take? I remember you were having trouble with lens boards recently for the new 4x5. Is this a spin off of that complexity?

While you are here I will be happy to show you results from Rollo Pyro. You mix the two parts as needed. I buy two kits of it from Bostick & Sullivan a year. I think they say the kit makes 33 ltr. of developer. Water is the stop bath. I use Ilford fixer at 4 parts water to one part their stuff. Then ten changes of wash water. This does require a Jobo.

Looking forward to your visit. Savannah wants to be sure Eva is coming. Eva is the best apple & stick thrower Savannah (yellow labrador) knows.

John Powers

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Hey John,

Pinhole developing tank - that's a good idea! You could load it up, shoot it and then develop without removing the film.

I will take you up on that. I have been looking at a Jobo for a bit. We use one at school and it is pretty slick.

Developer - stop - fix - washing sequence (Ilford): Simple, quick and easy. No need for intermediary rinses at all or even the alkali fix. Dev = alkali, stop (acid), fix (acid). Alkali fix is sometimes useful for staining devs but even then I did not bother and ntoed no issues with my images. Waste of money and hassle IMHO. I took the nonsense about acid stop and fix éating away at your low density regions in the negs' as a marketing fib. At no point did I see any evidence ever presented by anyone that in normal fix times acid stop and fix actually did anything of the kind. Lets face it, neither ilford or kodak produce them, so if their products were being ruined by acid products you'd think they would take note!

I use very dilute stop and tend to discard.

Devs with fineish grain and good shelf life:

DDX - good shelf life but expensive. Use at 1+8/9 for better economy. I am reacqainting myself with this dev after time away. Fine grain and even better speed than Xtol and about 2/3 stop more than than D76 1+1.
Xtol - Yes. In full tightly capped brown brown plastic Detta bottles it lasts 6+ months as stock. Not one single failure in 2 years even from half full bottles at 5 months old kept at 23-27 degs C. I test using leader if the dev has been sitting about ages. at 1+1 or 1+2 it still has finer grain than D76 1+1 IMO and roughly comparable acutance. No pH rising peaks and troughs as per D76/ID11. Dev times dont change.

HC110 - No real experience with this

FWIW, the rinse before and after your stop bath is unnecessary

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Actually, I'd go further than that - I'd have thought that the rinse before the stop actually defeats the purpose of the stop (which is to stop the developer as quickly as possible).

But yes, I'd agree with the suggestions of dev/rinse/fix/wash - it's what I've been doing for nearly 40 years and my old negs are still fine.

And I'd also vote for HC-110 and/or Rodinal - they're my two stock developers.

Alan

Another reminder- if you do go to a Pyro developer, don't use an acid stop, just use a 2 minute water stop. The acid stop will cause a loss of some of the stain, which is the point of using a Pyro developer.