Suggestion that film developer to fine grains.

Have always use devesenvolvedor D-76 and now wanted to try another. Looking for a developer who has film grain and fine powder is as Kodak D-76.
Could anyone suggest some?

Kodak Xtol is a wonderful film developer that has finer grain than Kodak D-76, but is also sharper and offers better film speed.
The highlights may seem a little held back compared to D76, but it's not a huge difference.

Yes. OBSIDIAN AQUA is fantastic for protecting the grain and yet delivers very sharp negatives.

You mix it yourself.



RR

obsidian aqua

Rod, Never having heard of OA developer, I looked on digital truth and found HP5 to be the only film listed for obsidian aqua…. Can you (or someone else) give "us" some more info on it and its qualities? Thanks, Bill

Bill Harrison said:

Rod, Never having heard of OA developer, I looked on digital truth and found HP5 to be the only film listed for obsidian aqua…. Can you (or someone else) give "us" some more info on it and its qualities? Thanks, Bill

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Certainly.

OBSIDIAN AQUA is another developer invented by Jay DeFehr. It's a compensating developer with similar behaviour to an earlier Jay DeFehr developer, 510-PYRO. Like 510-PYRO it lasts indefinitely but unlike 510-PYRO it is not a syrup but is two solutions that are mixed with water just prior to use.

I have found if I expose for shadow texture on Zone III then use a semi-stand regime for agitation that I get a nice spread of tones with good protection of the highlights. It can be used to develop different films with different ISO ratings, all together, in the same tank, at once.

Here are two sheets covering how I use both 510-PYRO and OBSIDIAN AQUA.

http://freepdfhosting.com/3e906fe75d.pdf

You will see that there are no changes to time, temperature or dilution regardless of the film. This seems weird at first but it has never let me down. So far I have used it with 9 different film types: ADOX CHS 25 ART, ADOX CMS 20, FOMAPAN 100, FOMAPAN 200, ILFORD Delta 400, ILFORD FP4 Plus, ILFORD HP5 Plus, ILFORD PAN F Plus and Rollei RPX 25.

Here is a link to the results of a search on Flickr for photographs developed in OBSIDIAN AQUA by various folk.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=OBSIDIAN AQUA

Come back to me if I can be of any further help.

RR

I'll suggest Microphen, comes in a powder packet just like Xtol. Biggest advantage over xtol is that it comes in 1L packs, you don't have to mix 5L and use it all before it (there was a url link here which no longer exists).
You can either re-use it as stock and add 10% time per extra film, or dilute it and use it one-shot. Nice grain, great for pushing.

The title of your post is a bit ambiguous. Do you want a developer that produces fine grain or do you want a developer for fine grain films? There is a distinction which would effect any suggestions.

A high sulfite content developer lie D-76, Microphen, D-23, etc produces finer grain but at the expense of fine detail. A developer for fine grain films like the Beutler developer emphasizes acutance.

It's all a matter of what you want. But you can't have both.

Not every developer is suited for every film X-tol is very good in that regard and as Thomas said it's basically D76 with some advantages.

Regular Rod I sometimes use Hypercat and Jay basically said that OA is a variation of it so I was astonished to hear that you can use the same times for so many different films, also your definition of Semi-Stand seem to be quiet different to mine an inversion every 2 Minutes is all but semi stand. Still Jay's developers are a good alternative to pre-made products and if OA is anything like Hypercat it is very sharp.

MDR said:

Not every developer is suited for every film X-tol is very good in that regard and as Thomas said it's basically D76 with some advantages.

Regular Rod I sometimes use Hypercat and Jay basically said that OA is a variation of it so I was astonished to hear that you can use the same times for so many different films, also your definition of Semi-Stand seem to be quiet different to mine an inversion every 2 Minutes is all but semi stand. Still Jay's developers are a good alternative to pre-made products and if OA is anything like Hypercat it is very sharp.

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I started out with OA on a few sheets of FP4 Plus and arrived at 12 minutes @ 20 deg. C after a little bit of experimentation. Then I used a roll of HP5 Plus and tried the same regime and time. I was pleased with the results and stayed with it. Then I tried Pan F Plus and lo and behold all was in order. It didn't really surprise me as I believed OA to be similar to diXactol and had mixed films together in the same tank with diXactol and found the results to be good there so in my naivety I expected OA to allow the same practice. I'm certainly hooked on OA (and 510-PYRO). The results are, for me, predictable and consistent. I know what I am going to get when I make the exposures, so now everything gets the 12 minutes as per the pdf. My first roll of Rollei RPX25 was simply loaded up and given the same routine, I didn't even test with a roll or two first. The result was 8 very printable 6x9 negatives. It is fair to say that since taking it almost for granted that exposure and development will be as required I now waste less film because I hardly ever bracket exposures.

You are perfectly correct about the sharpness...

RR

OA is very similar to the catechol developers that were popular in the 30's and 40's. They typically contain only a sulfite, catechol and an accelerant. The accelerant is either a carbonate or sodium hydroxide. These developers are considered as acutance developers. Windish gives a formula and so does Jacobson. They all really only vary in the ratios of the three ingredients. The formula for the Jacobson developer is

Solution A
sodium sulfite 40 g
catechol 20 g
Water 1 l

Solution B
potassium carbonate 120 g
water 1 l

For use take 1 part A, 1 part B, 8 parts water.

Ilford Perceptol provides finer grain than D-76/ID-11 and Xtol, but you will lose around half a stop to a stop more film speed.

FP4 Plus is around ISO80 and HP5 Plus is around ISO 250 when developed in Perceptol..

MDR said:

I sometimes use Hypercat and Jay basically said that OA is a variation of it so I was astonished to hear that you can use the same times for so many different films

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I was rather astonished too. I've been using Hypercat too recently, and I've found times needed vary wildly over different films. Of course while OA and Hypercat are supposed to be equivalent, the formulae are very significantly different, with Hypercat containing Ascorbic acid but no metabisulfite.