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Old 19th May 2016, 02:47 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Default D-76/ID-11 alternatives (Part 1)...FX-15 and FX-37

This post is the first of at least two regarding my quest for an alternative to my usual D-76 / ID-11 developer (let's call them the same). Not that I am having problems with it, but along with Perceptol (for about one-third of my films), they are all I’ve ever used. So it’s time for a change.

More to the point, I am hoping to find a developer with a different “look” to it. Attributes of importance are tonality and sharpness, with fine grain being of lesser priority (but I’ll take it if I can get it). Tonality is probably the main thing that I am after here.

The developer should be general-purpose, as I use roll films exclusively and therefore may have scenes of varying contrast on the same roll. Subjects can be landscapes, nature, close-ups, city scenes / street photography, architecture, travel. No studio stuff or portraits.

Format is 135 and 120; films are traditional grain and T-grain, depending on the look I am after and the format. I favour FP4, HP5 and Tri-X (interchangeably), as well as TMY-2, and intend to experiment with PanF and Acros soon. Output is scanning and digital printing for the time being, with a proper darkroom on the distant horizon when I have more space and more time. This means the negs should be developed to suit both digitizing and silver printing. Max print size is 11x14 from 135, and (rarely) up to 20x24 from 120.

BTW, I always use the above developers diluted, one-shot – usually 1:1, and sometimes 1:3 if I want some highlight control. So I am negating the solvent action somewhat and getting better sharpness than stock, at the expense of grain.

That said, after much reading of Thornton, Anchell and Troop, and poking around the wider web, I have narrowed it down to a short list: Crawley’s FX-15 or FX-37; and Kodak Xtol. I kicked around the idea of Pyrocat HD, but it seemed to be not as versatile, not so “general purpose” as the others (feel free to correct me on that), and a lot fussier to mix and use. Two-bath brews also seem very appealing and versatile, but I get the impression they result in a rather compressed tonal range not really appropriate for bringing out the best in flat light scenes (again, correct me if that’s false).

I will start a separate thread about Xtol (there seem to be a rash of Xtol threads on the board these days), so for the moment I’d like to hear back from anyone who has experience with the Crawley formulas.

FX-15 (aka Acutol S) seems to be a strong candidate for an D-76 replacement. Reading the Acutol S reviews and background info, it checks all the boxes for me – good sharpness, nice tonal gradations, speed increase (a bonus!), solvent action for fine grain, and easy to mix. The main question then is: will I notice any significant visible difference in the tonality of this vs. D-76 @ 1:1? Anchell & Troop state that this developer offers significant improvement in image quality over D-76. Has this been borne out in practice? Do they mean only wrt. sharpness and grain, or does that also include other attrbutes? They don't say.... Any comments on this are most welcome.

FX-37 (similar to FX-39), on the other hand, is said to be excellent for T-grain films, but less suited for traditional grain. Also, it seems to work best for medium speed films, and not so well for 400 and up. Are these two assertions correct? Does anyone use this formula for faster films and/or traditional grain films? As with my questions above, how does the tonality appear?

Thanks in advance for your patience reading the long-winded preamble (takes me a while to get to the point sometimes ), but I thought it best to put as much background info as possible at the beginning to avoid the inevitable questions later on (what films? what subjects? etc....). If I am totally off-base here in my short-list selection, and should be looking in another direction entirely, then feel free to drop any recommendations you may have.

Looking forward to hearing back....

Best,
Svend
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Old 19th May 2016, 03:42 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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I would suggest 2 as suiting your purpose, one is Rodinal/RO9, a one shot developer that has great sharpness, has a great ''edge effect'' which an even greater appearness of sharpness, some say better suited to slow/medium speed film, due to the very high acutance of the developer, with faster films you do get grain,but I personally like the grain in 35mm, in MF it is not a probelm, this is possibly one of the sharpest working developers around and is a great all round developer, My second choice would be Rollei RHS developer, a good general purpose developer, like Rodinal one shot, fine grain and keeps the film speed well, I use it in it's other form here as Firstcall fim developer, and the grainn is so fine with MF film that yoiu need to focus on fine detail as you can't see the grain,
Richard
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Old 19th May 2016, 04:18 PM
DaveP DaveP is offline
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I was going to say Rodinal too.
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Old 19th May 2016, 04:56 PM
Lostlabours Lostlabours is online now
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I've been using Pyrocat HD for 10 years now, for all formats. It's an extremely versatile developer I lken it to Rodinal on steroids.

Acutol and especially Acutol S give larger grain than ID-11/D76.

One I used commercially for a few years was Adox Borax MQ which we used replenished. It gives finer grain and a touch better speed as well as better acutance (sharpness) than ID-11/D76.

Ian
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Old 19th May 2016, 04:57 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Also Acutol is no longer in commercial production and AFIK has not been for some years so you would need to make it from scratch, the formula is out there if you want to try, FX37 is also no longer available commercialy, again since Patterson stopped making chemistry a while ago they went, along with most of the Crawly developers, which is a shame, not sure if the formula for fx37 was ever even published, the only Crawley developer currently is FX39, now made by Adox in Germany, so with the 2 developers mentioned your only way is to mix from the available formula, perhaps serch on line for the FX37 formula
Richard
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Old 19th May 2016, 05:26 PM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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Hello Svend,
I hope you are aware that when you ask for other photographer's opinions you are creating a potential problem for yourself; a potential minefield, in fact! Here is the problem. Do you believe photographer a who tells you one thing, or photographer b who tells you the opposite?
Richard has just recommended Rodinal over ID11 on the grounds that it is sharper. My own experience, with a number of films, has led me to conclude that Rodinal is not as sharp as diluted ID11. So which of us do you believe? Your best course of action is to believe neither of us! Take everything with a pinch of salt until you have done your own tests, looked at the resulting prints, and made your own mind up. Then you can tell other people what works best and they might (or might not ) believe you.
Doing tests is a chore. Some say it is chasing magic bullets. I prefer to think of it as exercising a healthy curiosity. And when you have done your own tests, and come to your own conclusions (and probably gone back to using diluted ID11...) you will definitely feel better that you have laid those nagging doubts to rest.
I did a few tests some years ago. I waited for my favourite lighting conditions and shot off two rolls of 35mm FP4 and the same of HP5, all on the same subject, at the same exposure,with the camera on a tripod. Then I clipped short lengths off the rolls and developed them in Rodinal, ID11, XTOL, Perceptol, and Pyrocat HD; all at various dilutions. I also tried semi-stand development with Rodinal and Pyrocat HD. Then I made lots of prints.
And I found out lots of things, the most important of which is that tonality is much more important than sharpness or grain. A bit more sharpness or a bit less grain is only apparent when you scrutinise a print closely. But good tonality is visible from right across the room.
Rodinal and XTOL gave the worst tonality, for me , because they lowered the tonal values of the upper mid tones. Pyrocat HD, dilute perceptol and dilute ID11 gave the best tonality because they kept these upper mid tones nice and bright in the print.
I also found that Pyrocat HD and dilute ID11 gave the sharpest looking prints. XTOL may have been as sharp but because it had very fine grain it lacked "bite"
I also discovered lots of other things, which I will leave for another post, if anyone is interested.
Good luck with your quest.

Alan
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Old 19th May 2016, 06:13 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Clark View Post
Hello Svend,
I hope you are aware that when you ask for other photographer's opinions you are creating a potential problem for yourself; a potential minefield, in fact!
Hmmm...that seems to be quite accurate. As is apparent from similar threads on other boards....ask 10 photographers about their developer recommendations and get 20 answers, all assertive and absolute. I should know better.

That said, your comments on Xtol, ID-11, Rodinal, etc. are well-taken. Just the kind of feedback I am looking for, in fact.

Getting back to my original post, I was hoping to draw out some feedback from anyone who has tried the Crawley formulas in particular. I had wanted to leave Xtol for another thread so as not to muddle the discussion on the FX brews.

Re. Rodinal -- it's tonality is that good, eh? I have considered using it, and will likely try it for certain projects such as urban, street, architecture, as the grain and tonality would certainly suit the subjects. It's pretty low cost to keep on hand given it's longevity, so easy to pull out when a special project comes along. But as a general purpose developer that would work for landscapes and nature on the same roll as street, etc., I sense that Rodinal may be too limiting. Further, how well does it work with fast films? And T-grain films? Not sure on that. One of the reasons why dilute D-76/ID-11 is so good is its versatility -- it's just such a good all-rounder, works well for almost every film and every subject.

Ian -- interesting feedback re. the grain Acutol and /S. I hadn't seen much written about these developers, so that's good to know. Do you mix your own Pyrocat? Easy to work with? Do the negs scan well? I certainly see some stunning results from Pyrocat posted on the web. They have a luminosity that is quite unique. Perhaps the result of the enhanced upper mid-tones that Alan noted (?)

Alan -- your comments on Xtol sharpness are interesting. It's claimed that it is sharper than D-76 (even diluted?), but Thornton mentions he found it lacking in "apparent sharpness" (his words, if I recall correctly). There's a bit more to perceived sharpness than pure resolving power, as I'm sure you know. Edge effects, local contrast, and all that...

Interesting feedback so far. Thanks all!

Svend

Last edited by Svend; 19th May 2016 at 06:18 PM.
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Old 19th May 2016, 06:22 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lostlabours View Post
One I used commercially for a few years was Adox Borax MQ which we used replenished. It gives finer grain and a touch better speed as well as better acutance (sharpness) than ID-11/D76.

Ian
Ian -- I quickly looked up the formula for this. Seems an awful lot like D-76, but with a touch less Sulphite. Is that what improves the sharpness? Did you use it one-shot like D-76? I'm thinking not, given the commercial application?

Svend
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Old 19th May 2016, 06:27 PM
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GoodOldNorm GoodOldNorm is offline
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Crawley's Fx39 is still available as Adox FX39. Fx37 is easy to make and it has given me pleasing results with Ilford Delta 100 and Fuji Acros 100 . I find it has too much grain for me with 400 ASA films. My favourite developer at the moment is 510 Pyro which is a great all round developer that lasts for ages. My first batch is now 10 months old and still good. I also like Pyrocat Hd, you can alter the dilution of the stock to suit the subject brightness range. There is plenty of information out there on the web, it is worth experimenting with different films and developers to find out what suits you.
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Old 19th May 2016, 07:23 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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I have in the dim and distant past tried Acutol, it was no good for faster films and reasonable for slower films, I found it too soft and lacking in contrast for my liking, I found I always needed to increase development by at least 3 minutes to get a reasonable negative, this is with old Plus x and FP4, I far prefered another Crawly developer, aculux as a geat all round developer, as far as rodinal, it is a very versatile developer, most ilford films seem to prefer 1/25 and most Kodak films prefered 1/50 (I am going back twenty or more years here), it is good for landscape and street, I have developed them both, on Fomapan 400, succesfully when you get to know it it is the most useful of the accutance developers. And recently I have been using Firstcall film developer, which is re branded Rollei RHS. with very good results, very fine grain, great tonality and plenty of boyh shadow and hightlight detail, another very versitile developer, I also use D76 at times, depending on the results I want, but I prefer to use it at stock,these results are with my Fomapan films and a little bit of HP5+, You have opened up a can of worms, one mans favorite developers is another mans poison, and I don't think that there is one developer for all, it depends on what sort of negative you want, what the light was like what the subject was Etc, I use the three I mention, and one suits one type of work one another, the best thing you can do is to try out 2 or 3, find the ones that you like then learn how to use them, good luck in your search
Richard
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