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  #61  
Old 6th January 2017, 11:56 AM
John King John King is offline
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Default Id11/d76

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lostlabours View Post
I have to disagree with you and Martin. I don't switch developers very often and only if there;s a noticeable difference in terms of improvements in print quality.

I used ID-11 for years. in Paterson, Jobo and also Depp tanks replenished but after trying Adox Borax MQ switched, better film speed, finer grain, better sharpness, again replenished and in deep tanks as well as Paterson & Jobo tanks, I was making ot for a couple of other commercial/advertising photographers we could all see noticeable improvements compared to ID-11/D76.

Later I switched to Rodinal but it's a developer that works best with the old slow 25 & 100 ISO Agfa emulsions and T grain and type films where it give exceptionally fine grain. For faster films I used Xtol.

Yes there is a big difference using the best developer particularly with 35mm, but you need to know which film/developer combinations work best.

These days I use Pyrocat HD, it's like Rodinal on steroids and very forgiving, negatives that are so easy to print. I won't change back after 10 years n use,

Ian
Rodinal - the original, is a High Accutance developer and not a 'run of the mill' soup. This means the edges of dark and light sections of the image show apparent increased sharpness. This one of the reasons why Rodinal requires minimal agitation. (The effect is very similar to the Unsharp Mask in Adobe programmes) The formula is very basic and is designed to be used with slow emulsions The original Agfa pamphlet I have (from 1966) suggests up to 200iso (in those days it was printed 200ASA) Using it will give increased grain, despite what many will say. I tried it with Tri X only the once and the grain was big enough to rival that of Kodak Infra Red. It wasn't unattractive, but not what I was looking for.

I have used Rodinal and various outher developers over the years but have come back to roost and use D76 diluted 1 to 1, it does give slight improvement in edge sharpness, but essentially the grain is just as fine fine.

Promicrol is what used to be described as a 'solvent' developer where the grain was reduced, hence the 'fine grain' tag, but this is at the expence of loosing some of the edge sharpness. This is fact, unless of course since the original receipe (by May and Baker) has been altered by the present manufacturers. (A similar effect can be found if a scanner used on a negative is set to 'reduce' grain, the whole image is ever so slightly softened).

I have to admit, I have never used Pyro developer, so cannot vouch for its effectiveness, however for what we want and use I cannot see there being very much improvement or loss of quality over the tried and tested ID11/D76.

The film I use is almost always used at a lower ISO than the makers recommend/suggest and the development time ajusted accordingly which gives me very easily printed images. EG using FP4+ I set it at 80 iso and reduce the development by 10% and Kodak T Max 400 I rate it at 250 and reduce the development by 12.5%.

Last edited by John King; 6th January 2017 at 12:03 PM.
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  #62  
Old 6th January 2017, 02:25 PM
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Nabhar Nabhar is offline
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I recently reached out to a certain forum user for a supply of raw chemicals, in order to make my own D76, and use exclusively with FP4+ and HP5+ in 4x5 format.

They were very accomodating, and I have now been supplied with enough chemicals to ensure 50 litres of stock D76.

At a total cost of around £20, and diluted to a 1+1 working solution, I now have 100 litres of fresh D76 1+1 at my disposal. Which works out at around 20p/litre; which I can actually use twice, thereby lowering the total cost to 10p/litre.

How's that for 'convenience' ?

JP
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  #63  
Old 6th January 2017, 03:35 PM
Martin Rick Martin Rick is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John King View Post
...

Promicrol is what used to be described as a 'solvent' developer where the grain was reduced, hence the 'fine grain' tag, but this is at the expence of loosing some of the edge sharpness. This is fact, unless of course since the original receipe (by May and Baker) has been altered by the present manufacturers. (A similar effect can be found if a scanner used on a negative is set to 'reduce' grain, the whole image is ever so slightly softened).

I have to admit, I have never used Pyro developer, so cannot vouch for its effectiveness, however for what we want and use I cannot see there being very much improvement or loss of quality over the tried and tested ID11/D76.

The film I use is almost always used at a lower ISO than the makers recommend/suggest and the development time ajusted accordingly which gives me very easily printed images. EG using FP4+ I set it at 80 iso and reduce the development by 10% and Kodak T Max 400 I rate it at 250 and reduce the development by 12.5%.
I think you have to distinguish between what Promicrol was and is. When supplied by May and Baker as a glycin/heap sulphate mix, it genuinely increased film speed by 2/3 to one stop whilst retaining fine grain. What is sold nowadays as Promicrol is nothing like it used to be.
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  #64  
Old 6th January 2017, 09:16 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nabhar View Post
I recently reached out to a certain forum user for a supply of raw chemicals, in order to make my own D76, Which works out at around 20p/litre; which I can actually use twice, thereby lowering the total cost to 10p/litre.

How's that for 'convenience' ?

JP
Wow! With 35mm film that's 2.5 p per 36 frame cassette so about 0.07p per frame. At that price who says that analogue is expensive

Mike
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  #65  
Old 7th January 2017, 05:35 AM
RichardWarom RichardWarom is offline
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Originally Posted by Tony Marlow View Post
Just wondering Richard what speed rating you are using for HP5 with Pyrocat HD?

Tony
Hi Tony I'm using it at 200 on 120 and 4x5 it seems to work really well,
I wanted to try the 120 in a 9x7 Agfa folder I have where I have been disappointed with the results using other film, this combination is giving me results that I like.
Richard
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  #66  
Old 7th January 2017, 12:18 PM
Lostlabours Lostlabours is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John King View Post
Rodinal - the original, is a High Accutance developer and not a 'run of the mill' soup. This means the edges of dark and light sections of the image show apparent increased sharpness. This one of the reasons why Rodinal requires minimal agitation. (The effect is very similar to the Unsharp Mask in Adobe programmes) The formula is very basic and is designed to be used with slow emulsions The original Agfa pamphlet I have (from 1966) suggests up to 200iso (in those days it was printed 200ASA) Using it will give increased grain, despite what many will say. I tried it with Tri X only the once and the grain was big enough to rival that of Kodak Infra Red. It wasn't unattractive, but not what I was looking for.
Rodinal has never been described as a "High Acutance" developer and was in fact AGfa's "Run of the mill" developer

To quote Agfa themselves from their Film Processing data sheet "An allround developer concentrate, tried and tested for more than hundred years, on p-aminophenol basis for mixing one-
shot developers. Rodinal features very good contour sharpness
and a high speed yield. The concentrate can be diluted to match
any special subject contrast."


My experience with Rodinal and APX100 & APX25 and also Tmax100 is acutance is similar to Xtol (it's no higher) as is the fine grain. Both developers are a noticeable improvement compared to D76/ID-11.

Some of the highest quality images I've seen shot on 35mm have been processed in Rodinal personally I found the combination of T grain (and similar) films and Rodinal gives an edge over Rodinal and conventional films, this was something the late Peter Goldfield advocated.

Ian
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