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  #1  
Old 15th November 2016, 03:22 PM
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Default Film developer

I am on the hunt for a one shot film developer to try out again. I have chosen Fotospeed FD10 and Tetenal Ultrafin Regular. If you have any thoughts or used them please let us know
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  #2  
Old 15th November 2016, 04:00 PM
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How about FX 39?
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  #3  
Old 15th November 2016, 04:11 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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From personal experiance I would not touch the Fotospeed developer with a bargepole, a few years ago I tried it, it was,for me it was a diasater, in 5 litres of the stuff I could not get a printable negative, the film markings even were so light that they could barely be read, I tried everything, overdeveloping by up to twice the suggested time, overexposing by up to 3 stops, nothing worked, tried contacting Fotospeed for advice and still waiting for a reply,I just could not get it to work, ended up throwing 31/2 litres away and went back to RO9 one shot,I tried it with HP5+ and fomapan 400, even rating the Ilford and Fomapan at 100 I did not get a negative that was printable, and edge marking could only just be read, so it had to be a problem with the developer, I like Fotospeed products in general, their WT10 developer is the best around, I have used their other chemistry, but could not get the Developer to work for me
Richard
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  #4  
Old 15th November 2016, 05:18 PM
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Default In praise

After years spent looking for the "magic bullet" I have decided to stick to Rodinal. I am still using some of the original & when it's gone I will switch to its modern equivalent, RO9. It's easy to use, cheap but most of all always gives a printable negative. One shot, lots of different solutions for different films, throw away and no storage problems.
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  #5  
Old 15th November 2016, 05:29 PM
John King John King is offline
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I wobble between ID11 (D76) diluted 1-1 or Rodinal diluted at 1-25. (Ilford FP4+ or Fomapan 100.) Both give me the negs in 120 and 35mm that I am used to and can print easily with minimum burning or dodging. (I'm a lazy sort of printer!!!)
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  #6  
Old 15th November 2016, 05:59 PM
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Default Great Success with Fotospeed FD10

Hi All,

I just recently got back into serious film & darkroom work again (feed up with digi). Sorry been away from these forums for quite a while, back I'm now) and was struck by this particular post.

If you remember, I've always been a fan of Fotospeed FD10 which has given me great printable negative with ease, sharpness, very fine grain and reliability.

I'm sorry to hear Richard that you had a bad experience with this developer (the problem you described was similar to one particular batch I had several years ago and was down to very shorten shelf life and became very weak and inactive causing under-developed and faint negs. On the current 2016 production 5 litre bottles (I bought 2 weeks ago from Firstcall which now have a 2 year expiry date of Oct 2018). My normal process is to decant the 5-litre big bottle into lots of 100ml brown glass storage bottles serves me very well even past expiry.

The only downside to Fotospeed is they appear to only have 1 really technical darkroom person now and customer services seems more digital orientated in awareness, knowledge and focus.

After a lot of research and testing over the years FD10 is more in-line with the formular and processing times of Paterson Aculux 2 and not so much like Ilford Ilfosol 3 as Firstcall advertised it.

I use a colour deffuser enlarger head and the published times on the bottle are fairly accurate but I do extend by 1 full minute regardless of film used.

These photos at http://www.larrygalliford.co.uk/p658027721 are all processed with Fotospeed FD10 with terrific results.

I would suggest you do give FD10 a try even a small 250ml bottle perhaps they added something over the years to stop it going off quickly (who knows) but it does work well and can produce exceptional quality negatives at 1+9 (21C). I agitate for the first 30secs constant then 3 or 4 invertions every full 1 min till completion (no pre-wash needed).

As an alternative I've also had success using Champion Promicrol at 1+14 (21C) 2 invertions every full min till completion (no pre-wash needed) - Note however the published times for this is way, way too long so you need to reduce at least 20-25% the printed times. These seem to be for push processing 2/3 to 1 full stop. Again a clean working and very sharp fine grain developer and fairly cheap. A good alternative in liquid form. Champion do squeeze they're bottles (no air) and last a good 18 months+

Cheers
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  #7  
Old 15th November 2016, 06:00 PM
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I used HC-110 for a few years, works for every film, but at reduced film speed of 2/3 to a full stop. I switched to XTOL in January this year and have souped every single roll and sheet of b&w this year in XTOL 1+1. Never even bothered to test for true film speed as every film I've tried is bang on at box speed with this developer. Very nice negs for both printing and scanning. Pour it into a 5l bag-in-a-box and it'll keep for a long time. I'm down to my last litre and it's still going strong. so, that's my recommendation after trying a few things myself (including Rodinal which I keep a bottle around just in case I might do some stand development)
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  #8  
Old 15th November 2016, 06:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry View Post
Hi All,

I just recently got back into serious film & darkroom work again (feed up with digi). Sorry been away from these forums for quite a while, back I'm now) and was struck by this particular post.

If you remember, I've always been a fan of Fotospeed FD10 which has given me great printable negative with ease, sharpness, very fine grain and reliability.

I'm sorry to hear Richard that you had a bad experience with this developer (the problem you described was similar to one particular batch I had several years ago and was down to very shorten shelf life and became very weak and inactive causing under-developed and faint negs. On the current 2016 production 5 litre bottles (I bought 2 weeks ago from Firstcall which now have a 2 year expiry date of Oct 2018). My normal process is to decant the 5-litre big bottle into lots of 100ml brown glass storage bottles serves me very well even past expiry.

The only downside to Fotospeed is they appear to only have 1 really technical darkroom person now and customer services seems more digital orientated in awareness, knowledge and focus.

After a lot of research and testing over the years FD10 is more in-line with the formular and processing times of Paterson Aculux 2 and not so much like Ilford Ilfosol 3 as Firstcall advertised it.

I use a colour deffuser enlarger head and the published times on the bottle are fairly accurate but I do extend by 1 full minute regardless of film used.

These photos at http://www.larrygalliford.co.uk/p658027721 are all processed with Fotospeed FD10 with terrific results.

I would suggest you do give FD10 a try even a small 250ml bottle perhaps they added something over the years to stop it going off quickly (who knows) but it does work well and can produce exceptional quality negatives at 1+9 (21C). I agitate for the first 30secs constant then 3 or 4 invertions every full 1 min till completion (no pre-wash needed).

As an alternative I've also had success using Champion Promicrol at 1+14 (21C) 2 invertions every full min till completion (no pre-wash needed) - Note however the published times for this is way, way too long so you need to reduce at least 20-25% the printed times. These seem to be for push processing 2/3 to 1 full stop. Again a clean working and very sharp fine grain developer and fairly cheap. A good alternative in liquid form. Champion do squeeze they're bottles (no air) and last a good 18 months+

Cheers
Thank you Larry.
Part of the reason for putting it on the list was to do with being a kin to Aculux a developer I used to use.
I had a look at the images you linked to Wow! they are very finely toned If I can get images like that I'll be very pleased.
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  #9  
Old 15th November 2016, 06:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Gould View Post
From personal experiance I would not touch the Fotospeed developer with a bargepole, a few years ago I tried it, it was,for me it was a diasater, in 5 litres of the stuff I could not get a printable negative, the film markings even were so light that they could barely be read, I tried everything, overdeveloping by up to twice the suggested time, overexposing by up to 3 stops, nothing worked, tried contacting Fotospeed for advice and still waiting for a reply,I just could not get it to work, ended up throwing 31/2 litres away and went back to RO9 one shot,I tried it with HP5+ and fomapan 400, even rating the Ilford and Fomapan at 100 I did not get a negative that was printable, and edge marking could only just be read, so it had to be a problem with the developer, I like Fotospeed products in general, their WT10 developer is the best around, I have used their other chemistry, but could not get the Developer to work for me
Richard
Sorry to hear you had a lot of trouble with this developer I have been warned Thanks Richard
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  #10  
Old 15th November 2016, 08:06 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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I have used Promicrol in the past, with great success, a nice fine grain developer, but it is a push developer, you need to expose at one stop above the box speed, and using the published times works fine,Lije Larry, I in general lke Fotospeed chemicals, but I just could not get on with FD10, Another developer worth thinking of is Rollei RHS, expensive, but is a nice very fine grain developer which gives full film speed, It was sold as Firstcall film developer but it seems to have gone from the site, they do a softpak version,
Richard
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