Spur hrx-3

[Keith Tapscott.]

Is there a UK stockist for this developer?

[marty]

Hi there. Fellow member Bruce Robbins is setting up a dealership but I don't know at which point he actually is.

Cheers, M.

[Keith Tapscott.]

Thanks Marty. I did look at Silverprint and Ag-Photographic, but couldn't see it there.

[Michael S]

The latest word from Bruce is here but maybe he'll chime in with an update at some point.

[Brock]

Keith, I am indeed going to be selling some Spur products through my website: www.theonlinedarkroom.com. I'm behind schedule and need to get the finger out but I'll post a message here when I'm ready to go. One or two things need to be ironed out first.

Bruce

[Keith Tapscott.]

Thanks Michael and Bruce. I am looking for a liquid substitute for D-76/ID-11, but I have not been over impressed with the Ilfotec HC and HC-110 developers.

Tetenal Ultrafin Liquid might be a worth trying along with Spur HRX, hence my interest in these products.

Bruce, is the Spur Acurol-N a Rodinal type developer?

[DaveP]

Originally Posted by Keith Tapscott.

I am looking for a liquid substitute for D-76/ID-11

Isn't DDX touted as a liquid equivalent to ID11? I know its not cheap though, but fine if using rotary development.

[Brock]

Keith, have a look at Erwin Putts' review of HRX and Acurol-N:
http://www.imx.nl/photo/technique/a-...ur-develo.html

That should answer some of your questions. Basically Acurol-N is a sharper and finer grained Rodinal and HRX a sharper and finer grained D76.

[Mike O'Pray]

Apart from Brock's blogs, getting much in the way of views on HRX-3 has proved quite difficult. It is either virtually unknown in the U.S. where the majority of analoguers are and /or they and we are extremely conservative in trying new stuff.

I have done so much research which has taken me up other routes that my head is spinning but I think I saw that the new HRX-3 as it is being called still hasn't "launched" but Spursinn has released it on its site

For what it is worth a poster calling himself A49 has used it and gave examples of it compared to A49 developer and Perceptol using TMY-2

Based on his scans I'd have said that Perceptol gave the best resolution and sharpness with HRX-3 and A49 being equal but that wasn;t his conclusion so maybe the negs or prints themselves are different from his scans. There wasn't a lot to chose between them and while HRX-3 was at box speed, Perceptol was at EI200.

Another advantage depending on how you view things is that HRX-3 occupies very little space in the darkroom storage cupboard whereas Xtol has to made into 5L and Perceptol 1L.

My tentative conclusion compared to my usual developer(Xtol) is that I saw nothing that made me think of it as a magic bullet or "stuff of a higher order" but as I said info on it and visual comparisons were hard to come by.

What I did notice as an aside was that the combo of HCD -2 and HCD-S if ordered directly from Spursinn can be purchased at about £6 less than from AgPhotographic. I didn't look at how much more the postage from Germany would be but with a £6 safety margin it would have to be very large to wipe out the saving from ordering directly from Spursinn

Mike

[Brock]

Hi Mike,

Did you check out Erwin Putts' review of HRX and Acurol-N? Erwin is far more technically-minded than I am and he was very impressed by the Spur developers. However, I agree with your sentiments that there's no silver bullet. Films have a much greater influence on the final image than developers. From my experience, the differences between developers designed to do the same thing, i.e. fine grain, accutance, compensating or whatever, are subtle rather than obvious.

Perceptol diluted 1+3 is lovely. It's particularly good with HP5 Plus rated at around 250-320 ISO. HRX is also a great developer both from an image quality point of view but also where shelf life is concerned. Is one better than the other? Without testing them side-by-side I couldn't say. I don't think you'd go far wrong with either. However, I reckon HRX is more versatile in that it works well with a big range of films.

Since I'm going to be selling Spur products, you obviously have to bear that in mind when reading what I've written. I'm not sure how far assurances that I wouldn't sell my blog readers short will get me. However, I would say that if you read some of my posts about HRX you'll see I was very enthusiastic about it (and Acurol-N) long before I ever thought about stocking it.