B&W film developing

[Nancy B]

In the recent past, I've used D76 developer because it's what I had free access to with my camera club, but I think I would like to try something different at home.

What I want is a developer that provides good contrast, little grain and nice tone. Also, if you have personal experience with developers, using different ratios and developing times to produce the effect I want, I'd be very interested to hear about that.

[Captain Slack]

I'd suggest HC110.

http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/

[LarryD]

Try Xtol I love it 1-1.

[Julio1fer]

I tend to think in terms of film and developer combinations. This is my experience, based in what you ask for:

If you can prepare from powder, D-76 ir Ilford's ID-11 would be the best choice IMHO. Those two will work well with almost any classic film; for me, theyr are not the best for tabular-grain film, although many people say they work well.

HC-110 would probably be more convenient, as it is a liquid concentrate, and it is a classic combo with Tri-X or HP5+

T-Max developer is good with tabular grain film (TMX, TMY, Delta, etc).

Rodinal and its equivalents are excellent for classic lower ISO films, such as FP4+, Pan F+. Not really fine grain, though. But with PanF+...

Avoid Rodinal and TMY (bad grain, salt and pepper).

[Bennybee]

Another vote for HC-110. I bought a 1-litre bottle 5 (!) years ago because I needed a developer that kept well. Since I don't shoot enough film I always needed to throw away unused developer stock solution. The HC-110 has now yellowed in the bottle over the years, but last time I used it (a month or so ago) it still worked fine.

[scott]

Yeah, HC-110 is the shiznitz. Cheap, easy to use, responds well to tweaking of times. And my experience is also Julio's - it's a film/developer combo that you need to look at. I use Arista film a lot in LF; I have the developing dialed in with HC-110, but I tried D76 for a while and got junk results.

[Bennybee]

BTW, here's a trick to keep out as much air as possible out of a less-than-full bottle of HC-110 : throw some marbles in it till the level of developer reaches the top of the bottle again.

[Nancy B]

Thanks guys, I'll get some HC-110, because I also won't be developing that much film, and it has to keep a long time, plus I tend to favour Ilford HP5 film.

BennyBee, That trick with the marbles is a good idea!

So now that I've decided on the developer, what ratio of water to developer should I use, and should I do the usual agitation schedule, or should I do stand developing, which I've never done?

[LarryD]

This should help you but Mike Bitaxi and I have used many dilutions of HC-110 so you can ask him or me over at FB.
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I would start with Dilution B as it is a classic. If you find the times too short use Dilution H the instructions are on the link I gave you.

[Bennybee]

Nancy,
I like to refer to The Massive Development Chart at http://www.digitaltruth.com
Many moons ago I also printed the detailed and very useful instructions for diluting HC-110 from the Kodak website :
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professi ... 24/j24.pdf