Film Developer Recommendations
From Silvergrain Labs
Selection of film developers can be made from many directions. One way that is suggested here is to consider the photographic goal or the desired overall results, and work backward. It's a goal-oriented or top-down method, and I believe that this approach will find a suitable developer without being distracted by many developing agents and formulae.
Contents |
Introduction
Some people choose paper first; others choose film first. There are many ways to make decisions to establish your standard darkroom process. The market is rapidly shrinking evey year, and our choices are limited to several standard paper stocks and several films. Although there may be multiple routes to reach the desired result, it is best to decide on large factors, leaving small factors for fine tuning.
| Quality | Primary factor | Secondary factor | Tertiary factor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Granularity | Film size | film speed | film developer |
| Resolution | Film size | film speed | --- |
| Accutance | film | film developer | enlargement factor |
| Tonality | printing paper | film | film exposure |
| Image hue | printing papper | toner | print developer |
Finding the best combination from this chart is just like crossword puzzles: start with most constraining rows. It's best to select printing paper for desired image hue, and then select film that matches the paper for the desired tonality.
Films may be classified in a pseudoscale of -10 to +10, where -10 is upsweep curve shape, 0 straight-line with little toe and shoulder, and +10 strongly shouldered S-shape. In this scale, films like T-MAX 400 and TXP (320 speed) are negative, T-MAX 100 is near zero, Plus-X, Neopan 400, Delta 400 are more positive, and Delta 3200 and TMZ very positive. (Fujifilm Across can vary in some range, both sides of zero, depending on the developer, making this film quite versatile.) Films on the negative side would produce darker medtone and snappy highlights, which is probably most useful in studio shots. Films on the positive side would produce gentle highlights and crisp midtones, making it suitable for snapshots and street photography. Films near zero is probably most useful for landscape work, although a bit of shoulder may be useful at times.
Note that film manufacturers usually design sensitometric curve shape first, and try to make emulsions of that curve by combining multiple types of emulsions. The curve shapes are independently controlled from tabular- or conventional grain, iodide content, speed, etc.
Developer types
Suppose a film is selected according to tonality requirement. Two variables that can be adjusted by the selection of film developer are granularity and accutance. With pushability, these three types of qualities are probably most important characters of film developers.
Medium-fast films such as Plus-X, Tri-X, HP5 Plus and Delta 400 are versatile and forgiving films with lots of latitude. In particular, HP5+ is a hungry film that is best developed in medium to high concentration developers like D-76 at stock strength or 1+1 dilution. This film also has inherently high accutance (despite limited resolution) and somewhat large grain. T-MAX 400 gives slightly higher resolution, but with a markedly different sensitometric curve with low shadow contrast and high highlight contrast.
Fine grain developers are ideal for these medium speed to fast films. With these films, improvement in granularity means better enlargeability, especially if fine grain and sharpness improve together.
On the other hand, fine grain developers are unnecessary for already fine grained slow films such as Acros, Pan F Plus, APX25 and T-MAX 100. In order to improve enlargeability of these films, good image resolution and sharpness become the key factor.
Summarizing the above points,
Use fine grain developers for medium speed to fast films, and such fine grain developers should be optimized for these films.
Use accutance developers for 100-speed tabular grain films and Pan F Plus. These developers should be optimized for slow films.
There is little point in compromising fine grain developers to produce passable images with slow films, or compromising accutance developers to provide modestly fine grain with fast films. It's best to separate them and pursue the best of each world.
My developer recommendations are based on this concept.
One additional type of photography that deserves a separate attention is low light photography using Delta 3200, Neopan 1600 and T-MAX P3200. These films are fast films, and some fine grain developers work very well. However, when maximum speed and reasonable pushability is shought, the optimal formulation is quite a bit different from the general purpose fine grain developers. This issue will be discussed below.
Recommendation
Although there are hundreds of film developers on market and thousands of formulae published, the above consideration suggests that two or three developers would cover most requirements in film processing. It is unnecessary to prepare multiple ways to obtain similar or identical images.
Factors I consider in designing developers are:
- image quality
- compatibility with targeted film group
- ease of use
- robustness
- minimizing harmful compounds
- (to make it safer in case of accidental exposure)
- minimizing environmental impacts
- (to make it more environmentally friendly)
- minimizing chemical waste
- low cost
Although low toxicity is a notable advantage of the formulae below, it is also emphasized that each user should use usual darkroom safety precautions.
DS-10 Fine grain developer
| DS-10 | |
|---|---|
| water | 700 ml |
| sodium sulfite, anhydrous | 75g |
| triethanolamine, 99% | 10ml |
| ascorbic acid | 8.0g |
| Dimezone S | 0.15g |
| salicylic acid | 1.0g |
| boric acid | 4.0g |
| water to make | 1.0 liter |
| target pH | 8.00 ± 0.05 |
This is a very fine grain developer with no loss of speed or shadow details. This developer is intended to meet the image quality of Kodak XTOL developer, but with more robustness against trace impurities, which may have caused unpredictable failures with XTOL. DS-10 is also fine-tuned to medium speed and fast films; DS-10 does not work well with some slow films.
One way to make DS-10 work "better" with slow film is to dilute 1+2 and use at 25C or higher temperature. But I generally find slow films to work better with developers of DS-12 type, and that's why I recommend two developers for different kinds of films.
Phenidone may be substituted for Dimezone S, but the fog level may be slightly higher, and the solution may not keep long.
The target pH is set 8.00 instead of XTOL's 8.20 to obtain slightly finer grain, though at about 20% increase of development time. If pH of 8.20 is targeted, the development time is nearly identical to XTOL time. This can be achieved by cutting down the boric acid to 2.0g, and this variation is called DS-10X.
This developer may be diluted 1+1 by combining one part DS-10 and one part water.
Caution for DS-10 users
DO NOT USE DS-10 with:
- APX25, APX100
- Pan F Plus
- Lucky 100 speed
- (During the testing process, valuable sensitometric data was contributed for some films by Martin Jangowski.)
The problem with DS-10 and many films of box speed 100 or slower is very distorted sensitometric curves, loss of speed, and often with low density. The developer is adjusted to develop slowly, with suitably adjusted level of solvency, so that the developed silver grains consist of compact filaments rather than widely spanning filaments typical of coarse grain developers. However, this strategy doesn't work well with the way slower emulsions are made.
Remarks
Delta 400, Neopan 400, Plus-X and Tri-X are somewhat similar in terms of tonal characteristics. They have medium to medium long toes, and mild shoulders. All these films are expected to perform well in DS-10.
The strength of DS-10 is most apparent with 35mm street photography. Uncropped 11x14 prints from HP5 Plus developed in DS-10 are excellent in terms of grain and sharpness. The sharpness is nothing like that obtained with larger formats, but the grain and sharpness are not an issue for this degree of enlargements.
DS-12 Accutance developer
| DS-12 Accutance developer | |
|---|---|
| water | 800 ml |
| triethanolamine, 99\% | 2ml |
| ascorbic acid | 1.0g |
| salicylic acid | 0.2g |
| sodium carbonate, monohydrate | 2.0g |
| metol | 0.4g |
| sodium sulfite | 20g |
| water to make | 1.0 liter |
| target pH | 9.80 ± 0.05 |
This is a moderately high accutance developer without compromising tonal rendition of the film. This developer is for one-shot use only, but the solution is very inexpensive.
This developer may be further diluted 2+1, by dissolving all the ingredients in 1.5 liters of water, or equivalently, mixing two parts DS-12 with one part water.
For strictly fresh preparation and one-shot use, DS-2 is photographically very similar to DS-2 and much simpler:
| DS-2 Accutance developer | |
|---|---|
| water | 800ml |
| sodium bicarbonate | 1.0 g |
| ascorbic acid | 1.0 g |
| metol | 0.4 g |
| sodium sulfite, anhydrous | 20 g |
| sodium carbonate, monohydrous | 3.0 g |
| water to make | 1.0 liter |
| target pH | 9.75 ± 0.05 |
Remarks
The result of processing TMX in DS-12 was sharp and very fine grained prints of rich shadow separation without over-compressing midrange or highlights. Highlight density keeps going up even with moderate overexposure and overdevelopment, without losing too much contrast. Therefore, with scenes of wide tonal range, quite a bit of burning in is often necessary, but good local contrast is maintained in highlight areas. All these are what I expect from TMX, but they are hard to get with standard developers.
Push Developer
Development time
development time film DS-10 DS-10 (1+1) DS-12 DS-12 (2+1) APX25 7 Acros (EI 32) Acros (EI 64) TMX (old) 9 7 PX (old) HP5 Plus 10 Neopan 400 400TMY (new) Delta 400 Delta 3200 Konica IR
More complete table will be posted soon.
These times are suggested as starting points only.
As a guide only, DS-10 development time can be estimated by finding suggested XTOL development time for small tanks and multiplying it by 1.2. Similarly, DS-12 development time is close to Ilfosol-S (1+9) development time. DS-12 (2+1) development time is close to Ilfosol-S (1+14) development time. Times estimated based on these commercial products are believed to be reasonably close, but running your own test is recommended.
Alternative choices
For fine grain developer, Kodak XTOL developer is the best alternative, but there are many incidences of unpredictable sudden filures reported on USENET news and Internet forums, and many find Kodak's response to this issue is unsatisfactory.
Another fine grain option is one of D-76 family. In particular, DS-8 is recommended.
Perhaps yet another fine grain option is Microdol-X or Perceptol. These developers provide a bit finer grain than D-76, but with some loss of speed and sharpness. If loss of speed is acceptable, it is desirable to use a slower film and process it in any of the fine grain developers suggested above.
For accutance developer, Ilfosol S is probably the best commercial product from major manufacturers. However, some of the Paterson developers may also be suitable. (Note: Paterson is said to cease chemical production. Apr 2006) Again, weakness of these ascorbate developers is very short shelf life.
HC-110, Ilfotec HC, Rodinal. Although these developers are very convenient and economical to use, the image quality is not optimized. The disadvantage in image quality may not be objectionable in large format sheet film processing and the convenience may outweigh, but for 35mm and roll formats, these developers are not particularly recommended. However, Rodinal has an effect to increase grain when used with high speed films, and HC-110 has an effect to produce very metallic highlights when used with TMX.
Unedited fragments
Acros is an attractive film for nightscape photography, because it has excellent low intensity reciprocity characteristics. It is equally excellent film in daylight landscape, but Acros's tonal character tends to improve when the film is pull processed.
T-MAX 400 (TMY) is somewhat similar to Tri-X Professional 320 (TXP) and Acros when developed for standard contrast or higher. These films resemble old commercial film type characteristics of very soft shadow contrast and hard highlight. These properties may or may not be suitable for particular applications, but the major factor is the lighting condition and selection of the enlarging paper, not the film developer.
