Film Developer and a confused old fool.

[DCphotos]

Ok, so I'm not by any means new to film processing, I'm a professional photographer and I've been doing it over 30 years. I've been getting pretty good results with HC110 and Tri-X 320 for my large format stuff. I have come to swear by xtol for the 35mm and 120.

So anyhow B&H is out of HC110 and I don't want to wait. I used to have a lot of fun with the products photographers formulary makes, but I bought them at a store that no longer exist or ordered from a catalog. Going to their website I see more than I can read about. It sounds like ABC Pyro is what I want. Perhaps you guys can explain or suggest some others, I am mostly doing landscape stuff but will be doing some portraits in studio very soon as well.

[Leigh]

How about Freestyle or Adorama for HC-110?

- Leigh

[Thalmees]

Hello DCphotos,
Welcome to the forum.
I think Rodinal is the logic alternative of HC-110.
Both are versatile, but it's not the most important character of a developer.
I used to use HC-110 for long time, but replaced by TMxRs and DDx.
Now, after trying HRX with FP4+, I think I will reconsider priorities again for films and developers.
Sorry, do not know ABC Pyro.

[eabartel]

i use ABC pyro from photographers formulary and quite like it for both landscapes and portraits. I've purchased it from them, B&H, and amazon depending on what all i'm getting and the shipping.

[Mark Sampson]

If you're using XTOL for roll film, try it with sheet film. Diluted 1:1 you can get a nice long tonal scale, and sharpness and grain will be at least the equal of HC-110'B'. 25 years in the labs at Kodak sent me from D-76 to HC-110 to XTOL.
If you want to play with staining developers, Sandy King's Pyrocat-MC or -HD will do a marvelous job; there is a great deal of information about it on this site and on his own. I have only used that developer with Ilford FP4+

[DCphotos]

If you're using XTOL for roll film, try it with sheet film. Diluted 1:1 you can get a nice long tonal scale, and sharpness and grain will be at least the equal of HC-110'B'. 25 years in the labs at Kodak sent me from D-76 to HC-110 to XTOL.
If you want to play with staining developers, Sandy King's Pyrocat-MC or -HD will do a marvelous job; there is a great deal of information about it on this site and on his own. I have only used that developer with Ilford FP4+

I'll read up Sandy King. I shoot a lot of 35mm Tri-X and I generally expose it at 1600. In xtol 1:1 it looks as good as it ever did at 400 in other developers. I've run my 4x5 tri-s in both xtol and hc-110, exposing at 160 and it seems that I get better results with the HC110 though. I only tested this on one shoot though and it was a portrait of my father in law by a lake. Edge sharpness was the real difference, and to be honest they were not huge differences.

[dasBlute]

if you rotary process, some pyro's oxidate more than others... something to consider...

[Richard Wasserman]

I think XTOL looks best when used replenished, which is easy to do. If you want to try a staining developer, I think any of the Pyrocat versions are terrific—finer grain than ABC, with great sharpness and tonality.

[Jeffrey Arthur]

HC110 is on Amazon.

[Alan9940]

You can get an HC-110 clone from Freestyle called L-110. I've used it before and found the results identical to HC-110. If you want to pursue a staining developer, I wouldn't look any further than Pyrocat-HD or, perhaps, -MC. I'd strongly recommend staying away from ABC Pyro unless you don't mind quite a loss of film speed, and don't mind mixing your own. I used it for awhile and found the greatest consistency resulted from mixing the "B" component just before use.

Good luck!