Favorite FP4+ developer for Jobo?

[Christopher Barrett]

I'm taking a break from plumbing in the CPP3 that FedEx dropped off earlier and have a question for you guys. It's been a long time since I've experimented with developers and I've kind of defaulted to XTol because it's what my lab was using.

So, what are your favorite developers for FP4+ sheet film in Jobo 30xx drums? I'm looking forwarding to fine tuning my processing now that I have a really controlled setup.

Cheers,
CB

[adelorenzo]

I'm using divided D-23 and quite happy with the results. Rating it at 100, developing 5+5 minutes using sodium metaborate as the second bath.

[Vaughn]

Ilford PQ Universal Developer. Liquid is easy to work with and does a nice job for getting negs for platinum printing.

[Lenny Eiger]

Christopher,

If you don't user Xtol, or Pyro, you will likely be shocked at the difference. Those two have much tighter grain than the others...

Lenny

[vinny]

Pmk

[Richard Wasserman]

Xtol 1:3 or Pyrocat with a slight edge to Pyrocat. I used FP 4+/Pyrocat exclusively for about 15 years—very tight grain, high acutance (for FP4), and lovely tonality.

[Ari]

I use HC-110 at 1:63 for 10 minutes and love the results with FP4+; I use a miserly ISO 64.

[Kirk Gittings]

Pyrocat HD in Glycol. This summer they had it at Central Photo.

[angusparker]

Xtol is my go to for FP4+ in Jobo. I'm just starting testing Pyrocat MC which is supposed to be Jobo friendly.

[Andrew O'Neill]

FP4-Plus is lovely in Xtol 1+1, 1+2, 1+3. My main developer is Pyrocat-HD (I am able to print the same negative in silver or alt) and has been for several years now. Pyrocat-HD is Jobo friendly.

[angusparker]

FP4-Plus is lovely in Xtol 1+1, 1+2, 1+3. My main developer is Pyrocat-HD (I am able to print the same negative in silver or alt) and has been for several years now. Pyrocat-HD is Jobo friendly.

Did you try Pyrocat-MC in your Jobo with FP4+? I'm hearing that HD is probably better for silver and alt printing from the same negative, as MC's yellow stain affects VC paper (lower contrast) when doing silver and HD's brown stain does not.

[logan.egbert]

I use SPUR HRX and I think it's gives exceptional results for both FP4 and HP5.

[ic-racer]

If you are going to rotary process at 24 degrees centigrade, T-Max developer works well in my darkroom with just about any film. I have been using it for rotary processing since 1987.

Whatever you decide, make sure you use enough developer to complete the process. Processing sheet film in rotary drums with exhausted developer tends to under-develop the center of the sheet, making the edges look too dense.

[StoneNYC]

I actually have a whole thread on this, it was so long that it got shut down, I did open a second thread called something like "that other sharpness thread" but it was all about the sharpness of the image when I switched to rotary processing and I used to enjoy FP4+ but found that I lost my sharpness when processing it in a rotary processor.

I ended up switching to Delta100, and although this seems counter intuitive, the developer I ended up with for this film was Rodinal at plain old 1:50

I actually surprised myself because I thought that Rodinal was very horrible for rotary processing, but it seems that the culmination of the fine-grained of Delta100 combined with Rodinal seems to give very sharp and fine-grained results even in a rotary processor.

Let me see if I can find example image from my testing results...

Ok this was the full image.

125005

And this is a 1:1 crop near the edge of the snow shelf scanned at 2500dpi (I know we print here but for purposes of an example and grain discovery the scan should at least give you some info).

125006

So anyway, I actually decided that I had to switch films because I could find no developer that gave me the same results as when I hand processed FP4+

However I do not do alternative printing like carbon etc. so I'm not worried about the fact that Delta100 isn't good for that unlike FP4+ which is supposed to be very good for that. Although I have no understanding of those alternative processes nor do I understand how one film could be good for it and one film could not, but I don't want to detract from the main point which is trying to figure out how to get the same results were good results or whatever with a rotary processor.

Good luck!

[Goldman]

Perceptol 1+1 13 min

[Keith Tapscott.]

I'm taking a break from plumbing in the CPP3 that FedEx dropped off earlier and have a question for you guys. It's been a long time since I've experimented with developers and I've kind of defaulted to XTol because it's what my lab was using.

So, what are your favorite developers for FP4+ sheet film in Jobo 30xx drums? I'm looking forwarding to fine tuning my processing now that I have a really controlled setup.

Cheers,
CBEither ID-11 or D-76 diluted 1+1 will provide excellent results.