Developer Test: D-76, Rodinal and FD10 Head to Head

[GPX]

Here is an informal personal test of 8x10 sheet film processed in 3 different film developers: Kodak D-76, Rodinal and Fotospeed FD10.

I've been using Kodak D-76, the classic powder developer, but to make developing easier I would rather not use powder. So I bought some Rodinal R09 One Shot and some Fotospeed FD10. (Fotospeed FD10 is a fairly inexpensive developer widely available in the UK, and often used in photography schools etc. But I'm not sure it is widely available worldwide. Looking at the recipe, it seems a bit like a more dilute version of Rodinal, but my chemistry knowledge isn't good enough to be sure).

I took 6 shots at the same time and exposure using Fomapan 200 film. I used my Jobo processor to drum-develop two sheets in D-76, two in Rodinal diluted 1:50, and two in FD10 diluted 1:9.

[GPX]

They all came out looking surprisingly similar. To do a first quick check of the results, I put them on a LED light box and photographed them.

Here is the D-76 (showing first the negative, and then the same negative flipped into a positive):

[Ken Lee]

They all came out looking surprisingly similar.

Sorry, I may be wrong, but your photos appear to be fogged. Note the clear film edge, which when scanned as a positive should appear as pure black.



If we apply a curves correction which is just enough to render the clearest part of the film as black (lower left) the upper right corner still appears light.



If we apply an even stronger curves correction so that the lightest part of the film edge is true black, then we find a negative which appears underexposed and either over-developed, or whose contrast has been boosted during scanning or later on in the photo editor.

Presuming that these negatives were developed to the same level of contrast (as already mentioned) - and scanned identically with a scanner good enough to detect fine grain - your test gives some information about grain, but any other conclusions may require more careful testing.

The appearance of grain is affected by changes in developing time. If you have adjusted the contrast during or after scanning (rather than via development) then more careful testing may be required before you can feel confident about your comparison of grain levels.

[GPX]

Here is the Rodinal (showing first the negative, and then the same negative flipped into a positive):

[GPX]

Here is the Fotospeed FD10 (showing first the negative, and then the same negative flipped into a positive):

[GPX]

Of course it is hard for you to see the detail because I can't post huge photos on the forum. But to attempt to show a little more, here are crops of each:

D-76:

[GPX]

Rodinal:

[GPX]

fd10

[Peter De Smidt]

Nice test. How did you make sure that the films were developed to the same contrast index?

[GPX]

So what do I make of these results?

Well, the differences are quite subtle. I would happily use any of these film developers. The tonality, contrast etc seem similar. But in the crops, notice the grain in the background: the Rodinal and FD10 are significantly grainier. The FD10 and Rodinal produce results I cannot tell apart (maybe FD10 is indeed a more dilute version of Rodinal, or something close to it).

I like the Rodinal in terms of ease of use: add a 10ml syringe of Rodinal to 500 ml of water, easy. Plus apparently Rodinal has the best shelf life of any developer. Plus it works out cheapest.

However, D-76 has less grain. Perhaps the Rodinal has subtly better tonality or sharpness, but if so, the difference is too subtle to see in these photos. I'd have to take more photos to form a view on that. (Because I shoot mostly fashion and people, and I'm using large format film, the ultimate sharpness is not that important to me. But tonality is important. However tonality is rather subjective.)

So my overall finding is that the differences between these developers are smaller than I expected. But if D-76 came as a liquid, perhaps I would keep using that. For now, I'll happily use up the Rodinal and FD10.

Does anyone have any other developer suggestions that would be significantly different/better than these, that would be worth me trying?