I need to order more chemicals, so....?

[John Kasaian]

I've settled on D-76 for film(Ilford) and Ansco 130 for printing contacts(Fomabrom) but I'm curious about other developers and thought of ordering something extra to play with this time around.
But there are so many different developers, it's hard to choose!
I've no issues with D-76 or Ansco 130 and I appreciate that they're easy to mix and have a good shelf life.
Any suggestions on what might be fun to experiment with?

[koraks]

Get some phenidone, metol, hydroquinone, vitamin C, borax, some lye (NaOH), some washing soda, some sodium sulfite and a small precision scale. Then you can experiment to your heart's content with many different formulas.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

Any suggestions on what might be fun to experiment with?

With higher dilutions? Rodinal 1+100?

[Peter Lewin]

For something really different, how about one of staining developers such as Pyrocat or PMK?

[Doremus Scudder]

John,

If I were to start playing around with different film developers, I'd be looking at Pyrocat and Xtol. Presently I'm using PMK for most everything and it's doing just fine.

I am currently looking to find a print developer I like better than others. I used up my last Zone VI print developer just last month. I suspect that it was, or was similar to, Bromophen, so I've ordered some of that. I had good luck with that developer for years and liked the way prints toned with it. I've used the Formulary BW-65 before and liked it a lot, but it hindered toning on some papers. I might give it another try. I'm also thinking about trying out the Ansco 130 too, your developer of choice. I'm currently printing with Liquidol and find it good. Lots of control by extending development. I still haven't explored all its possibilities.

Have fun,

Doremus

[Drew Wiley]

Zone VI dev was essentially just Dektol with double the hydroquinone, minus sequestering agents (hence requiring split powder packaging). It's similar to Lecky's cold tone developer or D72. I have my own preferred MQ tweak. But all of these can go a bit HQ greenish in image color, just like Dektol. Therefore I prefer amidol for cold tone papers. You can get good amidol from Artcraft in NYC. The current Bergger Prestige Netural Tone paper as well as Iford MG Cooltone work best in amidol. I don't recommend it for warm tone papers. My own specific blend uses this ingredient circumspectly without undue waste, so is quite economical, but like other amidol formulas needs to be mixed just before use : 350 ml hot water, 20g sodium sulfite, 2 g citric acid, 0.2 g benzotriazole, water to make 500 ml total. This can be pre-mixed and set aside in a tight glass bottle. On the day of use add 4g amidol. Dilute 1:3 for tray usage. Use a plain water stop bath and wear nitrile gloves. But use an alkaline fixer like TF4, since the developer itself is slightly acidic (citric acid acts as an antioxidant; otherwise, the solution will unnecessarily exhaust very quickly).

[Vaughn]

You could always try Ilford PQ Universal Developer for both your film and your prints, if for no other reason than to keep things simple.

[Drew Wiley]

Who wants simple? If I wanted to do something simple, I'd simply contact National Enquirer and publish an expose of who Bigfoot really is, and then the whole chase would be over. But so would the fun. So I'll keep it secret.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

I've settled on D-76 for film(Ilford) and Ansco 130 for printing contacts(Fomabrom) but I'm curious about other developers and thought of ordering something extra to play with this time around.
But there are so many different developers, it's hard to choose!
I've no issues with D-76 or Ansco 130 and I appreciate that they're easy to mix and have a good shelf life.
Any suggestions on what might be fun to experiment with?

Did you test your own E.I. and your effective development time with D-76 and Ilford?
Did you test your standard print time for a paper with a given gradation and a given magnification (Fischer-Piel)?
How systematically do you play around / experiment?

[Pere Casals]

I've settled on D-76 for film(Ilford) and Ansco 130

Personally, I've moved from D-76 to Xtol. Xtol is one of the most eco-friendly commercial developers, stock keeps very stable (more than D-76) for 1 year if made with distilled watter and kept in (no air) sealed bottles, it has 1/3 stop advantage in the shadows, it's fine grain and sharp for all formats. Note that great sharpness and fine grain are not easy to obtain at the same time, but xtol does it.

I'm to explore HC-110 with HP5+ for LF portraits, well influenced by Neal's comments.

For paper I plan to move to Ansco 130, I've a lot to learn in printing and my guess is that with 130 I would learn about tone.