Getting ready for bw development which developer?

[Jim Noel]

Decide on a developer and stick with it for several sessions. !00 replies will give you at least 50 alternatives, that is why it is necessary to choose one and stay with it.I used to recommend 100 sheets for the trial of the first developer to my students. but today nobody has such patience. My personal choice as a developer with which to begin is either PCat HD,or HC 110 in one or two of its variations. Many students have preferred HC110 1+62 from syrup, or 1+15 from syrup depending on the subject contrast.

[Peter De Smidt]

Jim's right. Focusing on one developer, at least at first, is a great idea. For high contrast scenes, there's always dilution, 2-bath, SLIMT....
My experience with - development is that it usually leads to poor tonal separation, especially anything more than -1.

[Jim Noel]

I agree with Peter on Minus development. ANything more than -1 can leave you with an almost unprintable negative. Beginners especially are better off to make such changes in the printing, not the film development.

[Willie]

No matter what you choose you won't get any detail in the lightning.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Lightning no, but sunsets yes. I agree I will stay with 1 developer for this session which is a lot of film, I am just trying to get a feel for which one to use. I have used all as well as 2 bath and semi-stand with all I listed. I liked each, but this go around I am making more purpose driven. I have patience, but I also don't want to be on wrong path for the sake of patience.

[Corran]

T-Max 100, EI 100, put your shadows at Zone III and the darkest areas at Zone II, and develop in Pyrocat 1:1:100 for 9 minutes at 75F. Adjust to taste. Really, seriously, don't waste time staring at characteristic curves and all that stuff before shooting some film and developing at typical times. Perhaps at some point a 2-bath solution or other developer will be something you want to experiment with but get some baselines first.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I exposed darkest areas for zone 5. I had issues in past with setting for zone 3 abd got black areas. Maybe I screwed up, it's possible. I will try as you suggest. I do like 2 bath though from previous development I have done. Will let everyone know how it goes

[Corran]

I've shot at least 1000 sheets of T-Max 100 and the ones that are hard to print are the ones I overexposed. Really thin negatives are still bad but as long as you have a solid Zone II and III for shadow areas you're usually golden. And the thin negatives are still fine when scanning and digital printing, where recovery and selective burning/dodging is easier to control. You might want to vary your personal EI between 50 to 100 - I think my EI tends to be a bit higher than average, perhaps my meter is just a bit off.

That said, my experiences with 2-bath development was always bad. I remember one photo where I was shooting directly into the sun with extreme shadows, probably 10-12 stops between shadow areas where I wanted detail and bright sky, not to mention getting closer to the sun disc. Instead of shooting at 1/30 like metered and pulling, I did 1 second (5 stops overexposed) and 2-bath development. The shadows were still thin and the negative mostly useless. It's certainly possible I could refine the technique and make it work, but I just didn't find it that useful personally. Shaving off a minute or so from the recommended times for extreme contrast ranges usually works for me - I always meter from the shadows and place them in the proper Zone, and then the highlights to see where they are falling.

PS: Rodinal is also an excellent developer for T-Max 100, if you wanted to try something else.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Thanks for the info. You seem to shoot similar to me. I am still experiencing and chose to intentionally place the darkest area in zone 5 to determine if that is what I want and to take the guess work out of what I was getting if I always varied my zone placement. Plus in some respects was playing it safe on the shadows. I will pick up some Rodinol and experiment with it next round.

[Peter De Smidt]

Shadows on Zone V? Sounds like you should do a standard exposure/development test.