Matching developer to film type

Barney

Barney

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Wayne
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Am I wasting my time trying to match a film type to a particular developer?

What am I going to gain?
 
Experience. The joy of tinkering. The knowledge that your quest is an unending one. Probably everything else is on the loss side.
 
In the dark ages of photography, serious photographers spent a bit of time finding out what film and developer suited them and then stuck to the combination like glue.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
In the dark ages of photography, serious photographers spent a bit of time finding out what film and developer suited them and then stuck to the combination like glue.
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Quite.

I have tried (some only once) Microphen, Promicrol, Unitol, Acutol, Acutol-S, Johnson's Universal (or was it Universol?), Rodinal, a Johnson's Pactum (that's the packaging) developer, probably a standard MQ one, and (probably) D76/ID11 for the few commercially processed B&W films I haven't done myself. In that lot, the only one I could actually see a difference with was Acutol - and that only on certain subjects. Mainly an old stone wall on the village church.

In films I've used Panatomic X, Verichrome Pan, Plus X, Tri-X, PanF, FP3, HP3, KB14, FP4 Plus, PanF Plus, CHS 100, a Kodak infra red film. Possibly a few others. Again, grain apart, not much difference to my eyes in the prints. Not liking grain, I use the slowest film I can. In the 1960s, apart from the very few deviations (usually no more than one film) I used PanF and HP3 when I needed the extra speed. I always thought medium speed films where too much betwixt and between, compromises.

So now it's PanF for preference in medium format, FP4 Plus when I can't avoid it, and FP4 Plus in large format.

My choice of developer, given I couldn't see much difference, was down to convenience, which means one shot made from a liquid concentrate. So Unitol until its passing, and then Rodinal. Rodinal was my choice as much as anything because unlike Unitol the formula was published, so I could always make my own if it went the way of Unitol.

What you will gain (tongue out of cheek) is a better appreciation of the subtle differences (if there are any) because you will be looking for them. I was looking only at the prints I got, which means many differences would be ironed out at the printing stage. Whether you can actually make use of that information in the field - presumably needing to keep a lot of different films and developers on hand to match the exact combination to the subject at hand - I wouldn't like to say.

You might also derive a lot of enjoyment and pleasure out of your researches - as my old school motto had it Labor Ipse Voluptas. And you'll be uniquely qualified to advise others.

So, not all loss.
 
I've used a few different developers but never saw any significant difference in the results. The only time I thought I saw a difference was the first time I used ID11 and the results were very poor. But it turned out that the poor results were because the fixer was exhausted, not the developer choice.

I now stick to HC110, but it's not because extensive research has led me to that choice as the "best" developer, it's just because it's convenient, lasts a long time, and the cost per film is relatively low.

Ironically I used to choose films with fine grain. But now my favourite thing is doing lith prints which are very grainy/moody, like this:


Above Lllyn Lllydaw by Kevin Allan, on Flickr

The film used was TMax 100, and the developer might have been rodinal, but by the time that the print has been produced, the choice of film developer and film stock is pretty much irrelevant. The choice of the print developer (in this case, Moersch SE5) , it's dilution, the proportions of the A and B components of the print developer, temperature, and the number of prints produced in the session are the important elements which contribute to the appearance of the print.

When a hybrid workflow is used, the facilities of the processing program (eg Lightroom) provide enormous opportunities to produce a range of different outputs from the same scanned negative (or a digital file) so that any contribution that the choice of film developer may make is dwarfed by the choices made through software.
 
When I started out in photography around 60 years ago now I used 35mm and PanF in Unitol was the ideal. With the demise of Unitol I stuck to PanF (still do and for MF too) and tried the Paterson developers which came on to shop shelves to replace Unitol. I was never satisfied with the negatives they produced. They always seemed less contrasty and less sharp. Just my own subjective feeling.

When a child came along and disposable income became more pressing I looked for cheaper options in both film and chemicals. I couldn't give up my beloved PanF, so I bought the film in bulk lengths and loaded my own cassettes which made a significant saving.

I experimented with ID11 made up myself from raw chemicals and was well pleased with the results. So much so that I still use it. I have tried Ilfosol3, which looks quite good as a one shot developer but seems to have a relatively short shelf life.

I am now happily in a world where I see ISO values on digital photographs at levels which make me shudder. I use my PanF, sometimes FP4 and (very occasionally) HP5, develop in ID11 and revel in the results - Winner!
 
Barney said:
Am I wasting my time trying to match a film type to a particular developer?

What am I going to gain?
Click to expand...

Matching a developer to a film is crucial in my own workflow. The differences are immediately visible, measurable, reproducible, and are an important variable influencing the results I want to get.

However - I would stress 'my own workflow'. I scan my negatives, and I like to use the least possible amount of post-processing to achieve my image. This means that exposure and development variables have a huge impact on the outcome.

If I did enjoy making images happen via extensive post-processing (which is absolutely fine, just not my thing) I would imagine that matching a film to a particular developer would become less relevant. By extensive 'post-processing' I mean something like
  1. 'dry lab' post-processing: PS, LR, dodging, burning, vignetting, digital grain reduction, sepia toning, blurring etc, or
  2. 'wet lab' post-processing: dodging, burning, choice of paper, choice of enlarger, choice of enlarger lens, choice of paper developer, toner etc
In the above two cases, several other sources of variability, and other degrees of creative potential, would clearly be of larger impact to the final result than the choice of developer (or even possibly of film!), and therefore I would imagine the developer used would matter less.
 
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trypdal said:
Matching a developer to a film is crucial in my own workflow. The differences are immediately visible, measurable, reproducible, and are an important variable influencing the results I want to get.

However - I would stress 'my own workflow'. I scan my negatives, and I like to use the least possible amount of post-processing to achieve my image. This means that exposure and development variables have a huge impact on the outcome.

If I did enjoy to make an image happen via extensive post-processing (which is absolutely fine, just not my thing) I would imagine that matching a film to a particular developer would become less relevant. By extensive 'post-processing' I mean something like
  1. 'dry lab' post-processing: PS, LR, dodging, burning, vignetting, digital grain reduction, sepia toning, blurring etc, or
  2. 'wet lab' post-processing: dodging, burning, choice of paper, choice of enlarger, choice of enlarger lens, choice of paper developer, toner etc
In the above two cases, several other sources variability, and other degrees of creative potential, would be of larger impact to the final result, and therefore I would imagine the developer used would matter less.
Click to expand...

Just to add to this @Barney - I didn't want to imply you should go out there and test 30 developers, take notes etc certainly not unless you enjoy the discovery process ofc.

There are some developers that will guarantee you good baseline results with just about every film out there - ID11/D76 and HC110 have been mentioned, and they're rock solid products, and very versatile too - each one is 2/3 different developers in one based on dilution/time/agitation so I agree with everyone else who ultimately settles on one of these. They do very little wrong, they're well tested and in the case of D76 it's easy to see why they work well - it was used for setting the ISO standard parameters for all films at some point (I suspect it still migh be), so all film manufacturers will have tested their product in at least D76.

Having said that, some developers do some things better (and some things worse). Part of the fun, if you wish!
 
trypdal said:
Matching a developer to a film is crucial in my own workflow. The differences are immediately visible, measurable, reproducible, and are an important variable influencing the results I want to get.

However - I would stress 'my own workflow'. I scan my negatives, and I like to use the least possible amount of post-processing to achieve my image. This means that exposure and development variables have a huge impact on the outcome.

If I did enjoy to make an image happen via extensive post-processing (which is absolutely fine, just not my thing) I would imagine that matching a film to a particular developer would become less relevant. By extensive 'post-processing' I mean something like
  1. 'dry lab' post-processing: PS, LR, dodging, burning, vignetting, digital grain reduction, sepia toning, blurring etc, or
  2. 'wet lab' post-processing: dodging, burning, choice of paper, choice of enlarger, choice of enlarger lens, choice of paper developer, toner etc
In the above two cases, several other sources variability, and other degrees of creative potential, would be of larger impact to the final result, and therefore I would imagine the developer used would matter less.
Click to expand...

Hi trypdal,

My objective is similar if not the same as yours, I want to try and achieve the best possible result in the negative with the minimum amount of post processing to get an image to display or print (inkjet). I wont be going down the route of testing every developer and film combination, as much of the legwork has already been done and is already published by folk with far better technical expertise, and equipment, in photography than I will ever hope to have. But I feel I must make some effort to understand the principals and effects of the many chemical compositions and their effects on various film types.
 
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