Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/01/08

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Four Categories of high definition developers
From: John Hicks <jhicks31@bellsouth.net>
Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2002 22:13:26 -0500

At 11:56 AM 1/8/02 -0800, you wrote:
>1. Highest Acutance:
>FX1, HDD, Beutler, Neofin Blue, some Pyrocatechin developers.
>
>2. High Acutance:
>Patterson VX39, & Acutol (FX 14), PMK, FX2, Formulary TFX-2, FX37.
>
>3: Good Acutance (slightly higher than D76 but not as high as categories
>1 or 2):
>Dilute DK 50, HC-110!?, Rodinal, Unitol, FG7.*
>
>4. Solvent developers strongly diluted: good Acutance but less than
>category 3.
>D76, FX15, D23, Microdol X, Perceptol all diluted 1:3 or 1:4. They say
>Kodak Xtol is a special case, offering a speed increase at that dilution
>and unusually high sharpness for a solvent developer."
>
>Our developer discussions on the LUG have been involved with categories
>3 and 4 as that is what we are all using.
>So many of us are using category 4 developers when we should be perhaps
>using category 1!

  Perhaps. But if we called Category 1 "high graininess" developers who'd
want to use 'em?
  One of my standard developers has been D-76H 1:1 and 1:3. At some point
in my fiddling around I've shot the same subject on Delta 100 with the 50
Summicron at about f8 and developed the film in my standard, FX-39, TFX-2,
Xtol at various dilutions and Rodinal 1:100.
  In 11x14 prints at a "normal" viewing distance I don't see grain from
D-76, I can barely see it from Xtol 1:1 and I can readily see it from
FX-39, TFX-2 and Rodinal. But I don't see any significant difference in
sharpness; if fact the D-76 print might appear a little sharper because it
looks smoother.
  At some point in trying TFX-2 I directly compared it to Rodinal 1:100
both with printing and examining the negs at 30X; results were, to my eyes,
identical so I didn't see any point in continuing with TFX-2 rather than
Rodinal, which I always have on hand.

John Hicks
jhicks31@bellsouth.net

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Replies: Reply from Mark Rabiner <mark@markrabiner.com> (Re: [Leica] Four Categories of high definition developers)