FP4+ and Microphen vs Ilfosol

[calebk]

Hi guys, So I had a mini crisis today. I'm flying off to Vietnam later and wanted to get a brick of Tri-X but the shop's closed today. All I'm left with is Ilford FP-4+ so that's what I'm bringing up. Thinking of rating the film at 400 (have done it before).

I don't have access to Kodak developers in Singapore, so I'm mostly limited to Ilford stuff. Between Ilfosol and Microphen, which would fare better for a push like that? I'm aware of the caveats of pushing - increased grain, loss of shadow detail and the like.

 

[Rob-F]

Microphen is one of the best push developers I know of. That's what I would use. I think Ilfosol is a fine-grain developer, like Microdol. If so, I would worry that it will lose shadow speed, not increase it.

 

[Colin Corneau]

Sure you'll need to push it? Don't speak so soon...just sayin', you never know.

If you're going to still push the film a stop or two, definitely Microphen for reasons mentioned above.

 

[calebk]

Sure you'll need to push it? Don't speak so soon...just sayin', you never know.

If you're going to still push the film a stop or two, definitely Microphen for reasons mentioned above.

I'm not sure but I reckon I won't shoot at EI 125 for sure. We'll have to see when I get on the ground there. P

 

[calebk]

Microphen is one of the best push developers I know of. That's what I would use. I think Ilfosol is a fine-grain developer, like Microdol. If so, I would worry that it will lose shadow speed, not increase it.

What does losing shadow speed mean for the final image? Sorry I'm a bit nooby so the terms don't always make sense quite yet.

 

[john_s]

Parts of the picture that should be dark grey with some detail become straight black with no detail.

 

[calebk]

So in other words, a loss in shadow detail right?

 

[monochromeimages]

I used to develop FP4 in the old Ilfosol S and get consistently good results but I have have been very disappointed with the results using the 'improved' Ilfosol 3. That's at rated speed. Based on my experience I'd leave Ilfosol 3 well alone.

 

[sepiareverb]

Microphen is my first choice for pushing HP5 to 800. Haven't tried pushing FP4.

 

[Freakscene]

So in other words, a loss in shadow detail right?

It's more than just a loss of shadow detail; you lose contrast in the dark areas that have retained detail too, so the shadows look flatter.

Marty

 

[calebk]

Right, to bring closure to this episode, I finally got down to developing, scanning and uploading the FP4+ I used almost a month back.

This is FP4+ rated at EI320 and developed at EI400 in Microphen (stock) for 15.5min at 20ºC.