Any 120 Acros Users Out There?

[HHPhoto]

I see no reason to use obscure developers to make a film look good.

Chris,

obscure developers???
Have you ever used Spur HRX or Adox FX 39?
No, you have not. So you don't know what you are talking about, you don't know what you are bashing.

Neither FX 39, nor HRX is a obscure developer. Not at all!

The facts:
Adox FX 39 is the original legendary Geoffrey Crawley formula.
It is an improved formula of the legendary Tetenal Neofin Rot.
Adox produced it for years for Paterson (Paterson FX-39).
When Paterson left this business, Adox continued the production by selling it now under their own brand.
The CEO of Adox has promised that Geoffrey Crawley before his death.
FX 39 is an excellent developer.
Established and well proven for a very long time.

Spur HRX is one of the best fine-grain high-sharpness developers on the market. Well known also for its excellent tonality of the mid-tones (no flat mid-tone curve).
It is on the market for about 15 years now, and was even improved several times.
Spur has been the most innovative developer producer in the last decade. They've done a lot of R&D in several fields, resulting in many new products.

By the way; any new developers from Kodak in the last ten years?
No.
They even don't produce their chemistry anymore.
The Kodak chems are now produced by Tetenal in Germany (the Ilford chems, too, by the way).

Companies like Adox and Spur really do care for us film photographers.
Bashing their products as 'obscure' is both a very ignorant and arrogant attitude.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Nokton48]

It is good to see that the results shown here are in line with what I was expecting.
It is also good that it is so versatile with respect to using different developers.
According to my email from B&H, my twenty rolls should arrive tomorrow.
So it will be excellent to be able add this film to what I am using.

I've read some comments about it having an almost "clinical" look to it, I do like how it renders certain subjects.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

Have you ever used Spur HRX or Adox FX 39?
Neither FX 39, nor HRX is a obscure developer.

Companies like Adox and Spur really do care for us film photographers

Thank you for the informative post. I've been trying to work out my ideal developer and processing for various films and these two are developers I likely would not have tried until now. As was the PMK, for that matter. Have been trying to get away from the grain I get from Rodinal 1+50 for 35, on the one hand, and the "too clinical", almost digital look Acros can have, on the other hand. Thanks for taking the time.

 

[Nokton48]

FX37 Developer
(from "The Film Developing Cookbook")


Sodium Sulphite anhydrous 60g
Hydroquinone 5g
Sodium Carbonate anhydrous 5g
Phenidone 0.5g
Borax 2.5g
Potassium Bromide 0.5g
Benzotriazole 1% 50ml
Water to make 1-liter

Dilute 1:3. Diluting 1:5 will lengthen developing times and increase film speed.
TMax 100 - FX39 (1+9) 100 EI 8 mins @ 20C

I think I have all this stuff so I might try it. Crawley said FX37 and FX39 are nearly identical, according to the book.

 

[Jan Pedersen]

Fx-37

Fx-37

FX-37 is not exactly a fine grain developer but works well with TMX, TMY and Acros for which this developer was designed.
I don't know if it is close to FX-39 but i have used FX-37 quite a bit mostly for large format and at 1+5 give a small speed increase, i exposed TMY at 500 and got great shadow details with good contrast. Acros at box speed.

 

[Nokton48]

Hi Jan,
What was your dilution and time/temps for FX37/Acros at box speed? This sounds like a real nice combo to me. Worth trying.

 

[jloden]

Wow! The tonality on that photo is absolutely gorgeous... that's just my kind of B&W right there! 🙂

120 Acros is superb, and in dedicated t-grain developer (i.e. Ultrafin Plus) it's magic.

 

[Jan Pedersen]

Hi Jan,
What was your dilution and time/temps for FX39/Acros at box speed? This sounds like a real nice combo to me. Worth trying.

I would need to check my records when i get home tonight and will post the time i have.
Edit, i don't have any records of FX-39, never used it, only FX-37

 

[Nokton48]

I would need to check my records when i get home tonight and will post the time i have.

OK Great. Thanks! Acros isn't listed in the Darkroom Cookbook

 

[Nokton48]

120 Acros is superb, and in dedicated t-grain developer (i.e. Ultrafin Plus) it's magic.

I agree. Absolutely lovely tonality. Well done.

 

[Nokton48]

Oops I meant to say FX37/Acros, Jan.
That is what I want to mix myself.

 

[Fotohuis]

Those FX type developers are not new. Geoffrey Crawley started beginning in the 60's. Especially his FX-1 is well known, in fact an improved Beutler type developer by adding a trace of Potassiumiodide.
Later when Tgrain type films came he made those FX-37/39 for it. Bad marketing of Paterson resulted in sales of them in UK almost only. But I can not say FX-37 is better then an alternative Kodak/Ilford Tgrain suitable developer like Tmax dev. or DD-X.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Chris,

obscure developers???
Have you ever used Spur HRX or Adox FX 39?
No, you have not. So you don't know what you are talking about, you don't know what you are bashing.

Neither FX 39, nor HRX is a obscure developer. Not at all!

The facts:
Adox FX 39 is the original legendary Geoffrey Crawley formula.
It is an improved formula of the legendary Tetenal Neofin Rot.
Adox produced it for years for Paterson (Paterson FX-39).
When Paterson left this business, Adox continued the production by selling it now under their own brand.
The CEO of Adox has promised that Geoffrey Crawley before his death.
FX 39 is an excellent developer.
Established and well proven for a very long time.

Spur HRX is one of the best fine-grain high-sharpness developers on the market. Well known also for its excellent tonality of the mid-tones (no flat mid-tone curve).
It is on the market for about 15 years now, and was even improved several times.
Spur has been the most innovative developer producer in the last decade. They've done a lot of R&D in several fields, resulting in many new products.

By the way; any new developers from Kodak in the last ten years?
No.
They even don't produce their chemistry anymore.
The Kodak chems are now produced by Tetenal in Germany (the Ilford chems, too, by the way).

Companies like Adox and Spur really do care for us film photographers.
Bashing their products as 'obscure' is both a very ignorant and arrogant attitude.

Cheers, Jan

I have heard of the developers and I know who Geoffrey Crowley is. They're still obscure developers, and I'm still not interested in using them. I get results that get me exhibited, published, and that sell prints using the same developers I have used for years.

You know what's ignorant and arrogant? Some grubby-handed merchant who NEVER posts his work and constantly bashes digital work as 'inferior' just so he can sell more film from his store. You've been nothing but a troll from the day you set foot in here. Put up or shut up.

 

[Jan Pedersen]

Oops I meant to say FX37/Acros, Jan.
That is what I want to mix myself.

Going through my records I must admit that Acros was not my most used film with FX-37 TMY was.
Try with 10 minutes, dilution 1+5 at 20C 30 second initial agitation and then 10 seconds every minute. Should get you in the ballpark depending on your printing technique. I used condenser enlargers.

 

[Rayt]

I really like Acros in large format due to the long exposures. I only ever soup it in Rodinal 1:50 and really like the look.

 

[Nokton48]

Going through my records I must admit that Acros was not my most used film with FX-37 TMY was.
Try with 10 minutes, dilution 1+5 at 20C 30 second initial agitation and then 10 seconds every minute. Should get you in the ballpark depending on your printing technique. I used condenser enlargers.

OK Very Good. Thanks for looking that up for me.

 

[lawrence]

But I can not say FX-37 is better then an alternative Kodak/Ilford Tgrain suitable developer like Tmax dev. or DD-X.

I can compare FX-37 with Tmax, which I use quite a lot. With TMY FX-37 gives sharper grain and wonderful control of the highlights however for me this developer has a serious flaw, which is that the keeping properties are not very good. They are better than for FX-50 (discontinued many years ago) but don't compare at all well with Tmax, which seems to keep almost indefinitely. So I'd only use FX-37 if I had a bunch of film that I wanted to develop at the same time as opening the bottle but as a general purpose developer I cannot recommend it.

Correction: I meant FX-39

 

[Nokton48]

Great information here. Now I know that any FX-37 I mix (I have the components so why not?) will have a very short life.
Recently I picked up some T-Max Developer to use with 120 Delta 3200. Good to know it also works well with Acros.

This arrived today. There is something cool about loading modern film in a roll back that is probably 50-60 years old.

 

[Corran]

FX-39 and SPUR HRX needs to be talked about more as they are both fantastic developers. I'm still falling back on Acufine and sometimes Rodinal for a lot of stuff but FX-39 is becoming my new favorite for T-grain films and SPUR HRX is the only developer I use for HP5+ (I need to try it with more films).

There's certainly something to be said about using a film/dev combo that one has tailored to their usage but it's also valuable to move outside of your comfort zone and try different things.

I've stopped using most of the "standard" developers - D76, XTOL, T-Max Dev, etc. They worked sure but I they still didn't give me what I wanted to see on the film, with regard to subtle tonal gradations, grain, etc.

 

[Jan Pedersen]

Spur HRX

Spur HRX

Always currious about developers that i have not tried yet.
After reading about the Spur HRX i briefly did a search and found no stores in the US stocking this developer, looks more like it has been discontinued.
Did i miss something?