Choosing developer(s)

[Joshua_G]

Coming back to developing B&W negative after many years, availability of developers in professional photography shops in my country (2 of them) is meager: -- Kodak D-76, Kodak HC-110 and Tetenal Ultrafin Liquid. However, chemicals for mixing developers are available at chemicals stores. So, reluctantly, I will mix my own developer(s) out of individual chemicals.​

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Though I shoot with various films, since I don't shoot very much and I intend to mix 1 liter of developer at a time, I should constrain myself to 2 or 3 developers to work with.​

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My first choice is Mytol (Xtol substitute), for general use. Second developer will probably be FX37, for better acutance, at the price of coarser grain (for slow and medium speed films).​

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Any recommendations for 1, 2 or at most 3 developers to mix?​

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Please mention benefits of each recommended developer over D-76 or Xtol.​

 

[Max Power]

Joshua,
You might not get the volume of responses here that you might hope for. Honestly, if you haven't tried APUG already, you might want to ask your question there.

www.apug.org

 

[markinlondon]

How about one developer, Joshua? D76/ID-11 pretty much does it all. Xtol (or Mytol) will get you about the same results with maybe a little finer grain. Use higher dilutions for more acutance. D76/ID-11 1:3 gives pretty sharp results as does Xtol at the same dilution.

 

[sepiareverb]

I choose developers for particular films- ID-11 is my usual for Pan-F and FP4, Microphen for HP5 and Neopan 1600 (which I'm finally getting the hang of!). They seem to make for cleaner looking negatives- sparkly or something. HC-110 gets dragged out more in the winter when the extra energy helps with my flat winter lighting, or for buzzier grain with HP5 @800 than the Microphen gives.

I was a big XTOL user with sheet films- but when I came back to 35mm I found it gave me somewhat fuzzy negatives- especially with the Ilford Delta films.