gonna shoot some fp4

back alley

back alley

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i'm curious to see what my 35/1.8 and my 50/1.4 can do when opened up a bit more, so i bought some fp4 today. i went in thinking plus x but then decided to support the folks that are still behind b&w film photography. (not my point)

now, i'm realizing i have never shot fp4 (at least for as long as i can remember) and so i'm wondering about developers and agitation.

i have on hand rodinal, diafine, ddx and ilfosol s.
diafine has taught me that i over agitate and i'm pretty sure i do so with all developers. i'm working on my control.

i have done a search here and elsewhere and read some about how fp4 is affected by different developers.

this leads to thinking i will use the ddx and see for myself, tho i'm tempted by the ilfosol also. according to ilford, ddx will give the best overall appearance but ilfosol will show the sharpest rendition.
any thoughts from your experience?

it's a toss up - but i did buy 2 rolls...

joe
 
I'll be interested in your experiances. I've never shot it either, but I have a box of 25 sheets of it on order at my FLCS.

William
 
Obvious then, shoot one and develop in DDX then one Ilfosol. I use DDX because it is the recommended developer. If you shoot it at 125 then develop in DDX for 10 minutes at 20C. Agitate for the first 10 seconds then 10 seconds for every minute in the soup. After that use a stop bath for 10 seconds and then a fixer for 4 to 5 minutes. Enjoy. Of course all this information can be downloaded from Ilford or .... I think I can attach the PDF file. Yep, that should give information about the different developers as well.

Cheers.
 
"Sheets" you say. Hmmm, disregard everything I said and reference the PDF. I am pretty sure agitation was different for large format. Don't remember though because I only shoot 35 and develop in the tank.

Glenn
 
The Ilford FP and HP emulsions work VERY well (IMHO) in Diafine.

I don't think you will be disappointed shooting FP at 200-250 ISO and developing in Diafine.

Tom
 
Thanks for the PDF. I'll print and consume it.

William
 
T_om, does your experiance hold for sheet or just roll? I'd be a very happy camper if it plays nice in Diafine as that's something not true of Tmax... :(

William
 
I'll second Tom's observation about FP4+ in Diafine. I've only developed one roll so far, but I was really blown away, I thought it was going to be "ok", but I got rather quite beautiful negatives.
 
wlewisiii said:
T_om, does your experiance hold for sheet or just roll? I'd be a very happy camper if it plays nice in Diafine as that's something not true of Tmax... :(

William
Click to expand...


William,

My experience has pretty much been with roll film only.

However, I have heard sheet did just as well. I haven't developed sheet film in over 30 years so my experience does not count for much.

Just make sure you have a sufficient physical quantity of solution "B" in the tray or tank and experiment with agitation cycles.

Tom
 
Let's say that I shot a roll of FP4 at an ISO of 100, should I develop in Diafine or D76 1:1?

I have both developers here (and a roll of 120 FP4 that I shot at ISO of 100). I was thinkng I had loaded 100 T-Max in the back.

I'm kinda leaning towards D76.

Wayne
 
Wayne R. Scott said:
Let's say that I shot a roll of FP4 at an ISO of 100, should I develop in Diafine or D76 1:1?

I have both developers here (and a roll of 120 FP4 that I shot at ISO of 100). I was thinkng I had loaded 100 T-Max in the back.

I'm kinda leaning towards D76.

Wayne
Click to expand...

ISO 100? Depends: normal lighting conditions, and you want your normal tones, then D76 1:1 may do. But why go nonstandard with a standard developer, just expose at ISO 125 for FP4+ then.

If you're going to use Diafine, ISO 100 may be a good idea if your scene is rather flat (i.e. not very contrasty), but highly recommend ISO 200 (that's what I rate FP4+ when to be souped in Diafine).

Some people may brush off the suggestion, but I highly recommend using a medium yellow, yellow-orange or light red filter if you're going to use the FP4+/Diafine combination. You won't regret it.
 
Gabrielma,

I, being the dunce that I am, have already shot the FP4 at ISO 100. Lighting conditions were exatcly the same for all 15 shots. I shot in studio with moniolights metered with Minolta IVf flash meter. I just used a Bronica back that had FP4 film in it and a T-Max 100 label in the film holder.

I am just trying to save this roll as it is a divorced father and his 1 year old baby girl portraits. I think I am going to develop with D76 1:1.

Wayne
 
T_om, reading the pdf that egpj provided leads me to believe there is little difference between the roll and sheet versions of the emuslion. :D EI200 & Diafine it will be then.

gabrielma, I really like keeping a K2 or K3 on when shooting B&W anyway, hearing your experiance is helpful. Thank you.

William
 
"i bought some fp4 today. i have on hand rodinal, diafine, ddx and ilfosol s"

Any of these developers will do a fine job with FP4+. I used Ilfosol S exclusively before switching over to Diafine. I switched only for economic reasons. I don't know about DDX. Rodinal is a high accutance developer.

If you are trying to see how the new lenses perform, use the same developer you have been using so that you are only changing one of the variables. (the lenses) If you try your new lenses and a new developer, you won't know if the change you see in the negs is due to the lenses or the different developer.
 
my 2c worth......for what *thats* worth - probably way less than 2c :D

My normal for FP4+ is to expose at 125 asa, soup in ID-11 at 20 deg c using either 1+3 for 20 minutes or 1+0 for 8 minutes 30 sec. Agitation cycle is agitate gently for the first minute, then 2 slow agitations (about 5 sec each) each minute thereafter. Wash. Fix in Ilford fixer for 5 mins, agitation as above. Wash thoroughly.

Now, given that you have no ID-11 or D-76 on hand :)
When using Rodinal I use 1+25, and 9 minutes, agitaion and everything else as above. It's sweet. That's exposing the FP4+ at 125 asa.
Although as someone pointed out above, the Agfa datasheet does suggest exposing the FP4+ at 100asa and then developing for 8 minutes.

Who knows? <shrug> It works for me, but it's hardly an exact science :D Half the fun, I guess. At least, *I* find it fun....
 
I feel like my experiences have been very different than the ones listed in this thread. Strange.

In D76 1+1, I expose for EI 100 as a matter of course. I haven't done the densitometry measurements, but I find that to be the right EI, using my scanner and examining the histogram.

Rodinal 1+50, which should give slightly higher speed than 1+25 (due to slight compnsation), gives me an EI of only 80. This is _with_ a densitometer.

For sharpness, I'd stick to Rodinal. For speed, I"d stick with DDX. I would guess you could get 160 out of DDX.

allan
 
if i had to rank my preferences, i would be looking for sharpness first and a nice smooth tonal range second and speed last.
i have tri-x if i want speed (or delta 3200 if i want something even faster).

joe
 
As I said, Rodinal would be my sharpness champ. I love the acutance and the grain, while certainly more visible than with other developers, has a nice presence to it.

allan
 
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