How grainy should Tri-X be (shot at 400)

[alexz]

Thanks Tom, I'll check them out.
I just had an informative conversation with a friend of mine who is an educated professional photographer and artist - he advised to try out Perceptol which is supposed to "eat up" the grain considerably, but also it will require shootign Tri-X at slower speeds - closer to 200...he even handed me over a pack of Perceptol (set of A+B power set) ...
I think once I'll play around with different combinations of HC-110 processing-wise and Tri-X speeds (may take quite a while), I'll give a shoot to Perceptol...

 

[markinlondon]

Thanks for the pointer to your Flickr section, Tom. The Vestal special sounds strangely like Barry Thornton's two bath metol only brew (the one he did before di-xactol).

Alex, cutting that water bath between developer and fixer could help. You could try using an acid stop (fill, agitate 15 seconds and pour back in the bottle). But, the purpose of a water bath as a stop is to dilute the developer beyond use. When I'm out of stop I fill, agitate for a few seconds, dump the water and repeat twice. I think we've mentioned that total wet time can have an adverse effect on grain.

 

[alexz]

Mark, do you mean do not do wate bath in-between (between the developer and fixer) ? In fact I was told this bath is utilized for diluting the developer remains beyond use indeed wich may help a bit working up shadows contrast...
So you approach after pouring away the developer is filling up water agitate lightly for a few seconds and dumping the water and repeat that sequence three times (in total) prior to fixer, right ?

 

[markinlondon]

Mark, do you mean do not do wate bath in-between (between the developer and fixer) ? In fact I was told this bath is utilized for diluting the developer remains beyond use indeed wich may help a bit working up shadows contrast...
So you approach after pouring away the developer is filling up water agitate lightly for a few seconds and dumping the water and repeat that sequence three times (in total) prior to fixer, right ?

That's the way I do it, Alex. It does use more water but gives a shorter wet time than the process you're following. If the developer is not being diluted or neutralised quickly, development will continue albeit slowly.