Cal,
This is good information - I've done little night shooting, and almost none on film. I need to do more this summer!
Do you know if the results from Acros developed with D76 or PyrocatHD are also good?
Thanks!
Raj,
Both are good developers, although I have not used Pyro.
The thing with Diafine is that it is a two part compensating developer, so it was kinda invented to deal with extreme or very high contrast. Diafine moderates contrast which is not lacking in night shooting and this is what makes it great for night photography. I call this my "Slacker's Brew" because it gets reused, and also because it is "Panthermic" meaning temperature is not critical and has no effect on the chemical process. Understand that just last weekend I processed 9 two liter tanks of film, and I did not pour the Diafine down the drain as a "one-shot;" meanwhile if that was ID-11 I would be pouring money down the drain.
The compensating effect also has a "Stand Development" like effect where the highlights can't get blown, and the developer that initially got soaked in gets depleted and further development ceases to happen. The shadows get more fully developed and have more detail than solvent developers; and the tricky parts are exposure and developing for a wide midrange. The Diafine negatives have a HDR look and kinda resemble modern digital B&W prints due to their enhanced dynamic range, high resolution, and small grain.
D76 or Ilford ID-11 is a very fundamental "solvent" developer that almost everyone who went to art school back in the day and took a photography course first learned how to develop film with.
I find Acros to have deep contrast and fine grain (almost none). Some people say it looks like digital and don't like it, but these same people likely have no appreciation for large format photography.
If I were teaching someone how to develop I would tell them to just shoot Tri-X at box speed and use D76 or ID-11. Do this until you can do it in your sleep or until you get so consistent that you can get easily 36 exposures that are either easy to scan or easy to print. At a later date, after skill developes, perhaps add a slow speed film, maybe Acros if you like the look, but still use D76 or ID-11.
Basically gather (expose) as much information as possible, and then create (develop) the maximum amount of information chemically. This is a balancing act and highly interactive. This is where your style comes out. Also in art school I was taught to make negatives that have consistent contrast that basically I can more or less "straight print" without any burning, dodging or flashing.
If you want to be good stick with the fundamentals/basics and learn them like a deadly Kung-Fu move. With only one film and one developer some really great photographers built their careers. One is Jim Marshall who did all this band photography like Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, or the Album covers for the Allman Brothers and the Rolling Stones.
Jim Marshall used Acufine and shot Tri-X at 800 ISO (5 3/4 minutes Acufine at 20 degrees C). I know of a Pulizer Prize winning photojournalist who kinda does something similar that I do with Diafine. His last name is Gay, but I forget his first name.
BTW the things here to learn by using only one film and one developer are : consistency; and control. In my book if you want to get good at something do it as much as you can and on a crazy scale.
One thing I learned from being a lazy slacker is that if you scale things up to using big tanks (I use 2 liter SS tanks) is the bigger capacity and volume aids in gaining consistency and temperature control. I see no benefit of doing small tanks. I think you would do yourself a disservice by advancing to and learning Diafine first. Basically you would not understand what you are doing, and it would inhibit learning the skills to build on.
Also there is economy of scale in buying chemicals in bulk or larger volumes and weight. IMHO many people don't develop their chops by sticking with one film and one developer. There is a lot to learn just doing that and that skill pays dividends if you move into another developer of film.
BTW I only have experience with D76, ID-11 (more or less the same thing), Ilford Microphen, Diafine, and a little experimenting with Rodinal with slow speed films only because Tung gifted me an unopened bottle. So more or less over 40 years I only know more or less three developers.
So it comes down to you working alone where you are the teacher as well as the student. There is great benefits of restricting oneself to B&W film: you can control costs; you can learn a lot; and you can shoot more because of lower costs.
Cal
