Sprint Developer: Thoughts?

[jbf]

Hi all,

Anyone have any thoughts on Sprint Developers?

Thats the chemicals that we have at my school, but I was curious as to if anyone had any experience with it as far as good times for Tri-X or HP5+, etc?

I've only developed HP5+ with the developer before and overall I dont find myself that impressed with the combo... although it could just be i need to experiment more with times, etc.

Any ideas or suggestions when using Sprint Developer? How well is it at pushing/pulling film, etc?

 

[jbf]

Anyone?

Please? I'm in desperate need for some suggestions for using Sprint with Tri-X? How does the suggested time of 10 minutes at 20 degrees celcius work? Any better times that anyone has?

Thanks,

Jonathan

 

[Bryce]

I guess you'll just have to pioneer the way around here with that combo. So please, let us know what you think.
In fact, what has it done to / for films you've tried it with so far? Especially in comparison to other develping agents you've tried?

 

[jbf]

I've only actually used Sprint with HP5+ and so far it seems to work great. It sucks for pushing/pulling because its designed not to block out highlights... but overall its pretty safe for beginners and the like when it comes to developing.

For Ilford HP5+ i usually under develop it ever so slightly. The recommended time for HP5+ is around 10:30 but I usually do it for 9:30 or 9 minutes.

But I've never used it with Tri-X... so...


However in a few months I'll be buying my own chemicals for my personal work. Prior I had only been using my school's darkroom chemidcals, etc which was Sprint. But overall I've been satisfied.

Granted, I dont really know the differences between sprint and another developer so I may not be of any help.

 

[drewbarb]

I haven't used Sprint chem in years- since high school or college maybe- but I remember it being fairly unremarkable in that it developed my film. I wasn't thinking much more about my developer than that at the time.

In my experience, there are very few "bad" developers out there. There are some really great ones- and many are better with some films and/or applications than others- but most any will yeild workable results with most films. Do some experimenting and let us know what you think.

 

[kmack]

In my experience there is not too much you can not do with modern chemistry. The trick is to do some testing and determine your personal EI for each film you use and how you develop it.

Once you have an EI down then you can experiment with pushing and pulling as well as how much time and agitation to use to control the contrast and general density.

 

[pesphoto]

I use Sprint all the time and just follow the instructions with TriX...never had a problem with it.

 

[Benjamin Marks]

My experience was same as pesphoto's. I used Sprint exclusively during college (it was what was provided). Results were comparable to D-76. A lot is going to depend on how your film-developer-water quality etc. work together and there is no advice that you'll get on this forum or elsewhere that can substitute for running your own tests. Once you have your exposure/film speed in this developer nailed down, it will work well.

Ben Marks

 

[richiedcruz]

I use Sprint all the time for developing Tri x. I can't really tell a difference between it and d 76, even when I push it to ei 1600.

Richie

 

[pesphoto]

Yup, it pretty much gives the same consistent results as D76 wihtout having to do the mixing since Sprint is a liquid only.