What film developer is your favorite and why ?

[steveyork]

You may want to peruse my notes I kept while I worked on this - link below.

The benefits - when done right are several:

• Full box speed to hold shadow detail
• Highlight protection
• Better overall acutance (with the right developers)
• More pronounced edge effects (some dev-film combinastions)
• Mid tone contrast expansion (this is the real win)

It is not for every situation, but when it it appropriate, it's a great tool to have in your bag of tricks.


I kept notes on my multi-year exploration of this. They can be found here:

tundra/Stand-Development

gitbucket.tundraware.com

It's the better midtones that drew me to older, single coated lenses, but then you have to protect the highlights better in developing. That single coating on those old lenses not as effective in highlight protection. Don't you run the risk of blowing the highlights with stand because of the potential of overdevelopment?

 

[Coldkennels]

Don't you run the risk of blowing the highlights with stand because of the potential of overdevelopment?

The theory states "you can't blow the highlights because the developer in contact with those areas will develop to exhaustion and not over-develop". As a result, you used to get people online claiming that it was literally impossible to blow the highlights with stand developing.

In my experiments, I found you very much can. And if the temperature climbed up during the hour the developer was sat there (say, for instance, you were developing in the height of summer), it was even more likely to happen.

 

[38Deardorff]

It's the better midtones that drew me to older, single coated lenses, but then you have to protect the highlights better in developing. With those older lenses you need more care in highlight protection. Don't you run the risk of blowing the highlights with stand because of the potential of overdevelopment?

Steve, i've never had blown highlights with PMK or Pyrocat

 

[Ororaro]

Stand, semi-stand development is the worst practice.
Does nothing, it actually only hinders over what could have been.

Last time I tried washing my hands by leaving stale soap on them, without rubbing it off, for 30 minutes, didn’t leave my hands clean.
Same principle goes for development.

You want your hands clean, and you want your film well developed? Stir, shake and be energetic. That’s how it’s done.