Black & White Film Developer Buying Guide

Great informative video. I use microphen and perceptol. I think you made a little mistake about perceptol. It’s designed for slow to medium speed film. You lose some speed of the film you use in turn for extremely fine grain negative. So normally you rate the film half of what it is to get the full range of tones. It’s good for pulling say hp5. Microphen is great for pushing film like you stated.

Really enjoy your videos. This must of been a very time consuming process. Great work 👍🏾

Kodak Tri-x and D76 a classic and perfect combination.

so glad this stumbled into my feed. I have been wondering what I should do for my project and I chose HC110 - this really helped me believe I made the right choice.

Kodak recently discontinued HC110 and XTOL!!! Why?!?! those were the best two! I came back to this video after years of using XTOL and I guess I'll go with D-76 or Rodinol...

How the hell do you just come up with some random test for testing out your film and it ends up being more creative than any photo idea I've ever had in my life

THanks for taking the time to make this reference.

This video is so damn important. This is the only video I've ever seen that catalogs this many films ISOs and types with this many developers. I can actually match delta 3200 with Ilford Perceptol (for example) thanks to this video. Stellar. Thanks!

Your videos are really helpful. Thank you!

Thanks for a great job! I was searching for information about film developers and I feel I've hit the mother load. I now have a PhD in developers (twelve of them anyway), or at least now I can understand what they are talking about on the different forums, I even learned what 'acutance' means.
Thanks again and I will check out your other videos.

It's 2022.. I'm diving in, head first.. making a darkroom and going to become more of an eccentric weirdo loner.

Started in 73 with Ilford PlusX and Rodinal. I was studying photography at the time and went through libraries of photographic books. In the B/W category , I noticed an interesting thing in common with just about all the B/W pics , namely that virtually all of them were shot with Kodak Pan F or Tri X and developed in D76 . I tried it and the very first roll I developed and printed , I got great detail in both highlights and shadows . the Ilford/Rodinal combination resulted in chalky highs and muddy lows . After a bit of experimenting and with the very valuable help of my photoschool teacher , I finally got amazing pics with Tri X rated at 200 and D76 diluted ! plus 3 . Not a trace of grain on 16X20 prints and for portrait shots , I printed on Kodak Ektalure . What a Combination . Completely unbeatable ! Sadly , Ektalure seems to no longer exist. Incidentally , this was on 35mm film , using my Pentax Spotmatic which is still in use today and is used often !

Nice work.

My own experience: All the well known brands produce good developers (and bw films).
My combination is Rodinal with APX Agfa 100 ISO 135 film.
Stay with your set up and experiment and gain experience with your combination film developer.
Professional photographers have good results because they know the material they use in and out and they know the limits.
It is more the experience and not so much the camera or film or developer they use.

There are many developers (film brands, cameras, objectives.....) but this is MY developer.

Anyway I really enjoy the clip and the work you have done. Great.

I've developed 3 or 4 rolls of tmax 100 with df96 and always hated my results... makes sense now.

Keep these coming. I find myself coming back to these for refresher courses. To date I’ve used and love the Rodinal and HC110. These videos tend to have more core value than the other videos where people record themselves talking about themselves, their equipment, their trips and walking around with hokey music. In the end they offer about 2 minutes of mediocre content at best.

Best. review. ever. thank u so much for this👍

80 degrees Fahrenheit = 26.7 degrees Celsius.

Where is that time stamp guy when you need him. :)

Rzeczywiście ilfosol 3 po otwarciu. Po pół roku poprostu nie dzialal i straciłem 2 filmy przez to😤

Very useful video…good examples, good commentary. Descriptive without being judgmental.👍🏽

Df96 with T-MAX need double the development time. It's in their instructions manual.

Delta 3200 has an ISO of 1250 and Tmax 3200 of 1000.

The Bellini fx6a mono bath recently came out. Wonder how it compares

Excellent recap of the B&W developer space, well presented. Thanks!

I've read conflicting information regarding tmax developer. Some people say it's specifically meant for T grain films like tmax and delta, but others such as yourself, say it's not. I've reached out ot kodak about this. I'll update this if I hear back

Where did you find the spy versus spy figures

thank you

Very nicely done video and very informative! I have been a home developer since the early 1970's and I still learned something today. Thanks!

Second time I have watched this video - first when I was just starting out and now again today. Great information so thanks for your efforts. A tip to make containers airtight for storing liquids and maximising shelf life is to use concertina bottles to expel the air and run a bit of plumbers teflon tape around the top so the cap remains airtight. I also store my chemicals in the refrigerator (much to my wife's disgust).

Thanks for the in depth. I’ve just gotten back into film photography and development and your channel has got my attention. Great info.

I have been wanting to get into B&W developing but was confused by the hundreds of developers to choose from. This video is great and answers all my questions.

What does developer 50+1 and 1+25 mean? For example, how many ml of water will be and how many ml of liquid solution. Please reply, thank you):

My 20+ year old HC-110 looks like mud but still works fine!

Are Bellini products any good? They claim to have liquid XTOL.

how long do you develp hc110 with tx400 for 120mm film? online it says 3.75 but that seems so short

Great presentation! Learned much; took copious notes. Very helpful. Thanks a bunch!

Technidol???

Delta 3200 is a 1000 ASA film meant to be able to be pushed well. Same as TMax p3200 which is 800 ASA.

TMax is NOT a one shot developer. Once diluted 1:4 from stock 1l can be used to develop 12 films. After ever 4th film you simply add 1 additional min to the time. It works!!

late to the party but dang thank u so much
not only this video also the rest of the series!!
huge help!
keep shooting :D

Looking at the prominent health warnings on the Ilford containers, it would be nice to have a video that outlines recommended methods for safe handling and disposal of the chemicals.

Why the f... is in literally EVERY film-photography video shitty lofi-hiphop-music? it's pure pain in my ears....

Hey. This was superb. Thanks!

Delta 3200 is actually an ISO 1,000 film if you check out the technical datasheet. The manufacturers' dev times are great, but I have found deeper blacks and really nice shadow detail when pushing 1 stop when shooting at ISO 3200. This film with DD-X is an absolute dream combination!

This was incredibly informative.

Great video. Thank you!

I've used XTOL since it was introduced. Very happy with it for conventional and T-grained films.

Awesome video. Thank you so much for making!

Thanks a lot for this video! Never had a more condensed sharp explanation comparing the strengths and weaknesses of developers.

I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to produce such an informative video. ✌

Neofin blau FP4 400ASA Neofin Rot HP5 1600ASA