Thanks Chris,(posted 9497 days ago)As yet I haven't got a definite answer, I tried 1600 at the time for 400 (14 min), with little or no improvement. I have also been in touch with Ilford UK who suggested that the web info was controlled by the US division and was therefore geared to that market (not sure what difference that should make tho, can you or anyone else enlighten me?). They did send me their latest processing guide, which has different times again for some combinations (e.g. Neo 400 in ID-11 1+1 for 9:30 as against 14 min in the Ilford .pdf I downloaded - no wonder it looked cooked !)
The 1600 time is unchanged at 10 min, but it does give a time for 'straight' 1600 in Microphen so I'll give that a go. Incidentally, some of these times are different again to those in the Fuji docs, I don't know who to believe !
I've never used Xtol, but if I can get hold of some I'll try it, I've just got the info of the Kodak site. The films in question are concert shots, where the lighting is less than ideal, but I used to use TMAX dev for Neopan and that worked OK, just looked a little grainy (and was expensive) so I wanted to try a more 'generic' dev. I've just done another gig with HP5, rated at 1600, dev in Microphen and they're OK so perhaps I'll switch films. I'm also going to do a daylight test shoot with Neo 1600 & dev in ID-11 at various times to see what happens, I'll let you know.
Thanks for your time & trouble.
Simon Foster, UK