I recently wanted to pull some 400ASA film (mixture of HP5+ and Delta400) a couple of stops. The problem with pull development is that manipulations with a standard developer (eg D76 and using shorter dev. times) does more to decrease gamma rather than the real speed of the film.(posted 8457 days ago)I tried Agfa's Atomal FF developer, as this was recommended to me, but with less than positive results. Grain and sharpness we not significantly better than these films would produce with dev to normal speeds (at least to my eye, though others may have a different opinion), and certainly no where near as good as Delta 100 or FP4+.
Does anyone have an opinion or comment on ways to get decent negs (ie normal contrast, say 0.55 or 0.6, and withoug destroying sharpness) when pulling a film by up to 2 stops, and any comments on the Atomal FF developer? Are there any home brews that are good for pull development?
Thanks
George