Response to Overly grainy negatives. Help. What happened?

Gabe:

There are a few possibilities. Of course the first thing to ask is, Are you absolutely sure you mixed the HC110 correctly? We all can, and probably have, make mistakes there. Did you dilute it 1+7 from stock or did you mistakenly dilute it 1+7 from concentrate? Another possibility is reticulation from excessive changes in temp or pH. Did you use an acid stop bath and, if so, was it diluted properly? Were there any possibilities of drastic changes in the temp of the wash water? In some homes, flushing the toilet can take all of the cold water. These are some of the more common errors that can occur.

Next, do you have much experience using HC110? Was this your first try at it? HC110 is not known as a fine-grain developer. Many people who love D76 find HC110 objectionably grainy, especially for 35mm films. You might find it useful to shoot 2 test rolls of HP5 (exact same subject in exact same conditions), develop one in HC110 and the other in D76, and see which works better.

Just a few ideas.

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