Does anyone have starter times for FP4+ exposed at 100? Ilford's recommended nine minutes in HC-110 seems a little on the long side.

-- Erik Asgeirsson (erik@erikcellist.com), December 20, 2001

Answers

Which dilution?

-- Dave Brown (wolfgang@peakpeak.com), December 20, 2001.

Dillution B.

-- Erik Asgeirsson (erik@erikcellist.com), December 20, 2001.

At EI 100 I run FP4+ 14:00 in ID11 1+3, 68 degrees, in a rotary drum. My preference with FP4+ is EI 80 and 13:00 at the same conditions.

-- Dave Schneider (dschneider@arjaynet.com), December 20, 2001.

You need to test for development time. See Ansel's book on the negative or Pickers book, or various others available on Zone system. Development times will vary with your equipment as well as the water, temp, etc. you use.

-- Jay wolfe (bigbad810@hotmail.com), December 20, 2001.

I would second Jay's post, we can get a workable neg by using other's times, but the optimum neg is one calibrated to our equipment. Pat

-- pat krentz (patwandakrentz@aol.com), December 21, 2001.

I've found FP4+/HC110 to be a poor combination. Contrast is high and 'hair-trigger' in response to time/temp changes. D-76 or the Ilford equivalent ID-11 is a better choice. If for some reason you must use HC110, dilute it significantly more than the normal "B" (1:31) to smooth out the results. PMK is a great choice for FP4+ if you're willing to put up with the extra trouble of a pyro developer. As others have said, you'll have to find your own time no matter what soup you choose.---Carl

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-- Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net), December 21, 2001.

Carl, is your low opinion of FP4+/HC100 due to image qualities or the touchy response of time, temp., variables? I'm currently testing fp4+ with a number of developers and HC110 is one I plan to test. For the past year I have been shooting Tri-X/HC-110 and I prefer 1:19 over dil. B because it gives me more development 'latitude', which probably has to do with using a condensor enlarger.

-- Andy (akkup@mindspring.com), December 22, 2001.

Andy,

both: I get poor shadow detail with the FP4/HC110 combination, which leads to more exposure which leads to overly dense highlights so you pull the development and get even worse shadow detail, etc, etc. It just doesn't seem to be a good match because the film can perform nicely in other soups. I use PMK with it to get negatives that print well in either silver or Pt/Pd.

-- Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net), December 22, 2001.