I had a test roll of Tri-x left over from doing film speed tests and I decided to run a little experiment on it. I have read in the past somewhere that someone had developed film in D-76 and had got some interesting results. What I did was mix 4 fluid ounces of X-tol with 4 ounces of d-76 and 8 ounces of H2O all at 70 degrees. I then developed the roll for 14.5 minutes. I used a small 1 reel Nikkor tank so obviousely I had about half of the developer mixture leftover to try out again later. Results where pretty cool. Plenty of contrast and nice grain, not fine grain by any means, almost like a blend of medium grain and coarse grain. Overall there is a little bit of an otherworldly, ghostlike feel to the prints; especially when blown up quite a bit. It will be fun trying to find some good subjects to try this technique on. Any ideas? I thought some natural still lifes, or portraits would be a good place to start.

-- Justin Fullmer (provo.jfullmer@state.ut.us), July 13, 2001

Answers

Are you surprised that someone has developed film in D-76? I believe it's been a standard film developer for a good many years. As far as what happens when you add some X-tol, I've not tried that.

-- Keith Nichols (knichols1@mindspring.com), July 13, 2001.

Sorry!! I meant Decktol and not D-76!

-- Justin Fullmer (provo.jfullmer@state.ut.us), July 13, 2001.

Dektol, D-72, contains metol and hydroquinone as developing agents, and Xtol ascorbic acid and maybe phenidone (?) Not sure there. Why don't you try to mix a little ascorbic acid in an ordinary film developer as D-76 and see the result?

-- Patric (jenspatric@mail.bip.net), July 14, 2001.

Vit-C acts very much like hydroquinone in most developers. I believe it is especially superadditive with phenidone and moderately so with metol. As such, it can produce excessive contrast with film, and it induces arial fog unless potassium bromide (a must with phenidone) or some other restainer is used. That might account for the "otherworldly" look Justin experienced.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), July 14, 2001.