I am about to develop some 120 rolls of Delta 400 and was wondering if I could get some recommendations concerning development time/temp for the finest grain. Also would appreciate fixing times and if stop bath is recommended. Finally, I thought I read somewhere that Illford didn't recomment pre-whetting the film but I would like to hear what you think about this. Regards, Anthony

-- anthony (acordasco@hillsborough.k12.nj.us), January 29, 2001

Answers

Greetings,

I routinely use Delta 100 in XTOL and have used Delta 400 once or twice. I used Kodak's recommended times for 400 in a rotary processor and the negs came out fine. I never bothered to experiment and test this combo, because I don't use it often. A prewet is not recommended with XTOL in a rotary processor, presumably because as a new developer it has been tested in this configuration and factored in on Kodak's published charts. Notice their processing times are different for rotary processing and hand inversion. As for grain, it is what it is. To get different grain characteristcs, you're better off trying another developer, though XTOL will offer very good grain/sharpness characteristics.

Regards,

-- Pete Caluori (pcaluori@hotmail.com), January 29, 2001.

XTOL is a very good match for this film. Sharpness and gradation get better while grain becomes more pronounced when you dilute it. Using XTOL straight will give the finest grain, lowest sharpness and highest contrast. I prefer it 1:2 and have found no reason to pre-soak.

I generally use three changes of water in the course of a 2:00 water stop. Delta isn't quite as hard on fixer as T-Max films. I use around four minutes with a rapid fix.

Good luck.

-- Brian Hinther (BrianH@sd314.k12.id.us), January 29, 2001.

First of all, D-76/ID-11 1:1 would probably give you visibly finer grain than Xtol...but you'll still get rather fine grain with Xtol. Although I can't give you a development time I'd suggest using Xtol at 1:1 at least; full-strength Xtol gives the lowest EI and acutance.

Use standard stop, 30 seconds or so.

Fix in film-strength (1:3 or 1:4 depending on brand) rapid fixer three to six minutes depending on temperature with continuous agitation. Most fix problems with t-grain type films are caused by a combination of insufficient time and insufficient agitation.

After the fix, bathe the film in an HCA for a couple of minutes. You can use either the store-bought stuff or make your own by mixing 20g sodium sulfite and 5g sodium bisulfite in a liter of water. Although you don't _have_ to use an HCA, it'll clear the dyes and you won't have magenta negs which people keep howling and panicking about.

Wash 20-30 minutes.

As for a prewet, Ilford generally recommends against it because their films incorporate a wetting agent in the emulsion and since a prewet may remove this wetting agent unevenly, uneven development may result. So don't do it unless a problem appears that may be solved by using a brief prewet.

If you're using rotary processing, that problem may appear as airbells that aren't dislodged; in that case go ahead and use a prewet of about one minute. There's no need to prewet any longer than that.

BTW, before you get too deep into testing Delta 400, there's a new version coming onto the market that's expected to be rather different than the current/old version.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), January 29, 2001.

Greetings,

You can find some info on Tmax (similar to Delta) and XTOL here: http://members.home.net/hmpi/Misc/TMY/tmy.htm

Regards

-- Pete Caluori (pcaluori@hotmail.com), January 31, 2001.