I'm about to commence City & Guilds Art of Black & White Photography (British Adult Education) and would be interested to know of film and developer combinations that are commonly used. What effects do these different combinations have?

I currently use HP5 and FP4 and use Ilfosol S. This combination works nicely with HP5, but the results with FP4 are variable and usually require more work at the printing stage.

Many Thanks for taking the time to read and respond!

Andrew

-- Andrew Buckley (da_buckley@yahoo.com), May 21, 2001

Answers

Andrew,

For the FP4, Try Ilford developer ID11.

Greg

-- Greg Rust (kgeicrusr@aol.com), May 21, 2001.

Andrew,

I use HP5 and FP4 both in D-76, generally 1:3 (66 degrees F.) for normal and moderate compensation times. The interesting thing I've found is that the two films seem to require nearly identical processing times, so when I tank or batch process (Jobo), they can go in together.

This combination affords me predictable control of highlight densities, good separation, and moderate grain. The two films print in a similar fashion. Of course the FP4 is a tad sharper, with finer grain, but hardly noticable from "viewing distance". Hope this helps!

Chris

-- Chris (gazebophoto@hotmail.com), May 30, 2001.

I've been using TMX, TMY and TX in T-Max developer for 2 years. T-max films give very good sharpness. Especially TMX (if you have enough light). You can enlarge it to 20cm X 30cm (12 in. X 8 in) before the grain becomes visible. I don't like pushing them, beacouse you loose to much shadow detail, and I like to have it. TX gives a bigger grain (which sometimes is nice) and a lower contrast. It is also easier to print... and cheaper.

-- Martin Crovetto (mcrove@yahoo.com.ar), June 19, 2001.