Advantages of using dilute (1:1) film developer?

I've never known a press photographer who had 6 hours to spend developing film. I would have loved to see the look on an editor's face when I told him I couldn't make deadline because my film had to soak until morning.

Yes, deadlines and six hours of development are at odds. But then again, the local newspaper out in the countryside where I grew up only had four issues every week;)

speaking of press guys using tricks to get the shot...

I heard of a photographer at the scene of a fire...he took a few shots outside, then as he got closer to the building hew saw two firemen bringing an elderly man out of billowing smoke --- a perfect shot of a rescue

except his camera was still set for the daylight exposure...and his film was many stops underexposed...so after pushing the film as far as he could, he took the film out of the fixer prematurely & made the print...it worked, but the film was ruined after the exposure to light from the enlarger

When I knew I had underexposed my film despite pushing it to the limit with the developer I had on hand, I would take it from the developer and put it in a can of plain water for a few minutes to sit undisturbed before fixing. It seemed to bring up the darker areas in the negative a little bit while not burning out the highlights. It wasn't a perfect solution but nothing was ever perfect when working under deadline.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Uhner

I rarely use D76 nowadays. But I prefer the tonality 1+1 gives with efke films compared to using straight developer. Some users report that they get sharper grain when diluting D76, but I find very little, if any, difference myself.

However, after reading “Black and white photography” by Les McLean I did try D76 1+30 - a process that results in very sharp grain indeed...

---

I had completely forgotten about this little gem in his book. In fact I had to get it of the shelf just to be sure it was there. I apologize for having any doubts.

It would appear that DD/FF is the trad B&W film's answer to Ilford's chromogenic XP2+ where the film can be exposed at anything between EI 50 and EI 800 and still have usable negs with a common dev time.

It seems so incredible that I'd have like to have seen Les' prints from just such an experiment. Even if the neg isn't perfect, it would be worth a try if you could only get the "never to be repeated shot of a lifetime" at EI 1600 but didn't want to sacrifice the rest of the roll. all of which were shot at EI 400.

Les only mentions Tri-X. I wonder if the process is equally successful with HP5+ which is a similar trad film and finally what about the newer films like D400?

pentaxuser