HP5+@3200 developed in EXG1, taken with XD11, 50mm f/1.4

EXG1 For Pushing HP5+ to 3200

Ashley <3 February 18, 2020

I recently developed some HP5+ shot at 3200 in EXG1. I was actually quite concerned as to what developer to use for this extreme of a push. The film had been sitting in my fridge for months due to my indecision. Finally after testing out EXG1 a lot, I decided to proceed with using it for developing these two rolls of 35mm film. I developed it for 24m and the temperature was ~71F. Normal agitation per minute was used. Overall results are great. As expected there is quite a bit of missing shadow detail that comes with pushing HP5+ this far, but the actual contrast and tonality is great, and the grain is obvious but not ugly. Anyway, enjoy a few of my favorites

More EXG1 Results

Ashley <3 February 6, 2020

So I’ve now used EXG1 with a stock pile of well preserved but ancient Kodak Plus-X (expiration 1966) that came out with excellent results. I wouldn’t really say it’s an ideal developer for this fogged film due to quite a bit of grain, but I do really enjoy the tonality of it, and the grain isn’t too bad since I’m using it in 6x4.5 format.

The Plus-X was developed at 70F for 8m30s. Overall density seemed like it could’ve used just a slight bit less time, and there was some base fogging naturally from the age of the film. However, the base fog was about comparable to a test roll that was processed in D-76.

Flat (no burn/dodge) 8x8” print on Ilford MGV

Now finally, I also made my first prints from EXG1 processed film. The film used was FP4+ in 35mm processed for 11m in EXG1. Overall wasn’t too difficult to print, but I did have to burn in the sky quite a bit in the high contrast scene on the final print (which I neglected to scan before framing). I used Ilford MGV RC paper developed in Ansco 130 and exposed at f/8 11s with contrast grade 2 filtration.

Anyway, so the developer could use a bit more highlight compensation, but other than some clipped highlights I had no problem translating the film onto paper for darkroom printing. It definitely is quite grainy for 35mm FP4+ at box speed, but I tend to like grain anyway and especially like the tonality here. It can be a bit contrasty for portraits, but is great for my other work.

EXG1 for pushing film

Ashley <3 January 4, 2020

I developed some more film, including test strips and actual film, in EXG1. This time I was aimed primarily at pushing HP5+ to 1600 or 3200, but included in it test strips of several other films. Overall conclusion is that this is a great developer for pushing. It gives what I’d refer to as “honest” grain. ie, extending development time significantly doesn’t seem to really make the grain bigger, though it might be more obvious just due to contrast differences. It’s definitely not fine grain, especially when pushing. The tonality though is what I really like. It behaves somewhat like an extreme compensating developer while still giving normal-high contrast midtones.

January 11, 2022

Happy New Year! - A newsletter from Grainy Vision

Hi everyone and happy new year! The last email was… (checks notes) almost 2 years ago, but I figured it’s time to break the silence on the newsletter front. There’s been a great number of things done and written about since the previous email, so I’ll only cover the most interesting and the most recent.

December 16, 2021

GVL1 - Long Lasting Warmtone PQ Print Developer

Today I’m introducing an unexpectedly successful developer. I mixed this up just kind of guessing at ratios and just wanting to see what a dilute PQ print developer could do. The actual end result is a formula somewhat reminiscent of ID-78, a warmtone print developer formula created by Ilford, but with notable differences. The end result is a developer with a surprisingly good shelf life, tray life and contrast consistency across its life span. It also is a fairly unique developer producing warmtones which are resistant to going olive colored, instead it will go toward brown tones.

December 15, 2021

GVM1 - A unique film developer for pushing, portraits, and landscapes

Lately I’ve been doing more regular darkroom printing and this has left me in a bit of a slump. Although I love many of the developer formulations I’ve made, they’ve often not been designed explicitly for darkroom printing. EXG1/GVG1 would produce excellent negatives with increased speed, fine grain, etc… but in the darkroom it was often very difficult to get everything on the negative onto the paper without resorting to lith printing. This problem was only slightly improved with GVK1. GVK6 (yet to be published) has significantly improved this problem, but these developers also reflected the time in my life at which they were formulated. I was doing almost exclusively lith printing and with early ModernLith formulations I needed extended scale and moderately high contrast negatives… So GVK1 specifically was formulated with this aim. EXG1 was formulated when my main priority was getting the best scannable negative, which also benefits from a long density range. And now, I’m doing regular darkroom printing a lot, so it calls for a developer with a new aim.

GVM1 is recommended for:

Extremely smoothed portraits of light skinned people in controlled light
High contrast landscape scenes
Pushing film to use it at increased speed without greatly increasing contrast
Taming the contrast of very high contrast materials
Getting all of the image detail onto a print in the darkroom without great difficulty

EXG1 For Pushing HP5+ to 3200

More EXG1 Results

EXG1 for pushing film

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