Topic: Grain, contrast for street photography

[Faintandfuzzy]

Morning all.  Looking for some opinions here.  I'm curious what film developer combo you would use for big, soft, rather mushy grain.  I'm trying to avoid sharp, defined grain.  I was thinking of HP5 at 3200 or so.  I normally use Microphen...but thought I'd see what you folks recommend.

[Francois]

If what you call big fat mushy grain is a bit like the old skool punk photography of the 70's (think sex pistols era), then the recipe is HP5 at EI1600-3200 and developed for about 3 minutes in Ilford PQ Universal. The recipe is similar for Tri-X in Dektol for about the same amount of time. The rule of thumb for using paper developer is to develop for the same time as FB paper.

[Faintandfuzzy]

I haven't tried that.  I'll give it a try.

[Blaxton]

I should think that pushing any 400 speed film to 1600 or so with Rodinal, would give the look.

[Francois]

I haven't tried that.  I'll give it a try.

And the results are even more contrasty when printed on grade 5 paper. With such a recipe, you can almost count the individual grains but eye on an 8x10 print!

[Faintandfuzzy]

Francois, what dilution did you use? 1:19, 1:29, or something different?

[Francois]

For PQ, that would be 1+9...
But with such a process, precision is not very important. If the dilution is good enough for paper, it's good enough for film.

Don't forget that it will develop pretty much every grain of silver that has received a bit of light. So expect a very short tonal range.
It's the type of stuff that's great for dull rainy days and nights.

[Faintandfuzzy]

Perfect.  Thanks.  I'll post some results when I get out with the camera.