which developer for a lot of small grain?

<p>Hi, <br>

I generally push trix to 1600 a lot, mainly with xtol and tmax dev. Good results.<br>

But right now i'm looking for more grain.<br>

So i thought Rodinal. Not really what I want. The grain seems to get a lot bigger. I don't want that. I want small grain, but a lot of it. <br>

What would you recommend for trix 1600?<br>

Thanks,</p>

<p>Francesco<br>

</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Acufine 6 minutes 20C do a 3 minute pre-soak first.</p>

<p>with 35mm trix i seem to get a little more grain using Ilfosol-3 (compared to d76, hc110,etc).</p>

<p>Try D-76 1:1. That eliminates the solvent effect of the Sodium Sulfite in the D-76 full-strength.<br>

To use the Kodak times, that's 8 ounces of D-76, and 8 ounces of water, to process one roll. (If you use 4 and 4, add 10% to the Kodak times.)<br>

You may also get similar effects diluting XTOL, but you'll need to look at old versions of the Kodak data sheets, before they removed the 1:1 and 1:3 times. (When XTOL suffered "sudden failure", the diluted versions were much more likely to fail.)</p>

<p>Judging from Larry's results, which I've seen on Flickr, his recommendation for Acufine may be the ticket for lots of highly visible but small grain. I'm tempted to try it myself.</p>

<p>D-76 and ID-11 don't seem to produce significant grain in pushed Tri-X at 1+1 for me. And while the 1+3 dilution should produce more acutance and visible grain, it may also be less suitable for pushing Tri-X. I switched from D-76 and ID-11 to Microphen years ago for pushing Tri-X and other films. </p>

<p>Microphen will produce more visible grain but not of the particular aesthetic quality I've seen in Larry's examples using Acufine. It's distinctly different from Diafine which tends to produce fluffy, lumpy grain and low to moderate contrast with many films.</p>

<p>Thanks for the Plug Lex.</p>