Bad Moon Wine 3

Such detail and texture! Damn. I've never been able to get this with FP4+. Heck. I don't even get this with PanF. I'm assuming Diafine is supposed decrease grain? Thus "fine." Makes me realize how far I have to go.

Lex, these results are really impressive. I've always been a big fan of FP4 over Plus-X due to the fact that I've always liked the tones offered by FP4. These photos are just a reinforcer for me of that preference. The detail is just killer! Were you keeping the developing time closer to three minute end of the spectrum? Or does the time not matter (referring to your statement that the processing does not vary)? Very impressive results indeed.

Sorry for the inadvertent disappearance of my earlier replies to comments here - most of my photo.net portfolio comments vanished inexplicably in a system glitch a few years ago.

 

Diafine isn't a particularly fine grain developer but for photos like this you'd never notice - the grain is visible only in large expanses of midtones, such as gray skies or skin.

 

Part of the impression of high sharpness is due to the light and shadow here.  It's a very dramatic effect.  But almost any reasonable combination of film, exposure, developer and developing technique would produce a comparable effect.  I got similar results from my moonlit photos with Tri-X, T-Max 100 and 400, Delta 100 and 400, and various developers - Diafine, Rodinal, Microphen, others.  When the light is right and the exposure is close without reciprocity failure, the recording medium doesn't matter so much.