Last week I discovered several rolls of HP5+ and Tri-X that I had forgotten to develop. Not only had I forgotten to develop them but I also could not remember what speed I had shot them at. Yes, I know, I should have marked on them what speed they were shot at. Lesson learned. Since I normally push my films I was pretty certain they were all shot at the very least ASA 800 but there was a slight chance that some of them were at ASA 1600. However, I didn’t have a clue which ones would be what and really didn’t want to assume the speed of any given film. I wasn’t sure how to process them and still have usable negatives. And then it clicked! I’ll do a stand develop on them, that should be the safest way to do them all.
So now that I had decided on the process to use I needed to decide on the developer. I know Rodinal is the most used developer used for stand developing, and I have have that readily available. Yet, I don’t like using it for faster films like the ones I have to develop because they get a bit too grainy for me. I also have Ilfotec DD-X but it is not recommended for stand developing which left me with HC-110. I did a quick DuckDuckGo search on how to stand dev with HC-110 and figured I’d give it a try. What did I have to lose?
The recipe is quite simple, actually, and will probably be the one I use for all of my stand developing needs.
- Presoak the film for 5 minutes in water at 68 degrees
- Mix 6mL HC-110 syrup with 714ml water at 68 degrees (720mL working solution)
- Gentle agitation for the first 30 seconds and then let it set for 30 minutes
- At 30 minutes give the tank 4 gentle inversions the let it set for an add’l 30 minutes
- Stop, fix and wash as normal
- Hang to dry
Nothing could be more simple. Below are two samples of the resulting process. It’s nice to know there is a process I can use for those times I screw up and don’t record things as I should. This process sure saved me this time.
Happy shooting!
Negative Development 
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