Black developer!?

I have gone back to using 35mm film, in so doing I have resurrected an old and long running project of portraits. I have never been backward in coming forward to ask people I meet if I can take their picture. When asking my chosen subject I'm polite and friendly with a little charm. It is not often that I receive a straight rejection. I've noticed that it tends to stop people for a moment, at which point I tell them it's a film camera. It appears that this is a reason for them to say yes when chatting with them.

This new interest in lugging my Nikon F5 around with me has also reunited me with a long time favorite film Agfa APX 100. I cannot remember exactly the last time I used this film but I do know it was back in the days when I regularly used ether ID11 or PMK Pyro. I still have both these developers on the shelf in powder form. Which led to a bit of a  dilemma once the new roll of
APX was ready for developing. Should I make up a new batch of these old friends to keep the look of the negatives the same or go with the current ones???.

                                                        

I chose to go with RO9 partly because I wanted to see what sort of negative it would produce with the APX.                                                                      

Agfa APX  negatives developed with
RO9 special.

Before starting I made up a litre of fresh stop, fix and 300 mls of developer. I processed the film for the suggested thirteen minutes. The time counted down, as I poured out the developer, I was shocked to see this black liquid fill the measuring cylinder what the Hell! My first thought was that all the emulsion had come off, stupid I know but it always interests me what thoughts come into your head when things take you unaware. Needless to say that when I looked at the negs after they were fixed, all was OK. The negatives are nicely toned. I am not sure yet how grainy they are as Ro9 tend to be more grain than ID11.

It's just another colour to add to an increasing list of used developers.

How well will RO9 Special/ Studional perform a month on from dilution.

Nikkormat FT2 camera

 The developer has been diluted for two months, it's time to see if there has been any degradation of the solution over those months. It was not my intention to put the developer on the spot by using an out of date film and then to pick a make of film that I find difficult to get good results with but the die had been cast by the fact that a film had been loaded into my FT3 some time ago and then promptly forgotten about.

 

Developer  has changed colour

So what happened? To start with as I poured the developer into the graduate it was a gorgeous turquoise in colour. This is the second time I have used this batch of Studional so I have not a clue what this colour represents, it was clear when it was fresh. For all I know this could mean that it is dead and buried and the best thing to do is pour it away. RIP. I carried on anyway no point stopping now. I need to know what the colour represents. Good or bad?

 

This batch of developer had been diluted 1+15 but according to the data sheet it should be 1+30 for Fomapan 200 processed for 12 minutes plus 20% increase for the age, as the table indicates. Seeing as I have not taken any notice of the indications this will not work I throw caution completely to the wind and cut the development time in half and add 20% which I ignored developing for eight minutes. What the hell!

 

Contact print Fomapan 200.

So what did you think happened? Well! Yes, you are wrong. I am astounded these are some of the best negatives I have made with Fomapan 200 they are crisp and punchy or should I say they have a very good tonal separation, producing some rich blacks as the photographs that illustrate this post show.

8 X 10 print on  Ilford RC gloss

I should throw caution to the wind more often if the results are going to come good like this!