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!