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ith fx 4 looking between the chimneys one can see that the fx 4 has slightly more micro contrast and sharpness to the right of the chimneys the fx 4 has compensated a little tonality wise the fx 4 has better tonality to me the chimneys looking rounder because of the more subtle gradation however these differences are small in 120 film and in a 12 inch square print held at 10 inches it s not really apparent tip minimum advised viewing distance for a 12 inch square print is around 30 inches 76cm at this distance i see no discernible difference between fx 3 and fx 4 sharpness fx 4 is a reasonable sharp solvent developer but not an acutance developer i saw only very slight signs of acutance mackie lines it is a little sharper than fx 3 in fp4 120 film but again at normal viewing distances any difference would not be visible note due to the slower film speed given the fx 4 enlargement above needed a little more gain in the scanner this accounts for the speckles and lighter shadow areas grain and sharpness comparison with fx 2 fx 2 left fx 4 right sharpness compared with fx 2 the above comparison shows the fine grain of fx 4 compared to fx 2 the glycin acutance developer it also demonstrates the difference in sharpness fx 2 has a lot more micro detail and a clear mackie line along the top of the gate this only barely shows on the fx 4 negatives although the fx 4 is sharp it s nowhere near as sharp as fx 2 but at this stage of crawley s developer formulations he was still experimenting with obtaining acutance with solvent developers it would not be until fx 15 that he really obtained it film speed and pushing i measured the film speed for fp4 as 125 ei 1 3 stop better than d 76 which only gives me an ei100 with fp4 but having used this developer before i think it likes a little more exposure than that at least to get the best results for landscapes if you try it i suggest over exposing by halving box speed on the meter and reducing development to 6 minutes at 1 1 dilution because of this i don t think this would be a good candidate for pushing film i have never tried it so i could be wrong but i feel more active developers are better for under exposure and over development such as fx 3 fx 11 and fx 55 capacity fx 4 with fp4 plus 35mm 7 minutes ilford the developer has very good capacity when used as stock processing no less than 10 12 films per litre just add 5 to development time for every film after the first 35mm comparison 35mm fx 3 left 35mm fx 4 right grain and sharpness 35mm fx 3 and fx 4 i think this is one of the most telling example photographs developed with fx 4 the fx 3 on the left can be seen with that lovely high tone contrast chimney pot and more general contrast in the stonework but less refined gradation the fx 4 on the other hand has considerably more tonality and a little bit more sharpness grain is similar and quite controlled with both developers i looked at these scans for a long time and came to the conclusion that the sharpness and tonality of fx 4 with ilford fp4 plus 35mm is quite nice yes i could develop with fx 4 longer to increase contrast to be similar to fx 3 but i think the tonality would still be superior it s just a more realistic look to everything this is a sign i think of the synergy of phenidone and metol together crawley knew he was onto something conclusion i m very aware that i didn t like fx 4 when i first tried it many years ago this is unfortunate because it s not a bad developer but it just feels like it s not crawley s best having tested it thoroughly just after fx 3 and using some of the same shots from the lighthouse that i took that day it didn t really bring any more to my prints than fx 3 in some ways i actually preferred fx 3 for its brighter glowing highlights its punchier contrast it s this punchier contrast that fx 4 actually compensates out a little perhaps it ll be interesting to compare fx 4 to fx 15 and 18 but that s further down the line camera crawley film photography fx developers geoffrey crawley photography photography fx 1 crawley s first acutance developer july 6 2026 pictorial planet 2 comments introduction in the early 1900s the tool of the professional photographer was large format cameras such as 4 5 inch 7 5 inch and 10 8 inch the negatives were often contact printed directly onto paper this maintained good contrast tonality and negated any sign of grain but these cameras were big heavy and bulky ansel adams was famous for carrying his large format camera equipment on the back of a donkey apparently named mistletoe up the hills of yosemite everything was heavy not just the cameras but the big tripods the lenses and even back in the darkroom the enlargers photography was not something the average person could partake in easily photographers in those days tended to be professionals then came the much handier 120 sized film introduced in 1901 it was approximately 61 mm wide it made slow inroads into the photographic world and became particularly popular with press photographers and the new photographic amateurs who saw it as a way into this interesting hobby 120 was a wonderful size because of its light weight portability with smaller cameras and its multiple frames on one film ability on a single roll of film you could make several photographs this was a huge jump in usability the booming film industry was of course using black and white film too cinematographers and directors were happy using 70 mm wide film strips in the late 1800 s but then by the 1900s they too started looking for a more portable and cost saving format in 1909 they chose a new film size of 35 mm the size was easy to come by 70mm movie film could be sliced down the middle and stuck it together therefore doubling the film length and halving the cost per minute for movie makers perforations were made on both edges of the film to allow easy projection for 35mm stills photography photographers had been using various cameras since 1905 but leitz started making their famous leica cameras in 1925 and released the first ever system camera the leica 2 interchangeable lens system in 1932 this was another breakthrough in usefulness small portable cameras with easily changed lenses but by far most photographers used large format with a few medium format the popularity of 35mm must have started to grow though because kodak decided in 1934 to release their first 35mm film to the public what they called the miniature 135 size film d 76 was recommended as the developer of choice probably because this was the kodak developer used by the 35mm film industry d 76 was a good developer which minimised grain whilst maintaining decent film speed many companies made variants of d 76 for their film development and it became the de facto standard the problem but film manufacturing companies such as ilford kodak and adox had realised there was a problem they saw that when they coated the small 35mm film with the same photographic emulsions used on their large or medium format films print enlargements were grainy and sharpness was poor this lack of sharpness and contrast was due to the bigger enlargement requirements of such a small format the lack of sharpness and contrast was compounded by photographers using the recommended fine grain solvent developers such as d 76 d 23 and d 25 all these developers were good at reducing the natural grain of the film but lacked sharpness and especially lacked fine detail when the 35mm negative was enlarged fine detail was rendered poorly the only way it seemed to get sharp impactful detailed prints was to use large format negatives and therefore low enlargement or no enlargement at all by contact printing emulsions improve in sharpness however emulsions were slowly improving with the growing popularity of 35mm photography especially after ww2 new updated film emulsions had to be designed with the smaller negative and bigger enlargement factors in mind the emulsion designers did good work and not only managed to reduce grain in new films but also reduced emulsion thickness and added more silver creating what crawley called compact emulsions meaning thin and high in silver halide content this helped to improve the sharpness of the negatives and of enlargements the thinner emulsion creating less diffusion of light passing through it and the rich silver content creating bolder contrast lines when enlarged and improved tonality ilford was one of the first companies to manufacture thinner sharper emulsions with their panf and adox too was doing the same in the 1950 s but as far as film developers were concerned there were few designed for the small called miniature format the 1930 s beutler developer stood out it is said it was designed for 35mm film and many serious 35mm photographers started using it it was a sharper compensating developer than the solvent types crawley s research by the early 1960 s geoffrey crawley started publishing his research on developer formulation and intrinsic sharpness and how the impact of 35mm negative enlargements could be improved crawley used four terms in his writing acutance a scientifically measurable quantity directly correlating to the measurement of density gradients resolving power how well a lens film or developer or all three reveals detail it s something you can actually scientifically measure with a resolution chart sharpness crawley said sharpness is a perception and is typically assessed from a normal viewing distance relative to image size at the micro level it can be measured by acutance crawley said when acutance is high sharpness is good definition unlike sharpness which is judged at normal viewing distance definition is judged up close to the photograph it is a measure of how clearly fine details can be seen crawley said when the acutance with which fine detail is rendered is high then definition will be pronounced good we might notice something about the way these four attributes can combine that is the sharpness of the photograph might be good at a normal viewing distance even if the resolution is poor i e there s little or no fine detail this is because acutance can improve sharpness on a macro level even if there is no detail on a micro level due to a poorer lens for instance crawley thought that developer formulators up to that point had mostly been concentrating on what he called the grain speed interlock minimising grain whilst maintaining good film speed he decided that a third attribute of the negative should be taken into account acutance he formulated and judged his own developers with the grain speed acutance interlock in mind it was clear to crawley that by increasing acutance there was an increase in grain as compared to d 76 but he also noticed a psychological effect grain this psychological effect is important to photographers what crawley found was that if definition is good i e there is good fine detail rendered by the lens and acutance is high because of the developer then the increase in grain is masked by that detail cave and pebbles fx 1 with fp4 plus 120 square format take a look at any photograph that shows a lot of detail you won t see much perceivable grain in that image now take a look at either a large out of focus area or an expanse of plain sky you will now see grain because the brain is not giving its attention to detail anymore as crawley stated the grain in a sharp image is much less obtrusive than in a soft image in every photographically produced picture there are really two images the intended image of the subject and a secondary grain image if attention is riveted to the primary image of the subject the less the grain image obtrudes crawley knew then that increased grain was not such an issue as previously thought grain of photograph above at 100 enlargement note the acutance mackie line between the edge of the pebbles and the sea my first use of crawley developers in those days in the early 70 s i had never heard of geoffrey crawley or read his writing from the early 60 s some ten years before but even as such a young photographer i could clearly see this effect in my own work i had started developing in my father s d23 replenished and for many years was perfectly happy with the results when i had a good lens i felt my photographs were sharp although i did realise that detail seemed to be lacking this lack of detail was unsatisfactory to me then someone told me to try crawley s acutol it was sold by a company called paterson what difference would a developer make i thought but it did acutol actually made a huge difference i was amazed at the detail and sharpness of the results what i thought had been sharp photographs were not acutol took sharpness to a new level what was it that made such a difference what was so special about this developer the answer was simple enough the new developer was an acutance developer and acutance now became my new best friend this was how many people became aware of crawley s work with developers acutol and the paterson acu range of chemistry and so crawley became famous for his acutance developers he also released formulas for solvent developers which i ll cover later and even a monobath but his initial fame came from fx 1 and his other fx developers and fx 1 was his high acutance and sharpness first formula let s take a look at it fx 1 formula i start by showing the working solution concentrate shown below fx 1 working solution chemical amount use metol 0 5g developing agent sodium sulphite 5g preservative sodium carbonate anhyd 2 5g accelerator potassium iodide 0 001 soln 5ml homeopathic amount of restrainer water to make 1 ltr best used with slow to medium speed films for starting development times try 12 minutes and adjust from there use best technique for making the sharpest possible photographs any poor technique might be amplified by this sharp developer notes on formulation crawley followed willi beutler s idea that in order to get good acutance one needed a strong alkali up to this point many common film developers such as the ubiquitous d 76 used borax ph 9 2 as the accelerator this is relatively mildly alkaline and delivers a slow steady controlled development of the film allowing more control over the developing highlights sodium carbonate ph 11 5 used in this formula is much more alkaline it s normally used in paper developers where development speed is quick and where we develop towards completion it is a contrasty accelerator that can easily blow out highlights with metol used with a normal amount of metol the strong alkalinity of sodium carbonate would provide too much energy to metol and the negative highlights would quickly burn out even before the shadow development was complete this is seen in the beutler formula where contrast could be an issue crawley says that photographers of the time knew beutler was too contrasty and chose to half the amount of sodium carbonate he chose to do the same in fx 1 developing agent reduction but crawley...