Kodak D76 Part 1 - Making and Using This Classic Developer 

It is good that someone is explaining what these film developers do to film. Keep up the good work.

What a coincidence--I just bought two bags of Kodak D-76. I used it exclusively in college (late '70s) and with Tri-X exclusively. Looking forward to some time with my old friend

Thank you, your videos are always giving me new information I need

In the mid70's I went on a college visit to Kodak in Liverpool and the D76 line was a row of ladies each with a spatula, a scale, and a pile of bags weighing out by hand and with no personal protection - not the high tech plant you might imagine. I went on to work for a freelance agency who's work was mainly football for the national papers, D 76 was the industry standard, HC 110 would push tri x to 1600 for extreme lighting conditions but had very high contrast and grain like golf balls. The lads at Thompson House could instantly read a neg and produce immaculate prints first go probably the best printers in the country - Happy Days!

Great video, thanks. I heat the water to 50°C, add D76 powder from the packet and use a milky coffee frother to whisk the mix. Takes about a minute and I get a nice clear liquid. I leave it for 24 hours. Works fine.

One of the reasons D-76 is a standard developer is that, in fact, for many years is was (maybe still is) a "standard". In the 1930s, the American Standards Association ( aka ASA) was tasked to set standards for film speed to establish a rating system in the US to compare speed of new films, which is where the ASA film speed rating came from. To do this, they made D-76 the standard developer for use in comparing all B&W films being assigned an ASA speed. I think that organization stopped doing this several decades ago, and the reference to film speed adopted the ISO (International Standards Organization) reference, although it seems to be the same rating standard. When I used D-76, I diluted stock 1:2 for use as a one-shot developer, which IMO made repeatable results much superior to saving used stock for further re-use and gives much sharper (if not smaller) grain structure.

Try D76 1:1 With Tri-X rated at 200 for 7 minutes & 30 seconds on 120 format results are especially sharp; great tonality, beautiful pure whites; printed on Ilford Multigrade fiber based paper 8 x 10, people refuse to believe the film is Tri-x; they have such wrong preconceptions of what the film can do exposed & processed this way.

Thanks John, I always look forward to your videos as they are full of helpful info.

Literally just gave a talk on basics of photochemistry, how to make D76 and what is what component, that all fine grained physical developers were based on this for the rest of the century then to say how 510 Pyro (and Pyrocat HD) throws this out of the window and then talking about photochemistry in the future at The Photography Show back on Saturday and Monday Ilford's top executives attended my talk :) Oh and I quoted you at it! 😀 your thoughts on the three pyro giants

I hope you had a great trip! Nice to see a new video! And also I'm really enjoying your book! When I first decided to try mixing my own chemicals, my original plan was to do D76H. But, I ended up opting for D23 and I have to say, though I'm not yet replenishing it (thouhg have thought about it since I've replenished Xtol before and now replenish XT-3) I have really loved the results so far! Super easy to mix too! Curious how D23 may end up comparing to D76 as I tend to hear various things about that. I found that with Fomapan 200 in 4x5 it gave me rather lovely results! Lately though I've been messing about with 510-Pyro and I quite like that too!

Having a Viewing Marathon since I discovered YOU John !! a Fellow 'Crawley Fan ! ' I make up my own D76/ID11 as you do and have found that increase in activity ---- Interestingly ILFORD time for HP5 in ID11 is DIFFERENT from D76 time -- I find in my 'Home-Made ID11 the 'Time' is better if I give the D76 time !

Really good one. Thank You.

Great channel

I was my second “DIY” D76 I mixed some days ago. I was really positively surprised by results I obtained with my favorite cheap Rollei RPX 100. Using stock concentration I obtained really nice tonality and surprisingly small grain. In parallel I prepared D76R - to keep my developer alive for longer time. What is your opinion about D76 replenishment?

Nice video, I am new to developing my own film, can I use D76 on all B&W film, and can I use any stop and fixer in the final stage, please?

have you experimented with ansco 17 which is a variant of d76 very curious about its performance

How does D76H (H76) compare to original D76?

Hi, When mixing developer I got small white hard particals in soliution. How to dissolve them?

could you please tell me how many developments i can do out of a 'batch' i just made 500 ml. and developed a roll of 120 came out nice.

Could you elaborate a bit more on the activity upon storage? Really curious to see what this means. I have been using D76 for a while now but what can i expect overtime when storing the negatives?

May i do for x ray of this formula?

Has anyone tried 120 Shanghai B&W film recently? I use their 4x5" film and like it. The reason I am asking is I want to order some 120 Shanghai to try but not if they still are having trouble with the backing. If you are not aware, a few years ago Shanghai had a problem with the ink on the paper backing that would transfer to the emulsion of the film while it was all rolled up. The ink of the words and numbers would soak in and not come out during development! In the final B&W prints, you could faintly read those words and numbers. Thank you. Terry Thomas... the photographer Atlanta, Georgia USA