Using Geoffrey Crawley's FX-1 film developer

    I have searched for some time to find information on using Geoffrey Crawley's FX-1 developer with modern films, but found little, so I put this together as a summary of my findings in the event that it might helps others. I will continue to update this document as I do more testing or if I uncover any more references to the use of this developer.

Formula¹

    I prefer to mix up the working strength directly and use it right then rather than keeping a couple of liters of solution on hand that might go bad before I have time to use it. If you prefer to use pre-mixed, the Photographer's Formulary² sell this as a pre-mixed kit for a reasonable price.

    Use about 500ml of very hot water to mix with, and then add room temperature water to make up the rest of the volume. I always use distilled water when possible and it seems to help to let the water stand for a bit so the oxygen can escape if you are mixing up the concentrate. The concentrate should keep well (~1 year) if stored in full bottles, but partly filled bottles may go bad more quickly so store it in multiple small bottles if you mix up the concentrate. Also, the carbonate solution can etch glass, so it should be stored in plastic rather than amber bottles.

Working Strength

Metol 0.5g
Sodium sulfite anhydrous 5g
Sodium carbonate anhydrous 2.5g
Potassium iodide %0.0001 5ml
water to 1 make liter

* use and discard – it will not keep any time at all.

Concentrate Strength

Part A
Metol 5g
Sodium sulfite anhydrous 50g
Potassium iodide %0.0001 50ml
water to make 1 liter

Part B
Sodium carbonate anhydrous 25g
water to make 1 liter

¹The Film Developing Cookbook by Stephen G. Anchell and Bill Troop (p.59-60)
²The Photographers Formulary (link)

Developing

    For all of these times I am doing 30 seconds of agitation initially and then four (4) gentle agitations each minute there after. By gentle agitations I mean one inversion taking ~1-2 seconds, rotating the can slightly for each inversion.

    My tests were not done with a densitometer, but by comparing the results with those obtained using my primary film and developer combination - FP4+ and Rodinal. If you require rigid control over your results I would strongly suggest making your own measurements. That said, I feel confident in saying that anyone should be able to obtain very good results using these values as a starting point.

    The amount of contrast in the negative will vary based on the lighting conditions at the time of exposure, so be aware that you may still need to make adjustments to both the exposure and the development time accordingly. For more information on this, please refer to the article titled “Expose for the Shadows – Develop for the Highlights” on this web site.

* An X in the table above designates a film that I will be testing soon, so check back later for my findings.

Further Reading

The Film Developing Cookbook by Stephen G. Anchell and Bill Troop (ISBN: 0240802772)

    This book covers how and why FX-1 does what it does, as well as provides some interesting options for altering the formula to get different results.

The British Journal of Photography Annual various years

    The formulary section in the back of these editions contains some information on FX-1, but many of them list older films that are not quite the same as the versions available today or that are outright unavailable outside ebay.