Different film developers are such an endgame optimization. People vastly overestimate the difference some other developer will make to your negatives. Especially when it comes to any of the major brands and their major developers. Having said that, I think this is one of those things that most of film photographers will never give up on, trying to find the BEST developer and hoping for some mind blowing results. Most likely this will never happen, but still, it is fun to dream, and fun to try new things.
One of the major reasons why you won’t see any major differences between developers is because they are all made of pretty much the same stuff. Metol and Hydroquinone, or Phenidone and Hydroquinone. These two categories are called MQ and PQ developers, which most developers belong to. Anecdotally, MQ developers give slightly finer grain and PQ developers slightly higher effective film speed. But even here, the differences are quite small. There is a third category of developers that use more exotic developing agents like Xtol and Rodinal, but that’s a topic for another day.
FX-39 II seems to be a pretty classic MQ developer (looking at the MSDS, even though I have read conflicting information online), based on Neofin Red, improved by Geoffrey Crawley and sold by Paterson, and then version two is by Adox’ own chemists who improved keeping properties. I would say it is something akin to a liquid version of D76. It has no serious downsides, it is a great allround developer, works for many scenarios and gives good results with every film I have tried.
Images are sharp, less grain than Rodinal (but still quite grainy), and no difference between traditional (cubic) and tabular grain films even though it is said to be designed for modern tabular grain films. A big upside is that it seems to work very well with expired films, I noticed that base fog was very low when I tested some 40 year old Tri-X. The difference between FX-39 and Rodinal when it came to this test was huge, Rodinal is just not a good developer for expired films, but FX-39 was even better than Xtol which was surprising to me.
For beginners and people who don’t develop that much, this is also a good choice due to it being a liquid one-shot developer with easy mixing at 1+9. The shelf life of an opened bottle is over 6 months but less than 12, in my own experience. But this of course varies, depending on if you use Protectan, have a cold room, etc. Adox sells this in tiny 100ml bottles for just a few bucks, so another good reason to use FX-39 for people who develop very small number of films.
What I have not tested is pushing film with this developer. I have a feeling though that this is not the best developer for it, considering that Adox says that it is “Especially good for films up to 200 ASA.” Phrases like this usually means that it is unsuitable for pushing, even though I would guess it works fine for a +1 push, which Adox also alludes to by saying “It’s possible to double the films’ ISO by adjusting the development times”. Doubling the ISO would mean one stop.
Here’s some example images:
Agfa APX100 (Not AgfaPhoto), 120, 1+9 12min 20c
Ilford FP4+, 120, 1+19, 15min 20c
Ilford FP4+, 120, 1+19, 15min 20c
Efke 100, 120, 1+14 11min 20c
To sum things up, I highly recommend this developer for general purpose photography with modern or traditional films. For beginners and advanced users alike. I would probably not go with FX-39 if you did a lot of pushing, low light scenarios. And it is probably not a great choice for Tmax3200/Delta3200 either. I’m glad Adox decided to bring this developer back from the dead!
Let me know in the comments what you think, that’s it for today.