Adox XT3 Performance in 1L Packaging

MattKing said:

How many are willing to pay that two USD amount per roll?
Is there enough of a market at that price for it to make business sense for the various suppliers - trading into the markets they trade into - to market that product?
I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that @pentaxuser is not within that willing-to-pay group.
Just as there are customers who would prefer X-Tol in larger than 5 litre packages, there are customers who want the cheapest possible 1 litre packages. Unless one runs a store like "Bulk Barn", no packaging solution is going to suit everyone.

Click to expand...

I was willing to pay the premium because I wanted to try it and wasn't sure if I was going to use a full gallon of Kodak branded D-76 before it expired. Would I stay with it at that cost per roll? Probably not but as I mentioned for someone who is only developing a few rolls monthly the cost is still less than sending it out. I'm looking forward to using the Xtol. It looks like it will develop two 135 rolls in a singe 500ml tank at 1+1. Also, it'll make me get out more.

PF version of D76 is $10 for a liter, a gallon of Ultra Fine version of D76 is about the same. So I get a gallon but toss 3 quarts down the drain, cost is about the same. I guess I can just flm for sake of not letting my developer go bad.

Perhaps too strong a phrase to say Adox succeeded where Kodak failed. 20 plus years ago the reports of XTOL sudden failure was traced to iron contamination or failure to get the correct mix in small bags. Kodak wasted no time moving to larger packaging. In 20 years of use I experienced one failure with XTOL. Making a visible package change got Kodak to turn around a negative story.

Adox can't economically research development times against all the available films as Kodak did.

In actual use, are Kodak‘s developing times for FP-4 and TRI- X in XT-3 spot on or just a starting point?

Here is what I found on a Adox site. They suggest to increase the stock time by 50% if diluting 1:1 as I intend to do. But they hedge by advising there are many developing times already calculated. It sounds like you are on your own which realistically is partly true as every dark room is different.


_______
There are three ways how a powder developer can be used:

• Dilution 1+1 and the use as a one shot developer
• Re-use of the stock soultion with a prolonging of the developing times after the 5th film
• Re-use of the stock solution with replenishment (if replenisher is available)

In the use of 1+1 dilution you can e.g. dilute 150ml of stock solution with 150 ml of tempered water to make 300ml of ready to use developer.

In this case the standard stock solution developing time has to be extended by about the factor of 1,5. But there are many dedicated developing times already calculated for 1+1 as well.

The developer is depleted if you do not have any more stock solution to dilute.

In the case of re-using the stock solution you can process up to 10 rolls per liter. After the 5th film the developing time has to be increased by 1 minute for each following film in order to make up for the developers exhaustion.

In case of using the stock solution together with a dedicated repelisher there will be a given amount of replenisher (usually around 80 to 100ml) which you add to your stock solution to make up for the partial exhaustion. If necessary discard excess stock solution to keep the volume at 1 Liter. XT-3 as well as XTOL can be self replenished. This means fresh stock solution of regular developer can be used to replenish.

MattKing said:

How many are willing to pay that two USD amount per roll?

Click to expand...

Well it would appear that there are enough to make it worth Adox's while to offer a 1L bag. I expect to get the answer that this is possible for Adox due to the benefit of small scale production but that someone with the kind of chemical orders that Kodak needed its chemical suppliers to make it wasn't possible So it appears that Kodak gets none of the breaks that economies of scale provide and that the smaller suppliers such as Ilford, Foma and Adox do. As I said Kodak appears to be a company that gets none of the normal breaks. It even works against them when it comes to supplying bulk rolls

However as Kodak has had no stake ín Kodak chemicals for a number of years it might be an academic question in terms of reasons so I am surprised this hasn't surfaced as one of the prime reasons why the truth of why it never offered 1L packs is irrelevant.

I wonder however that it might be that back in the day when Kodak was king it took the decision that if you wanted Xtol then you had to choose Kodak and as far as it was concerned your choice was take it or leave it in terms of 1 or 5L packs, This tends to be the position of companies who enjoy a monopolistic position in any commodity.

It might just be that like other companies it failed to see any advantage in so doing and made the wrong decision. It must have made some wrong decisions or at least one somewhere along the line . The problem is that as in the song from Evita " when the money kept rolling in from every side" judgement can go astray and the consumer matters less or seems to

pentaxuser

MattKing said:

The problem isn't with making the double bags to make 1 litre of stock ("1 litre bags").
It is with the much higher costs associated with making and distributing 5 sets of 1 litre bags vs the costs of making and distributing one double bag that make 5 litres of stock. Particularly, when it turned out that the bags chosen for the earlier 1 litre size turned out to create problems, and would have needed to be replaced with even more expensive versions.
Would people be willing to pay almost the same amount for the 1 litre packaging as for 5 litre packaging? Probably not.
I expect as well those little, tiny bags that would have been for the Part B in the early 1 litre packages were a PITA.
If I were Photo Systems, I would seriously consider offering a smaller than 5 litre option, but 1 litre options for almost every powdered chemical probably cost just too much for any US based manufacturer to be able to sell them profitably.

Click to expand...

You're right Matt, there are a few buyers that might want to buy larger than 5L of Xtol, but there are many, many more that would like a 1L size packaging. Is it better to sell one ton of Xtol in 5L packing than it is to sell eight or ten tons in 1L packing? It doesn't matter for me since I use it replenished, but if I were a "once in a while" film developer, I'd certainly go for a 1L over a 5L package. I could be wrong, but I'd bet one dollar that there are many here that would opt for the 1L package also. Hm, maybe somebody here could start a survey right here on this very forum as to what they'd prefer to buy, 1L or 5L package. You might be surprised, Matt.

So many seem to think that its the contents of the packages that is motivating these decisions.
Those contents aren't where the costs reside.
It is different for the commercial quantities used by volume users - e.g. the commercial motion picture labs using the ECN-2 chemicals that Eastman Kodak makes and sells.
And at one time, the black and white chemicals and colour chemicals used by moderate volume enthusiast users.
The very small quantity amounts used by almost everyone here? Those quantities have costs and challenges associated with them that mean that packaging, labelling, compliance and distribution factors are what determine costs and success in the marketplace.
Photo Systems and their distributor, Cinestill, may be small and flexible enough, and may have sufficient access to less expensive distribution options, to allow for profitable sale of smaller packages in some markets. Or they may not.
But we are not likely to see anything approaching the type of world-wide distribution and availability that Kodak branded chemicals used to enjoy. That availability will probably be much less than even at the end of the Kodak Alaris photo-chemical era.
Photrio is not the subset of the market to check - it is far too small and un-representative. Even if everyone here would be happy to pay as much for a 1 litre bag as a 5 litre bag of XTol, it would make no difference when the hard marketing decisions are made.

The fact that the photographer who still develops their own film is becoming a smaller and smaller demographic. Fortunately, there are still companies producing a number of products, the prices are still reasonable and I am thankful for that.

MattKing said:

So many seem to think that its the contents of the packages that is motivating these decisions.
Those contents aren't where the costs reside.
It is different for the commercial quantities used by volume users - e.g. the commercial motion picture labs using the ECN-2 chemicals that Eastman Kodak makes and sells.
And at one time, the black and white chemicals and colour chemicals used by moderate volume enthusiast users.
The very small quantity amounts used by almost everyone here? Those quantities have costs and challenges associated with them that mean that packaging, labelling, compliance and distribution factors are what determine costs and success in the marketplace.
Photo Systems and their distributor, Cinestill, may be small and flexible enough, and may have sufficient access to less expensive distribution options, to allow for profitable sale of smaller packages in some markets. Or they may not.
But we are not likely to see anything approaching the type of world-wide distribution and availability that Kodak branded chemicals used to enjoy. That availability will probably be much less than even at the end of the Kodak Alaris photo-chemical era.
Photrio is not the subset of the market to check - it is far too small and un-representative. Even if everyone here would be happy to pay as much for a 1 litre bag as a 5 litre bag of XTol, it would make no difference when the hard marketing decisions are made.

Click to expand...

I see what you are saying. If I understand correctly, the name Kodak no longer means retail, as in home users? Just wholesale for giant users? At least that's what it sounds like to me, anyway. Yes, the Photrio crowd might be small, but they would be a good indicator as to what the "home photo enthusiast" elsewhere would want. Matt, your last sentence leads me to what my 2nd and 3rd sentence above are getting at. I guess us small photo-nuts are just plain too small for Kodak, but not too small for Adox, Bellini, Foma and that's OK by me.

John Wiegerink said:

I see what you are saying. If I understand correctly, the name Kodak no longer means retail, as in home users? Just wholesale for giant users? At least that's what it sounds like to me, anyway. Yes, the Photrio crowd might be small, but they would be a good indicator as to what the "home photo enthusiast" elsewhere would want. Matt, your last sentence leads me to what my 2nd and 3rd sentence above are getting at. I guess us small photo-nuts are just plain too small for Kodak, but not too small for Adox, Bellini, Foma and that's OK by me.

Click to expand...

No, not really.
In fact, it is almost the reverse.
Historically, when it came to chemicals, Kodak meant high volume, commercial users.
Plus they did some small packaging for the home user, because they were already servicing that market with film.
Kodak did their own distribution, so they could easily add small packages of darkroom chemicals to the regular deliveries of film that went out to the type of dealers who serviced that sort of customer - the "camera store" dealers. Most film, of course, was delivered to grocery stores, drugstores, stores serving tourists, etc. The business focused on home users was simply an offshoot of other business, that could be serviced profitably because of that other business.
That entire distribution network is gone. That world has almost gone. The infrastructure that supported it was hugely expensive, and when the world switched away from film, the costs related to that infrastructure bankrupted Eastman Kodak.
The photo chemical business that Photo Systems recently set up again has no such low cost and efficient retail distribution system to trade into - they are having to get Cinestill to supply as much of that as they can. I expect Photo Systems has made their package size decisions based on the need to minimize how many SKU's they support, while having product that is packaged in sizes that might be useful for both individual small users, as well as larger, commercial users, to the extent that they are still around.
Adox, Bellini, Foma, Arista, Photographers Formulary and the like are able to service their own niche businesses, and they have chosen to do that. Geographic and other realities mean that they are able to trade profitably in some markets with small packages. But they probably can't compete against some other choices offered by Photo Systems' Kodak branded products, at least in some markets.
Personally, I find a 5 litre package of X-Tol to be eminently practical, and I'm a small volume user.
By the way, I don't think Photrio does provide a good market indicator, because of the concentration of experienced people here. I think the profitable market that needs to be served is a larger one, with a higher percentage of less experienced people - ones who don't rely on forums like this. And to a great extent, they buy based either on reputation - where the Kodak brand probably helps - and price - where the distribution realities make it difficult for Photo Systems to compete if they intend to sell small packages.

This is all interesting concerning the Kodak biz model.

I’m going to use published XTOL times for XT-3 as there is no data to say otherwise after my google search. XTOL is a fabulous general purpose developer whose reputation suffered from package failures.

Concerning packaging.

My purchase price for a 1L bag of XT-3 from CineStill was $6.50 plus shipping. ID-11 in the same quantity 6 mo ago was about double that price. This pricing is much lower than 2021 pricing of XT-3 in the US. How does Adox offer this retail price? Its 2013 pricing again. Ha!

I support substituting eco friendly chems if results are similar. If I’m forced to purchase 5L quantities I end up dumping some of the chemical as it reaches its shelf life. Therefore 1L quantities are eco friendly because it reduces waste.

I understand lower prices are achieved through higher volumes…. but in an environmental conscious world you would think producers would make the eco smart tradeoffs which a good number of customers support.

Richard Jepsen said:

This is all interesting concerning the Kodak biz model.

I’m going to use published XTOL times for XT-3 as there is no data to say otherwise after my google search. XTOL is a fabulous general purpose developer whose reputation suffered from package failures.

Concerning packaging.

My purchase price for a 1L bag of XT-3 from CineStill was $6.50 plus shipping. ID-11 in the same quantity 6 mo ago was about double that price. This pricing is much lower than 2021 pricing of XT-3 in the US. How does Adox offer this retail price? Its 2013 pricing again. Ha!

I support substituting eco friendly chems if results are similar. If I’m forced to purchase 5L quantities I end up dumping some of the chemical as it reaches its shelf life. Therefore 1L quantities are eco friendly because it reduces waste.

I understand lower prices are achieved through higher volumes…. but in an environmental conscious world you would think producers would make the eco smart tradeoffs which a good number of customers support.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the information. I just ordered three one liter bags of XT-3. Added a bottle of Rodinal, too.

Matt,

madNbad said:

Thanks for the information. I just ordered three one liter bags of XT-3. Added a bottle of Rodinal, too.

Click to expand...

I think you will like XT-3, it's easier to mix than Xtol and I have found nothing to dislike about it.

OP yes you can use the XTOL developing times with Adox XT-3.

I use it replenished just like I did with Xtol : 70ml per 35mm film. A 6€ 1L package allows me to develop 14 rolls, that's a simple and cheap workflow.

The only difference between the two products that I don't understand and didn't test is the capacity when the stock solution is reused : According to the Xtol datasheet (J-109) you can develop up to 15 rolls per litre with a +15% time adjustement after the 5th roll, and another +15% after the 10th roll. Now, according to Adox website, the capacity is 10 roll, and "[...] After the 5th film the developing time has to be increased by 1 minute for each following film [..]". Adox could be conservative about the capacity (10 vs 15) but the +1min per roll is puzzling. Did anyone tried it ?