Adventures in Ilford's Replenished Ilfotec DD Developer

I thought I'd post this if anybody is interested in discussing it.

I'm switching over to Ilford's Ilfotec DD developer from a replenished Kodak XTOL scheme for black and white film development in my processing lab. I use JOBOs with 1500 series tanks and run at 24C. I just got my first batch of DD concentrate in earlier this week and mixed up an initial 2 Liter bottle of working solution. The bottle actually holds ~2.4 liters of working solution once you fill up the neck of the bottle. I couldn't get any starter solution, so this post is documenting how to season a bottle from fresh full strength working solution and what to expect. I found it attractive because the concentrate is used to make the working solution and is also the replenisher, just like how XTOL works. It has a lower replenishment rate of 50ml per 135-36 roll of film compared to the 70ml rate of XTOL.

I use Ilford FP4+ control strips and an X-Rite transmission densitometer to monitor activity.

According to the DD tech sheet, a difference of 0.80 between the HD and LD patches is in control. The process time for the control strip is 8:30 at 24C. Also, as a final note, Ilfotec DD is not DD-X. It's very similar, but not exactly the same.

First processing run:
3 rolls of 36 exposure BW film in 600ml of developer, test exposures of a grey exposure card, a variety exposure levels, all different emulsion types, plus a control strip. Run it for 8:30, stop, fix in Ilford rapid fixer.

Control Strip Densities:
DMAX 2.07
HD 1.48
LD 0.51
DMIN 0.3
HD-LD 0.97

At 0.97, a pretty hot mix.

OK, mix up 150ml of replenisher, pour it into the working solution, top the bottle off with the 600ml used developer and discard the excess.

Second run:
3 rolls of 24 exposure BW film in 600ml of developer, same as above, test exposures, etc, plus a control strip. Run it for 8:30, stop, fix.

Densities:
DMAX 2.03
HD 1.45
LD 0.50
DMIN 0.30
HD-LD 0.95

Wasn't expecting much difference, but there is a difference.

Mix up 100ml replenisher, pour it into working solution, again, top off with the 600ml used developer and discard the excess.

Third run:
3 rolls of 36 exposure test rolls in 600ml of developer, same scenario as above with a control strip.

Densities:
DMAX 1.93
HD 1.41
LD 0.51
DMIN 0.32
HD-LD 0.90

OK. Starting to come down. Not bad.

Mix up 150ml replenisher, wash rinse repeat.

Fourth run:
3 rolls of 36 exposure in 600ml developer with a control strip. Same processing time and temperature as before.

Densities:
DMAX 1.84
HD 1.33
LD 0.48
DMIN 0.31
HD-LD 0.85

Approaching strike zone. The question is will it keep falling below 0.80 or settle at ~0.80?

Mix up 150ml replenisher, wash rinse repeat.

Fifth run:
3 rolls 36 exposure in 600ml developer with a control strip. Same as above.

Densities:
DMAX 1.78
HD 1.27
LD 0.46
DMIN 0.30
HD-LD 0.81

Boom. There it is. OK, let's do one more run and see what it does.

Mix up 150ml replenisher, wash rinse, repeat.

Sixth run:
3 rolls of 24 exposure in 600ml developer with control strip. Same as above.

Densities:
DMAX 1.80
HD 1.28
LD 0.46
DMIN 0.31
HD-LD 0.82

I'd say we're in the butter zone and have a fully seasoned bottle of go juice.

Mix up 100ml replenisher, wash rinse, repeat.

Ilford's documentation is pretty much right on the money.

OK. Next steps is to work out what Ilford defines as "normal contrast" for Ilford films so I can make a matching scanning profile, and verify that their times for listed Kodak films result in the same contrast, and if not, what that contrast is, then start working out process control times for films not listed in the DD manual (like Foma films, etc).

I think for DD I'm just going to use Ilford's listed times and not go through the exercise of working out times for each film to get exactly the same contrast and speed. Doing that is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work, and I only did it because Kodak's documentation was pretty far off for a good number of emulsions. If I find that Ilford's is too, I might have to deviate, but for now, that's the plan.

Questions, Comments, Whatever... Fire away... I'll probably post some sample images if people want to see what it looks like. I've got pretty much every commonly available BW emulsion on hand, so it won't be that big of a deal to shoot some standard test shots and run it through as I have time. Just ask.

Adrian,
Thanks for the fun and work you're doing with DD. I have never used Ilford DD, but have used one bottle of DDX and thought it to be a very clean working developer. I love Kodak Xtol-R, but if your DD replenishment regime works just as well or better it's something for me to keep in mind incase Xtol dries up or has problems (again). Please keep use posted as I'm sure I'm not the only one very interested in your work with DD. JohnW

PS. I use mainly Ilford films with HP5+ as my main film, but Delta 100 and even PanF from time to time. Posting some shots with those films are of great interest to me. Also, your work with Xtol-R will give you good judgement of just how DD-R compares to that. JohnW

Noob question, I have no experience with replenishment. Lacking starter solution, couldn't you dilute with water so the developer would have the right level of activity for the first roll already?

Apparently Unique Photo carries Ilfotec DD (out of stock at present) and the starter for it (didn't check stock). It has a major disadvantage relative to Xtol in costing way too much. If I'm reading right, that's 5 liters of stock solution/replenisher for $62, and $47 for a couple liters of starter? I can buy five 5L bags of Xtol for what the replenisher concentrate costs (never mind shipping), if/when Sino Promise gets their act together.

Is that five liter quantity further diluted to make the tank solution? If so, why don't they label it that way? Unique doesn't even have a good enough photo of the concentrate jug to read the amounts. No instructions, not even a link, and Google doesn't admit that the stuff even exists.

Donald Qualls said:

Is that five liter quantity further diluted to make the tank solution?

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It's diluted 1+4. Ilford don't intend DD for amateur users with low throughput - it's for replenished systems doing a decent number of rolls per week at a steady rate. DD-X is intended to give more or less the same results as DD but as a single shot developer.

Data sheet is here.

grain elevator said:

Noob question, I have no experience with replenishment. Lacking starter solution, couldn't you dilute with water so the developer would have the right level of activity for the first roll already?

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no. You mix it 1 plus 4. Diluting it more will ruin your bottle because then as you add replenished the mix ratio of the working solution bottle will be off.

Flexicolor isn't intended for low-volume small-tank users, either, but so far it's working fine for me (replenished).

That 1+4 dilution makes the cost much more reasonable, though; 5L of concentrate makes 25L of tank solution (plus a little for starter), which is comparable price to Xtol.

Donald Qualls said:

Apparently Unique Photo carries Ilfotec DD (out of stock at present) and the starter for it (didn't check stock). It has a major disadvantage relative to Xtol in costing way too much. If I'm reading right, that's 5 liters of stock solution/replenisher for $62, and $47 for a couple liters of starter? I can buy five 5L bags of Xtol for what the replenisher concentrate costs (never mind shipping), if/when Sino Promise gets their act together.

Is that five liter quantity further diluted to make the tank solution? If so, why don't they label it that way? Unique doesn't even have a good enough photo of the concentrate jug to read the amounts. No instructions, not even a link, and Google doesn't admit that the stuff even exists.

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the bottle is concentrate. You mix it 1+4 to get 25 liters of working solution. At 50ml per roll replenishment, one 5 liter bottle will process 500 rolls of 36 exposure film.

Ilford has the tech sheet for it posted on their website.

John Wiegerink said:

PS. I use mainly Ilford films with HP5+ as my main film, but Delta 100 and even PanF from time to time. Posting some shots with those films are of great interest to me. Also, your work with Xtol-R will give you good judgement of just how DD-R compares to that. JohnW

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HP5 is my standard test film, so yes, I’ll absolutely be running some of that.

Adrian Bacon said:

the bottle is concentrate. You mix it 1+4 to get 25 liters of working solution. At 50ml per roll replenishment, one 5 liter bottle will process 500 rolls of 36 exposure film.

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Wow! definitely for a commercial operation - it would take me 8-10 years to use up that much developer.

wyofilm said:

Wow! definitely for a commercial operation - it would take me 8-10 years to use up that much developer.

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unfortunately it doesn’t last that long. The unopened bottle (which is sealed) is supposed to have a two year shelf life. Once you open it, you’re supposed to use it within 3 months unless you can keep oxygen off of it. I loaded my bottle into a new 5 liter astra pouch and will draw off of it as needed. The pouch has a second screw on bib for refilling, so when it gets low, I can put another 5 liter bottle of concentrate in and bleed the air out and keep going.

Yep, 500 rolls is ten years or more for me, too. I guess I'm back to Xtol and its clones. In truth, I like the developer a lot -- but it worries me that there are significant ongoing QC issues and it's yet a couple months until they can even ship replacement product. I'll have to investigate EcoPro if I can't get something from KA/Sino Promise soon.

Donald Qualls said:

Yep, 500 rolls is ten years or more for me, too. I guess I'm back to Xtol and its clones. In truth, I like the developer a lot -- but it worries me that there are significant ongoing QC issues and it's yet a couple months until they can even ship replacement product. I'll have to investigate EcoPro if I can't get something from KA/Sino Promise soon.

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If there is enough interest, I might be willing to divide up the 5 liter bottles into pre-loaded single use 1 liter astra pouches. Once you get to a seasoned bottle, each pouch would replenish ~100 rolls. I’d have to work out the cost of the pouch and dispenser box that the pouch goes in, but that would provide an easy to use a smaller quantity. You’d just draw off the concentrate from the bib and the pouch would deflate as it was emptied.

A liter of concentrate plus the correct amount of starter to make two liters of tank solution would be just right for me -- equivalent to five liters of Xtol stock. Just checked, looks like Unique is out of stock on the starter, too. And ten or twelve rolls of film to season isn't in the cards here -- that's $40 worth of film to season $15 worth of developer, even at bulk loader prices. At least with Xtol, it doesn't shot a huge change in activity as it seasons.

Oh, wait, you were seasoning for a big processor; it would only be a few rolls (3-4?) for us, and if we know in advance how much "too hot" it is to start (and we do, from your testing), we could adjust time or temp and get usable results with actual images (probably).

Of course, there's also the issue of shipping liquids. Cost due to the water content, and hazmat fees, and the packaging needed ("sufficient to contain the entire contents in case of a container break").

Donald Qualls said:

A liter of concentrate plus the correct amount of starter to make two liters of tank solution would be just right for me -- equivalent to five liters of Xtol stock. Just checked, looks like Unique is out of stock on the starter, too. And ten or twelve rolls of film to season isn't in the cards here -- that's $40 worth of film to season $15 worth of developer, even at bulk loader prices. At least with Xtol, it doesn't shot a huge change in activity as it seasons.

Oh, wait, you were seasoning for a big processor; it would only be a few rolls (3-4?) for us, and if we know in advance how much "too hot" it is to start (and we do, from your testing), we could adjust time or temp and get usable results with actual images (probably).

Of course, there's also the issue of shipping liquids. Cost due to the water content, and hazmat fees, and the packaging needed ("sufficient to contain the entire contents in case of a container break").

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the starter is problematic to get. I have a wholesale account with Robert’s (Ilford’s US distributor) and they do list it on their price sheet, but it’s not regularly stocked, so a special order thing... I imagine they only have orders for it if a lab is starting up fresh.

if you haven’t already, I’d read the DD tech sheet. Ilford has a bunch of information in there for running DD without replenishment as well. It wouldn’t be hard to work out times starting with a fresh batch, and then adjust as you process rolls. With a two liter bottle of working solution, you’re going to see activity start to drop by the 6-9 roll range. You could speed that up pretty quick by not starting to replenish until you’ve processed 6-9 rolls.

in terms of shipping, the astra pouch is a bag in a box. The shipping box would have to be completely crush to the point of the bag bursting. I suppose I could do what freestyle does and push all that inside another bag inside the shipping box, but otherwise, it would ship UPS ground.

With X-Tol, I suggest just doing a straight line approximation for 5 rolls between the suggested time for fresh, one-shot developer and seasoned developer.
That is without replenishing (for the first 5 rolls).
Ilford DD might be similar.
5 litres costs $80 CDN plus tax and shipping (from Amplis) here in Canada.

With Xtol, I didn't find a need to adjust times as the solution seasoned -- I'm still (after about a liter of replenishment in my two liter tank solution) using "stock" times on Fomapan 400, ORWO DN21, and Ultrafine Extreme 100 (so far). Based on Adrian's reported CI in fresh DD, that wouldn't work there, but if Ilford gives times for stock solution in non-replenished use, it should be a simple matter to interpolate.

Update:

So I shot a roll of FP4 Plus to determine what Ilford's definition of "normal contrast" is. This consisted of an exposure of an 18% grey card correctly exposed via incident meter through a transmission rated lens, then the same, but +2 EV, -2 EV, and -4 EV, or zones 1, 3, 5, and 7. The gamma between zones 3 and 7 nominally comes out to 0.60. Based on just FP4, this is tentatively their normal contrast. I'll do the same exercise on HP5, and possibly Delta 100 to verify, though I doubt there will be much deviation. I made scanning profile for this gamma and scanned the roll in. Here's what the zones look like. #1 is film base plus fog, #2 is zone 5, #3 is zone 7, #4 is zone 3, and #5 is zone 1.



Here's the sample images, scanned in with the profile. I used a Canon A2E with Canon's 40mm STM prime lens, stuck it in AV mode and took a number of standard pictures I take outside my business just using the camera metering and basically doing point and shoot. This particular camera tends to under expose by about a third to two thirds, so I adjusted the exposure of each frame and spotted out a few of the more egregious chunks of dust/crud. Other than that, this is basically a straight scan.


For those of you who use Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, here is a link to a zip file that contains the resulting DNG files if you want to look more closely at the grain, tonal range, etc: http://m.avcdn.com/sfl/FP4_PLUS_ILFOTEC_DD_DEV.zip. The scans were generated with a Canon 90D, Sigma 70mm Macro ART lens (the new one) and a strobe for the light source and turned into positive images with Simple Image Tools and the scanning profile with the 0.60 gamma.

Enjoy.

michael_r said:

Ilford seems to define normal contrast as approx. Gbar 0.62 so you’re basically bang on.

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I supposed if I actually measured GBar it’d be that, but I personally prefer +2 minus -2 divided by 1.2 for the gamma right in the mid-tones, assuming the box speed is reasonably accurate.

I update:

I’ve run a number of test rolls just to see if Ilford’s times result in a consistent contrast. Much to my dismay, that’s a big fat nope. I’ve made zone 1,3,5, and 7 exposures in HP5, Tmax 100, Tmax 400, and panf and ran them for the times in Ilford’s DD data sheet. The measured zone 3 to zone 7 contrast varied between 0.55 and 0.75. Bummer. Interestingly, all the zone 1 densities where 0.1 above film base plus fog (+-0.02), so it appears the Ilford’s times (at least so far) are basically the minimum development time required to get zone 1 to 0.1 if exposed at box speed regardless of the resulting contrast for the rest of the curve. I can’t say I’m surprised as that was actually almost the approach I took when generating times for XTOL. I’ll have to run some more emulsions to see if that continues to hold true.

not all is lost though, I don’t intend to work out new dev times for each film to get the same contrast as long as Ilford’s zone 1 density is right, I’ll just go the other way and make a scanning tone curve for each. That’s a lot easier and faster, and I can get to usable scans with only one roll of film.

Adrian Bacon said:

I supposed if I actually measured GBar it’d be that, but I personally prefer +2 minus -2 divided by 1.2 for the gamma right in the mid-tones, assuming the box speed is reasonably accurate.

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Adrian Bacon said:

I’ve made zone 1,3,5, and 7 exposures in HP5, Tmax 100, Tmax 400, and panf and ran them for the times in Ilford’s DD data sheet. The measured zone 3 to zone 7 contrast varied between 0.55 and 0.75. Bummer. Interestingly, all the zone 1 densities where 0.1 above film base plus fog (+-0.02), so it appears the Ilford’s times (at least so far) are basically the minimum development time required to get zone 1 to 0.1 if exposed at box speed regardless of the resulting contrast for the rest of the curve. I can’t say I’m surprised as that was actually almost the approach I took when generating times for XTOL. I’ll have to run some more emulsions to see if that continues to hold true.

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I think what you're possibly discovering is that Gamma is not an ideal method of comparison when film curve shapes may diverge by surprisingly significant amounts, especially in terms of tonal behaviour as exposure builds off the toe. G-bar seeks to allow for curve shape/ toe character variance (say, harder shadows & softer highlights as Delta 3200 does) that overall averages out to 0.62 (thus giving you the best chance of using G2 as a starting point for printing without distorting the fundamental tonal response differences of a particular film/ dev combination - if you expose to ISO standards etc), but you'll get a potentially less usefully nuanced picture if you measure purely for Gamma rather than the totality of tonal response over the range in use. Gamma is fine, if your films are largely very similar in characteristic curve shape.

Lachlan Young said:

I think what you're possibly discovering is that Gamma is not an ideal method of comparison when film curve shapes may diverge by surprisingly significant amounts, especially in terms of tonal behaviour as exposure builds off the toe. G-bar seeks to allow for curve shape/ toe character variance (say, harder shadows & softer highlights as Delta 3200 does) that overall averages out to 0.62 (thus giving you the best chance of using G2 as a starting point for printing without distorting the fundamental tonal response differences of a particular film/ dev combination - if you expose to ISO standards etc), but you'll get a potentially less usefully nuanced picture if you measure purely for Gamma rather than the totality of tonal response over the range in use. Gamma is fine, if your films are largely very similar in characteristic curve shape.

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I get what you’re saying, and that makes sense, but, meh... I very much doubt gbar is the same between them. Zones 3, 5, and 7 between the emulsions is wildly different as well. Last I checked, gbar is still only measuring the gamma between two points as well, the first point being 0.1. If the gbar between them was the same or close, I’d be seeing zone 5 (which is 1.2 log exposure units over from zone 1) at least be in the ballpark of each other and it just isn’t.

For my uses, gamma is more useful as once it’s digitized, you want a tone curve that represents the mid tones and you set the scan exposure so that a correctly exposed middle grey falls in the right place when viewing it on a monitor. From there, assuming the box speed is correct, film base plus fog will be ~5 stops below that, Caucasian skin will typically fall at 60-70% on the histogram in LR), and the highlights will roll of out to 100% on the histogram.

Update:

Here are some numbers for HP5 Plus in DD:

Zone 7: 1.0
Zone 6: 0.86
Zone 5: 0.73
Zone 3: 0.43
Zone 1: 0.11

Ilford's time for HP5 is 7:00. Zone 6 minus Zone 1 divided by 1.5 gives a G-bar of 0.50. If HP5 were actually developed to a G-bar of 0.62, it would be at least a third of stop faster, if not 2/3s or more. From what I've seen so far for the emulsions that I've checked the contrast for, it seems that Ilford is just using the minimum time needed to get zone 1 to ~0.1 above FB+F if exposed at box speed and the resulting contrast is what it is and can be handled via VC paper if printing, otherwise, for scanning it matters very little what the contrast is.

Here's a screen shot of some sample images digitized with a 0.50 tone curve in simple image tools.



For the Adobe Lightroom users, here's a link to download the DNG files if you want to play with them: http://m.avcdn.com/sfl/hp5_plus_ilfotec_dd.zip Again, just some basic exposure and spotting out the most egregious dust.

Old Gregg said:

Thanks for posting full-sized DNGs. DD seems to be a noticeable step down from Xtol for this film. I see the same unpleasant grain as I experienced with DD-X especially in zones above 7, and that's with no sharpening!

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Meh.... I personally don't have a problem with the grain. The last image with the freeway I actually over exposed by a solid 3 stops and pulled it down in LR. It just doesn't look that bad. Keep in mind you're looking at a really high resolution scan of a 35mm frame. Even with a digital print in the 12x18 inch range, I doubt the grain would objectionable in the sky. I don't expect it to be the same grain as XTOL, but I also don't find it to be particularly unpleasant. I'm a bit surprised that the time they have listed has such a low amount of contrast. TMAX 400 and 400TX on the other hand barely eek out a zone 1 of 0.08-0.09 and have significantly more density by zone 5 than HP5 does.