Adventures in Ilford's Replenished Ilfotec DD Developer

[Urs Gantner]

Adrian....may I ask you about your ongoing experiences with DD? Are you happy with your results over a variation of films? Reason i ask..... I'm actually pending between DD(-X) or Adox XT-III as my standard developer for B/W - different ones I know.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Adrian....may I ask you about your ongoing experiences with DD? Are you happy with your results over a variation of films? Reason i ask..... I'm actually pending between DD(-X) or Adox XT-III as my standard developer for B/W - different ones I know.

Its been going fine. As a developer for replenishment it works. Ilford’s listed times produce negatives that are totally usable, though all different contrasts. It absolutely is not xtol though. In my opinion, xtol is the superior developer for most films, though DD is no slouch. I’ve had a few emulsions go through where I was like “wow” when scanning them, but going the other way, haven’t yet seen anything where I’d make a note to use D76 instead. I have been using Ilford’s listed times and have not gone through any sort of exercise to get times that produce the same contrast. Ilford’s listed times produce a zone 1 that is 0.1 above film base plus fog if shot at box speed, and the resulting contrast is whatever it is. Some emulsions are really low contrast, some are really high. I’ve not worked out any times that make a uniform contrast for emulsions that they’ve listed, and don’t plan to.

in terms of day to day operation, xtol is a way cleaner working developer. I have to filter DD quite a bit more as it collects a grey sludge at the bottom of the bottle. It also puts a bit of fog on the inside of the bottle and stains the reels, all things xtol doesn’t do.

in terms of activity, it needs a higher throughput to maintain the same activity level over time, and loses activity faster than xtol does if left to sit, so it’s not as well suited for lower volume users. If I have a slow week or two, it’s best to run a control strip before processing a batch of film and correct it before doing the run as it will have lost enough activity that the listed times won’t be correct. The good news is, it’s easy to correct, and it always loses activity, so it’s a matter of just adding enough concentrate to get the activity level back up. This isn’t a problem if it’s been a busy week, but it will start to drop off if you don’t run a good amount of film that week.

all in all, it’s not xtol, but not bad, just different. I can’t really make any judgements in terms of grain because the contrasts are all different, and that affects the grain.

 

[Urs Gantner]

Thank you Adrian for your detailed explanations..... much, much appreciated!

I guess I'll start completely new with Adox XT-III for my B/W processes instead of X-Tol replenished (this was my standard for years). Don't know about DD, but got some experience with DD-X. It's very reliable, but i really miss the smoothness from X-Tol. I had to return many packs of X-Tol, so buying chemicals from Kodak seems to be a no go for me.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Thank you Adrian for your detailed explanations..... much, much appreciated!

I guess I'll start completely new with Adox XT-III for my B/W processes instead of X-Tol replenished (this was my standard for years). Don't know about DD, but got some experience with DD-X. It's very reliable, but i really miss the smoothness from X-Tol. I had to return many packs of X-Tol, so buying chemicals from Kodak seems to be a no go for me.

That's the problem I was running into with XTOL. I might circle back around to it once my current supply of DD is done, if they've worked out the issues, but I bought enough DD that I'm going to be good for at least the rest of this year and part of next at my current usage level. At the end of this year I'll start looking to see if the Xtol situation has started to normalize or not. I'd ideally like to wait until there has been plenty of time for the channel to completely flush out so I can just buy it and not have to check to see if what I got is part of a problem batch. I'm just not into that. It's way too much time and energy to deal with if you have to swap it out, and even worse, I'm buying because I'm almost out and actually need it, so then the anxiety of having to push customer film out or having to run another developer while I wait... no thanks. I want simple and reliable. XTOL was that, and may be again in the future, but right now, for me, DD is working just fine.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

It varies quite a bit from week to week, but consistently for popularity it’s C-41, then BW, then E6.

that being said, I’ve never had less than 3-4 rolls of C-41 come in for every roll of BW. E-6 is super variable. I can go weeks with no rolls, then have a massive load come in and that’s all I’m running for a couple days.

again, it varies a lot from week to week.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Black and white is much of the "film resurgence" that's being widely reported. Lots of folks who are rediscovering film are doing it with black and white.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Black and white is much of the "film resurgence" that's being widely reported. Lots of folks who are rediscovering film are doing it with black and white.

I would say that true. I have clients who exclusively shoot c-41, and clients who exclusively shoot black and white, and clients who exclusively shoot E-6, and some of them shoot a mix.

a lot of bw I see come through is definitely of the more artistic style, and lots of C-41 is people taking snaps with point and shoots.