Dektol - Why so popular?

[Slixtiesix]

I myself prefer powder developers and I would not second the statement that mixing them is difficult. Everyone who is able to brew a decent cup of hot chocolate can mix them. I don´t use Dektol but N113, but for the same reasons: cheap, lasts very long when mixed, high capacity, very consistent.

 

[PeterB]

The powder lasts longer than liquid concentrates.

I'm surprised nobody has explicitly mentioned that.
This means I can buy it batches every year or two and not have to worry about it expiring before I get around to mixing it up.

 

[fotch]

Always worked as expected, no reason to try anything else. Available everywhere, or at least when there were camera stores everywhere.

 

[cmacd123]

Still remember when it came in Tins, That would last forever in storage.

I am given to understand that eastern European industry made a Dektol clone widely distributed in eastern Europe during the cold war era, so that might to a way for our friend from Slovenia to experience the magic. Some one from eastern Europe may wish to confirm this for us.

as far as the 5 liter size of teh current package, I would recommend using 4 1 litre bottles. and a couple of smaller ones to suit the amount you use at a sitting. That way your mixed stock says fresh longer.

 

[WayneStevenson]

Doesn't keep for long? Heh. I've kept undiluted working solution for upwards of a year and had no obvious effect.

 

[Slixtiesix]

I am given to understand that eastern European industry made a Dektol clone widely distributed in eastern Europe during the cold war era, so that might to a way for our friend from Slovenia to experience the magic. Some one from eastern Europe may wish to confirm this for us.

I don´t know for sure, but could this be Calbe N113 from the former GDR?

 

[Ian Grant]

I don´t know for sure, but could this be Calbe N113 from the former GDR?

Calbe, formerly Orwo, are what's left of the original Agfa chemistry division (ORiginal WOlfen) and their formulae are Agfa based so they had no need to clone D72/Dektol, Agfa already had excellent paper developers. N113 is a PQ powder based formula, Dektol is MQ,

Eastern European companies like Foma did clone Ilford PQ formulae.

Ian

 

[miha]

I am given to understand that eastern European industry made a Dektol clone widely distributed in eastern Europe during the cold war era, so that might to a way for our friend from Slovenia to experience the magic. Some one from eastern Europe may wish to confirm this for us.

Hi Charlens, I don't want to be nitpicking BUT Yugoslavia was in front of the Iron Curtain during the cold war era, besides we had our own photo company in Croatia - Fotokemika.

 

[cmacd123]

I don't want to be nitpicking BUT Yugoslavia was in front of the Iron Curtain during the cold war era,- own photo company in Croatia - Fotokemika.

Not to worry about nit picking, not all of eastern Europe was totally behind the iron curtain, although some places were more likly to trade with the former soviet union that others, and in North America, products did not tend show up from anywhere in the east except as "special buys" when the factory, or it's customers sold items to the west to obtain hard currency.

EFKE film for example was sold by one or two suppliers in the US in a few batches back with about an 1986 exiry date, and then I did not see it advertised again for near 10 years. Only within about 5 years of their demise did I see anyone selling their paper in North America.

From the discussion, I suspect that the products I was thinking of may have indeed been Agfa or Illford clones.

 

[Ian Grant]

EFKE film for example was sold by one or two suppliers in the US in a few batches back with about an 1986 exiry date, and then I did not see it advertised again for near 10 years. Only within about 5 years of their demise did I see anyone selling their paper in North America.

EFKE products were sold under the Luminos brand name in North America for manu years. Luminos were once the UK distributors of Adox films & papers in the 1950's when the new thin film emulsions where introduced, at some point probably during a recession in Britain in the early 1960s they closed and moved to the US.

The main issue was that often Eastern European products were re-branded for the US market.

Ian

 

[mklw1954]

Good developer. I make one gallon of stock solution at a time, store it in an accordian bottle with no air in the headspace and I've gotten one year out of it. It turns a little amber in that much time but works just fine. I make up 1 liter of working solution at a time (11 ml stock + 22 ml distilled water). The working solution stored in a PET plastic bottle squeezed to remove air and stored in the dark works well for a couple of months.

When I tried using enough powder to make 1 liter of working solution at a time, the powder would turn brown within a month.

I stick to name brand chemicals because they provide information on makeup, storage, and developing capacity that is usually missing from no-name chemicals - and they are really no more expensive.

 

[pentaxuser]

I make up 1 liter of working solution at a time (11 ml stock + 22 ml distilled water). The working solution stored in a PET plastic bottle squeezed to remove air and stored in the dark works well for a couple of months.

.

It looks like the ratio of water to stock is 2:1 from your figures but isn't that 333ml stock plus 666ml of water for 1L

11ml +22ml which you quote = 33ml which is a way less than 1L or have I missed something?

pentaxuser

 

[David Brown]

It looks like the ratio of water to stock is 2:1 from your figures but isn't that 333ml stock plus 666ml of water for 1L

11ml +22ml which you quote = 33ml which is a way less than 1L or have I missed something?

pentaxuser

My guess is he meant ounces, which would give 33 ounces that is close to i liter. Why we're mixing measuring systems though ...

 

[pentaxuser]

My guess is he meant ounces, which would give 33 ounces that is close to i liter. Why we're mixing measuring systems though ...

Ah yes the old measuring systems problem. I think you are right but is that British ounces or American ounces or did we have the same ounces, just different gallons?

You( not you personally but the U.S.) used to laugh at and quite rightly so or at best regard as quaint our old British currency which was 12 pennies in a shilling but twenty shillings in a pound so 240 pennies in a pound with the good old "half-crown" thrown and of course we had guineas in which we paid our legal profession and our tailors for good suits. There never was a guinea coin of course. It was equal to 21 shillings. Why?? ( see witch burning for the logic)

Imperial(is that from when we had an empire?) and U.S. measurement systems really belong to or should belong to the era of bubonic plague and the odd session of witch burning

I now think in terms of centigrade but it was a long hard road to get there. We need to relieve our kids of such suffering. Never getting access to the destructive drug of imperial measurement is better than years of "cold turkey"

pentaxuser

 

[ambaker]

Metric - Shmetric...

As long as you know which system you are using, there should not be a problem.

The trouble with millimeters is that there are so many of them.

I'd hazard a guess that there are many more 1/4-20 nuts and bolts sitting on the moon, than 10mm. What difference does it make? None, but a fun thought just the same.

Besides, today the mantra is to embrace diversity, so give a guy an inch, for Pete's sake.

I seldom make exact quantities, so I wind up calculating the ratios to get what I need anyway. 4:1 is 4:1 in any measuring system.

 

[cmacd123]

My paterson Graduate have both Imperial and US fluid Ounces. Mr. Google says 1 US fluid ounce is 1.04084 Imperial Fluid Ounce. So that implies the imperial Fl OZ is Smaller than the US version, even if the imperial Gallon is (was) bigger.

 

[MattKing]

The US took the then current English measurement system as their own when they declared independence in 1776. That system had a great variety of influences.

In England, the measurement system evolved somewhat over time. As a result, when Canada became a separate dominion in 1867, some of the measures had changed (e.g. the fluid ounce and the gallon). The changes reflected the pressures of international commerce.

The same thing happened with laws - for example, when Canada became a country, things like the Grand Jury were no longer used in England, and were therefore not incorporated into our law, while that tradition remains in effect in much of the US.

 

[Simon R Galley]

I am old enough to remember the Ten Bob Note....brown and magnificent, Birthday and Christmas usually delivered a few and I used to wander down to the toy shop ( remember them ? ) and buy a piece of Hornby for my model railway.... happy days...

As for the half crown....that was a real coin.... I used to be a big 'car cleaner' in my street when very young, often got a half crown...felt like real money!

Simon ( Nostalgia Division ) ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

 

[AgX]

It's been around for decades, was available in just about any store that handled photo gear(I used to buy it at a hardware store), cheap, and most of all, it was from Kodak.

Well, is Dektol really that popular?

When I started photography in the 70s I did not even know of Dektol. I actually was most surprised back then when finding amongst old stuff in a professional darkroom a tin can with some Kodak developer. But I would never have thought of using a commercial developer based on powder.

The only "powder" product I saw on the shelves (and bought) was Sodiumthiosulphate.

Canned developers all those years remained an odd obscurity to me. Everybody was using liquid concentrate. Typically from Tetenal.

 

[Roger Cole]

Dektol doesn't last long (in time, not capacity which is fine) once diluted to working strength, but on the other hand it sure stains everything it gets on too.

I never liked Dektol and quit using it as soon as I discovered that most other developers I tried lasted longer and didn't stain.

I love LPD.

 

[mklw1954]

Yikes, my apologies, I meant 11 oz. stock + 22 oz. distilled water for 33 oz. (close enough to 1 liter). I can measure out 11 oz. with my graduate, but not 11 ml.

It looks like the ratio of water to stock is 2:1 from your figures but isn't that 333ml stock plus 666ml of water for 1L

11ml +22ml which you quote = 33ml which is a way less than 1L or have I missed something?

pentaxuser

 

[ME Super]

Ah yes the old measuring systems problem. I think you are right but is that British ounces or American ounces or did we have the same ounces, just different gallons?

You( not you personally but the U.S.) used to laugh at and quite rightly so or at best regard as quaint our old British currency which was 12 pennies in a shilling but twenty shillings in a pound so 240 pennies in a pound with the good old "half-crown" thrown and of course we had guineas in which we paid our legal profession and our tailors for good suits. There never was a guinea coin of course. It was equal to 21 shillings. Why?? ( see witch burning for the logic)

Imperial(is that from when we had an empire?) and U.S. measurement systems really belong to or should belong to the era of bubonic plague and the odd session of witch burning

I now think in terms of centigrade but it was a long hard road to get there. We need to relieve our kids of such suffering. Never getting access to the destructive drug of imperial measurement is better than years of "cold turkey"

pentaxuser

You left out my favorite obscure measurement for speed (or velocity), attoparsecs per microfortnight. This is part of the firkin-furlong-fortnight measurement system. It works out to about 1.04 inches/second. And then there are barns, which are used by nuclear physicists as a unit of area, not something to chain PE in to make kodachrome. One barn is approximately the cross sectional area of a uranium nucleus.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Life would be so much simpler if Napoleon had won at Waterloo.

 

[Ian Grant]

Well, is Dektol really that popular?

When I started photography in the 70s I did not even know of Dektol. I actually was most surprised back then when finding amongst old stuff in a professional darkroom a tin can with some Kodak developer. But I would never have thought of using a commercial developer based on powder.

The only "powder" product I saw on the shelves (and bought) was Sodiumthiosulphate.

Canned developers all those years remained an odd obscurity to me. Everybody was using liquid concentrate. Typically from Tetenal.

The market varied considerably from the US & Canada to Europe, and even inside Europe there were differences. As I pointed out earlier in this thread Dektol wasn't sold in Europe in when I started in photography in the late 1960's, we had D163 in it's place a formula not published in US Kodak Daata guides.

Tetenal had issues in the UK because they kept changing their importers, Johnsons were probably the largest 3rd party company selling chemistry in the UK in the amateur market, May & Baker dealt mainly with the professional photo-processing market although Promicrol, Suprol & Amfix were readily available to amateurs. May & Baker merged and changed their name to Champion.

Ian

 

[miha]

Thanks for widening the perspective of this discussion AgX and Ian.