Diafine as a standard developer?

Usagi said:

a bit offtopic. Has anyone compared diafine to divided D-23 or it's variants like stoeckler?

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I also want to know the answer. I'm very happy with Thornton's D-23 two bath. Wondering how Diafine compared to other two bath developers.

I've used Diafine exclusively for the last four years, and I've souped about 7800 rolls of all kids of film in it. Last night I took a roll of Kodak Technical Pan, Rollei Advanced Tech-Pan 1.1, Adox CHS Art 100 and Rollei Ortho 25 out of the tank and they were stunning looking. Where else can you soup those four rolls together without agitation or temperature concerns?

Typically I rate the film one or two under and the results, I find, are generally the very best for scanning purposes, as it produces a very evenly developed negative with all shadow and all highlight details available for use unlike any other developer that I've used. It is by far the most consistent developer I have ever used.

I typically buy it in quarts and make liters from that and have at any one time two liters going for each A and B, and in a four tank I'll use a liter and the other liter will stay in the bottle, this method serves an a sort of rejuvenation. I get about 200-240 rolls of film (35 or 120) per two liter mix, then I'll add in new powder and water to bring up the A and I have to chop off some B in order to keep them rejuvenated at the same time.

I have noticed that over the course of time Diafine builds up a silver precipitant in the bottle, and this actually has a very positive effect on the film you are developing. It takes about 50 rolls in to make the beginnings of change in my negatives, and I can see a subtle contrast and detail change in the scans afterwards. I think at this point I might have the price of a few bottles of fine Irish whiskey from that silver precipitant.

I'm not very technical about developing, I just do what is easy fast and looks good when scanned and printed in a darkroom. I love this developer.

BugraK said:

I also want to know the answer. I'm very happy with Thornton's D-23 two bath. Wondering how Diafine compared to other two bath developers.

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I use Thornton's 2-bath for everything up to 400asa. Beautiful, consistent results.
Usually I'll mix up 1 liter of A & B and that's good for about 15 rolls, although you could renew bath B and probably double that.

I used to shoot a lot of Delta3200, but unfortunately it's gotten quite expensive. I'll still buy it on occasion, but for the most part I now I'll grab a Summilux and shoot Tri-X or TMY-2 400 @ 1000-1250 and develop in Diafine. I love Diafine for low light shooting, because I can really favor the shadows during exposure and the two bath properties of Diafine will go a long way in retaining detail in the highlights. It's a truly great developer.

wblynch said:

By circumstance rather than intention, I often end up using Tri-X on bright-sunny Southern California days with strong contrast so this is good to know.

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That is what the developer was designed for. Photographers shooting mid-day in high contrast. Great speed for indoors photography (using Tri-X) and good at compensating for high outdoor contrast.

You know, the kind of photography where one doesn't have time to wait for really good lighting.

The latest edition of The Darkroom Cookbook has a formula for "Diafine type" developer in case anyone likes to mix from scratch.

I have not tried this one myself yet.

being new to Diafine , I wondered how long you could you could keep re-using the developer until it was exhausted, by either time or max number of rolls??

martin310 said:

being new to Diafine , I wondered how long you could you could keep re-using the developer until it was exhausted, by either time or max number of rolls??

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Back in the 80s and 90s I'd get 50-70 rolls out of a quart. That usually took me about a year. It doesn't die suddenly. Results will just start looking a bit under developed.

Since my return to darkroom work I've not put nearly that many through the gallon I have, so I've no recent experience. I mixed it in September and it still works fine.