Diafine Instrucions - Questions

Well I'm just starting out.. usually between 71 and 75F, my main problem may be that it's a very temperal flow heater that heats the water for rinsing in the end.
Not sure how critical temperature is at this last stage though.

Just developed my first two rolls of Acros 35mm in Diafine at 72F, negatives looking pretty good - can't wait to scan them..

Rick A said:

It's panthermic, and may be used at any temp within the range given, for the times listed.

Click to expand...

Hey Rick - what is panthermic? The use of a chemical at any temperature with same power effect?
Can't imagine this will work with a developer also?
So you have 3min. at 12 degree celsius,
and the same result in 3 min. at 41 degree celsius.
And 3 min. at 1,4 degree celsius ?
May be I just missunderstood you ?
P a n t h e r m i c .
Does it have to do with exothermic ?
(just a joke - sorry)
Ok - I realy never heart - may be I should inform about.
with regards

It works, within the limits, for Diafine because it essentially goes to completion.

The A solution contains developing agent but no accelerator, and the developing agent soaks into the emulsion. When it is drained and then the film placed in the B solution, the B solution contains alkaline accelerator but no developing agent. The accelerator activates the developing agent absorbed from the A solution. Once all the absorbed developing agent is depleted, development stops. As long as you leave it in long enough, leaving it longer makes no real difference since development has completed and exhausted the available developing agent.

Take a small snippet of film and put it into bath A under full light and see if something happens. Does the film develop, maybe only a little bit of blackening? My Diafine usage is some years ago, iirc the dev time in bath A did matter and only bath B is not critical at all because of the complete exhaustion of the remaining developer within maybe 60 seconds. And temperature does matter. Not as much as as with 1-bath developers, but it does matter. And at 80 °F or more I definately got grainier negs.

After my experiances all 2-bath developers already start to develop in bath A, bath B is only a boost. I liked Diafine a lot, but now I prefer a (homemade) 1-shot Xtol-stlye developer. Much better control with dev time and dilution and usable at least up to 80 °F (my room temp during hot summers) with adjusted times, the Ilford chart works fine. There is really no need for another developer than Xtol imho if it wouldn`t be a little bit boring after all. But there is still Caffenol :duckandcover:

Diafine: fire and forget, conveniant, usable, but not the best you can get. My humble opinion, ymmv.

There is a little development in the A bath but not much. Time and temperature don't matter "very much" within reason. I never tried going to, say, 20 minutes in the A bath. But giving at least the listed minimum, up to a few minutes more, and within the range I used which was typically 70-75F, I never saw enough variation to matter.

There's no one best developer. I like Diafine for some things but not all. I used to really like it with Plus-X.

OTOH I never really managed to like Xtol. I'm a heretic, I know. Plain old D-76 or Kodak T-Max RS (although used one shot) are my go-tos.