Diafine, Older Film and Benzotriazole

gordrob · Aug 12, 2008

I am in the process of mixing up my first 1 quart of Diafine developer and want to know if this developer can be used to process outdated sheet film (Tri X from 1999). I have been interested in the posts about Diafine having a wide temperature range and one developing time for all films and wondered how it would handle the outdated films. I normally process the older Tri X film in D76 adding 1% Benzotriazole to the developer to combat any fogging the film may have from aging. The question is can you add the Benzotriazole to Diafine or do you even need to and if you can what solution would you add it too.

Gord

Paul Verizzo · Aug 13, 2008

gordrob said:
I am in the process of mixing up my first 1 quart of Diafine developer and want to know if this developer can be used to process outdated sheet film (Tri X from 1999). I have been interested in the posts about Diafine having a wide temperature range and one developing time for all films and wondered how it would handle the outdated films. I normally process the older Tri X film in D76 adding 1% Benzotriazole to the developer to combat any fogging the film may have from aging. The question is can you add the Benzotriazole to Diafine or do you even need to and if you can what solution would you add it too.

Gord

Old film and developer choice has nothing to do with one another. While Benzotriazole is very handy to cut highlight fogging with old paper, it could be dangerous to use in film development.

After all, you just print through increased fog with a touch more time. I have no proof, but I suspect that the effect of benzy on shadow detail is no worse than whatever is there getting lost in fog. We are talking mostly Zone 0 and into 1. Not much visual information.

Thomas Bertilsson · Aug 13, 2008

I've used Diafine on outdated Tri-X and the base fog was pretty bad. It was equally bad in Rodinal and Pyrocat.
The best developer I ever used on outdated film with higher base fog is Xtol.
I hope that helps somewhat.
- Thomas

Akki14 · Aug 13, 2008

1999 doesn't seem very out of date to me. Have you actually had a problem with basefog with this particular film?

fschifano · Aug 13, 2008

I wouldn't bother. Like Paul says, any increase in base fog is going to be in the very low value areas. Benzotriazole, even if it works as expected, will do nothing to bring back any shadow detail that gets lost in the fog. You can just as easily print through the extra density of the fog if it is there. Benzotrazole's best use is for salvaging old paper. Even then, it only works if the age damage is slight.

Diafine, Older Film and Benzotriazole

gordrob

Paul Verizzo

Thomas Bertilsson

Akki14

fschifano

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