Diafine (or Acufine)

It has been said that Diafine is not excactly a fine grain developer, more a middle of the road type. I ahve read thate it also doesn't apparently work well with the newer t grain emulsions. I used it with HP5+ myself so do not have that much expereince with it and other emulsions. It's just easier to use from a temperature standpoint. The development procedure calls for a short agitation and 3 minute sit so you wouldn't need a Jobo. Try some to form your own impressions.

Hey Joe,

I use Diafine for almost all my film processing, and like it a lot. It works expecially well with Tri-x, giving it an e.i. of 1250, and with Fomapan 100 (with an e.i. of 100). With Tri-x, it is better suited for contrasty scences (indoors, night shots, but not sunlight). Fomapan seems to work great with sunlight (I might print an example in the next few days and post it).

I have used Diafine with a surplus (defective) lot of Macophot UP100+, which is the same emulsion of efke 100. Bearing in mind that this was a defective lot (some say the e.i. was closer to 50) I did not like it much in Diafine. I shot A LOT of it at e.i. 200, which gave me WONDERFUL tones. The problem was that the negs were really thin, and I had to print at grade 4 & 5.

Diafine is not very time sensitive - all films develop in 3 minutes bath A and 3 minutes bath B; temperatures don't mean much either - I keep mine close to 68-72 just for peace of mind (I also develop for 4 minutes in each bath just so if I lose count of the minutes no harm is done).

I would suggest buying a bit of it and trying it out. This is a low agitation developer, so I would simply turn the rotary processor off and agitate 3 slow inversions each minute by hand. Also, the stuff lasts forever, so its extremely cost effective (its cheap to start, too!).

Anyway, take a look at my APUG gallery for lots of examples of the efke-ish emulsion in Diafine (the 6x6 shots), and tri-x (the 35mm shots).

hope this helps,

André

I use Acufine quite a lot. You could do a search in the galleries on "acufine" or "diafine" to turn up examples.

Rolleijoe said:

Since Rodinal is no more, I've been looking for another developer other than the HC-110 and X-Tol varieties.

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Agfaphoto's Rodinal may be discontinued (though there is some suggestion that the firm who bought their photo-chemistry division may produce it again) both Calbe & Foma (Fomadon RO9) make developers which are basically the pre-war formulation of Rodinal which is not a great deal different from the Agfaphoto stuff. The Calbe is also rebadged as Adox. There are a lot of threads on the subject on here if you search.

Wasn't there a Rodinal recipe in the Film Developing Cookbook?

If Acufine seems to appeal to you then you might consider Acu-1 which is similar but is intended for use as a one-shot.

Thanks Wayne

waynecrider said:

It has been said that Diafine is not excactly a fine grain developer, more a middle of the road type. I ahve read thate it also doesn't apparently work well with the newer t grain emulsions. I used it with HP5+ myself so do not have that much expereince with it and other emulsions. It's just easier to use from a temperature standpoint. The development procedure calls for a short agitation and 3 minute sit so you wouldn't need a Jobo. Try some to form your own impressions.

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Thanks for the input Wayne. As I despise the t-grain films out there, I don't see that as a problem. I'm shooting Neopan 400, Tri-X, and what Agfapan films I have left, until they are all gone.

The limited examples of differing films souped in Diafine, seem to have a nice look to them, very nice shadow detail & even tonal scale. Will just have to get some & try it out I guess.

Rolleijoe

One of the attractions of Acufine for me, aside from the sharp look and speed increase without unpleasant grain, is that I can keep it ready to go in a tank at all times and replenish it (you can do this with Diafine too).

If you go this route, though, and don't use the developer for a while, you might test it with a snip of exposed film (it should go black in about a minute or less). I discovered one summer when I'd been away for a month and it turned out that our building's air conditioning went down for a few days, that Acufine goes dead if exposed to high temperatures.

Rolleijoe said:

Since Rodinal is no more, I've been looking ...

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Since you've been using a one-shot you may wish
to continue using a one-shot. Ethol T.E.C and UFG,
Edwal FG-7, and ACU-1 may be good choices.

There are any number of simple Homebrews. Dan