AVAILABILITY AND CAPACITY
ILFOTEC DD-X is available in 1 litre bottles world-wide.
Used at 1+4 for one shot processing it will develop 16x 135/36 films.
If reuse techniques are used, it will develop up to 50x 135/36 or 120 films
I'm not entirely sure what this means in terms of the amount of developer required. Does each roll of film still require 62.5ml of developer in the working solution for rotary processing? Or does it require a different amount?Rotary tube processors have very similar processing conditions to spiral tank processing by hand, except they process with small amounts of solution using continuous agitation and can be pre-programmed. ILFOTEC DD-X developer can be used to process films in rotary processors using recommended dilutions at 20°C (68°F).
This simplifies things quite a bit, but with rotary agitation, think of the developer staying in place and the film moving through it.
With everything turned on its side, you need enough solution in the tube to be able to cover nearly half of the reel with fluid.
You still need 62.5 ml of concentrate per roll with rotary development.
In addition to moving because of turbulence, the developer also constantly gets dragged up the moving film and then drains down.
Mirko from ADOX mentioned this on several occasions: do not use rotary continuous agitation with B&W film.
I am too lazy to do neither of those things, so it's easier to simply listen to the CEO of a photochemical company
Mirko from ADOX mentioned this on several occasions: do not use rotary continuous agitation with B&W film.
Another angle to consider is that reduced agitation paired with extended time does indeed affect the curve. Exhausted developer indeed becomes less active in exposed areas. The obvious example of that is stand processing. I hope no objections here? Why then wouldn't the same principle apply to intermediate agitation, just to a lesser degree?
Yes - in general reduced agitation is deleterious, leading to mid-tones that are flat and poorly rendered, resulting in negatives that are "yech" (that is a technical term).
Reduced agitation is a special purpose technique that can rescue you in certain very specific circumstances.
The thing about 62.5ml is that if this is the minimum required then why does Ilford give the following table on page 2:
Tank Size (ml) Dilution 1+4 Concentrate / Water 100 20/80 150 30/120 200 40/160 250 50/200 300 60/240 350 70/280 400 80/320 450 90/360 500 100/400 600 120/480 700 140/560 800 160/640 900 180/720 1000 200/800 2000 400/1600
Good question, I've emailed Ilford for clarification.
@MattKing well, let's try to think from the first principles here. Does continuous agitation save time? Yes it does, and time is money for commercial labs, so small sacrifice in quality is not a problem. Labs do lots of things that trade a bit of quality in exchange for efficiency/throughput. So it seems logical that Kodak and others would provide continuous agitation guidance to their most important customers.
I look forward to seeing its answer or your summary of it, should you want to share it
pentaxuser
Can we take it Matt that you are making a distinction between Kodak and Ilford recommended inversion agitation regimes and what you term "reduced" agitation?
Roughly at what level of reduced agitation does the "yech" arrive?
Thanks
pentaxuser
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?