Is Anyone Using Beutler's Developer Regularly

[chuckroast]

Curious if anyone is using Buetler's for day-to-day development, for what formats, in what dilution, and under what shooting conditions...

 

[revdoc]

Yes, 35mm, 1+1+10, all conditions. It's a good, all-round developer.

The results are sharp and the grain is crisp. The results are a lot like Rodinal, but it increases film speed a little instead of reducing it.

I don't make a stock solution, because it's so easy to make as needed that there's no point. The following makes 300ml of working-strength developer, and takes two minutes: 1/4 tsp metol, 1/4 tsp sodium sulfite, 1/2 tsp sodium carbonate, 300 ml water at 20 degrees C. Stir until dissolved. Develop film.

 

[dpurdy]

I use it as my nearly always 8x10 developer. It is flexible and can build enough contrast for platinum printing, which is all I do.
I agree with revdoc that it is simple to mix a liter at a time but it calls for only 1 gram of metol and you need pretty good scales to get accurate. I generally mix a stock solution because I generally use it more than once a day. So I mix a stock liter of sodium sulfite and Metol part A and Sodium carbonate part B and then dilute it 1-1-8, or 100 ml of A and B to 800 ml of water. I find it lasts long enough that I can process a sheet of film and then within an hour use the same batch to process another sheet and add a little intuitive time.

 

[destroya]

I used to use it often with higher contrast slow films. Think pan-f, and rollei retro 80s. it did help lower contrast a little, but it did give a noticeable speed boost to the RR80 films. depending on the developer I was shooting it at 40-50, with beutler I could get 64 in normal contrast scene and 80 with lower. back in the day it gave nice sharp negs, easy to wet print when I used to do that.

As its easy to mix and obtain the chemicals, its always in my tool shed of developers if needed. Like the others have said, I mix up stock solutions and store them in brown glass jar for a few month, then dump if not needed. also, make sure to read the mixing directions carefully when searching the web on this developer. many people list mixing at 1:1:8, others 1+1+8, others 1:1:10, others 1+1+10

john

 

[BMbikerider]

Beutler developer - now there is a blast from the past for me. I have not used it for a very long time perhaps 60 years but you have rekindled my interest. It has to be probably the cheapest developer to make up and one of the simplest to use.