Is there a liquid alternative to Xtol?

Jedidiah Smith · Feb 6, 2010

Well, I got talked into trying liquid chemicals at Freestyle the other day... And came Away with HC-110 as a film developer. Now, I shoot 35mm exclusively, and love the challenge of making a big print out of a tiny neg. It's just fun to see how good I can make 'em.
After looking at the Kodak chart, it looks like Xtol is a no-brainer for fine grain, sharpness, etc. (no wonder Xtol was my favorite a while back)
So does anyone know of a liquid dev that is equiv. to Xtol? If not, I suppose I can just mix up another batch of powder...but the all liquid idea was quite tempting.
Thanks,
Jed

3e8 · Feb 6, 2010

Jedidiah Smith said:
Well, I got talked into trying liquid chemicals at Freestyle the other day... And came Away with HC-110 as a film developer. Now, I shoot 35mm exclusively, and love the challenge of making a big print out of a tiny neg. It's just fun to see how good I can make 'em.
After looking at the Kodak chart, it looks like Xtol is a no-brainer for fine grain, sharpness, etc. (no wonder Xtol was my favorite a while back)
So does anyone know of a liquid dev that is equiv. to Xtol? If not, I suppose I can just mix up another batch of powder...but the all liquid idea was quite tempting.
Thanks,
Jed

Never tried it, but I've heard that ilfosol-3 is similar to xtol. It's supplied as a liquid concentrate, typically diluted 1:9 for normal use.

jim appleyard · Feb 6, 2010

Not that I know of, but hey, X-Tol is a liquid once you mix it up!

You could go mix up a batch of Mytol from dry chems. It starts with dry chems and you can make as little as you want; 1 liter, 1/2 liter, 1/4 liter... A few (excuse me here folks) teaspoons of chems and you've got Mytol. Pretty easy.

HC-110 is fine soup tho'.

Alan Johnson · Feb 6, 2010

Potassium sulfite is more soluble than sodium sulfite and could be used as the basis of an Xtol-like concentrate, to be diluted, containing also dimezone-s and sodium ascorbate,Photoformulary sell the sulfite and dimezone,the ascorbate is sold by health food stores.
But Kodak must have had some reason for not doing this?

Ian Grant · Feb 6, 2010

Alan Johnson said:
But Kodak must have had some reason for not doing this?

Shipping Liquids is expensive.

Ian

markbarendt · Feb 6, 2010

Jedidiah Smith said:
...but the all liquid idea was quite tempting.
Thanks,
Jed

I was tempted too, but Xtol is just so nice to work with and since I only need to mix it every 4-months or so it isn't really an issue.

ruilourosa · Feb 6, 2010

pc-tea is nice...

clayne · Feb 6, 2010

Jedidiah Smith said:
So does anyone know of a liquid dev that is equiv. to Xtol? If not, I suppose I can just mix up another batch of powder...but the all liquid idea was quite tempting.
Thanks,
Jed

What's the point? It's about the same amount of work in the end, over time (powder vs liquid). Not to mention the powder variant, unmixed, will store better by far.

removed account4 · Feb 6, 2010

its not a vit c based formula
but sprint film developer is good-stuff.
it comes in a liquid concentrate ...
1 L or larger cubes.

it was what i learned on years ago,
and from time to time i sill use it ...

brian steinberger · Feb 6, 2010

I believe Ilford DDX is similar to Xtol

erikg · Feb 6, 2010

I thought DDX was closest to TMax Dev, and Ilfosol was similar to xtol? Anyway, all work pretty well. As mentioned PC-TEA is pretty nice and gives very similar results to xtol, but making it up takes more effort than just mixing up some xtol. It does last extremely long though, much like that HC-110 concentrate.

BetterSense · Feb 6, 2010

Why don't you try the HC110. The difference in grain with HC110 and Xtol is not super-massive. If you want less grain, using a finer-grained film or a bigger format will give you much larger differences than the difference between Xtol and HC110.

clayne · Feb 6, 2010

BetterSense said:
Why don't you try the HC110. The difference in grain with HC110 and Xtol is not super-massive. If you want less grain, using a finer-grained film or a bigger format will give you much larger differences than the difference between Xtol and HC110.

I respectfully disagree and recommend XTOL. However, specifically in the case of "liquid" developers - HC110 is a good choice. It's not better than XTOL, though.

topoxforddoc · Feb 6, 2010

Ilfosol is not a substitute for XTOL. Neither is DDX. It doesn't take long to mix up 5L of XTOL (at least 30 films at 1:1). I find I can push film so much better in XTOL than Ilfosol or DDX. HP5 pushed with XTOL is just great - not too much grain and wonderful tones retained.

Charlie
www.charlie-chan.co.uk

clayne · Feb 6, 2010

topoxforddoc said:
Ilfosol is not a substitute for XTOL. Neither is DDX. It doesn't take long to mix up 5L of XTOL (at least 30 films at 1:1). I find I can push film so much better in XTOL than Ilfosol or DDX. HP5 pushed with XTOL is just great - not too much grain and wonderful tones retained.

Charlie
www.charlie-chan.co.uk

Yep, XTOL kicks ass - but many people want the "convenience" of a liquid developer. Effort in, results out.

2F/2F · Feb 6, 2010

Before the word "better" is used alone to describe something, criteria must be named. "Better" yet, just objectively list characteristics instead of opining.

This is what you can say for sure, using the word "better" unqualified:

HC-110 is better at looking like HC-110 than is X-Tol.

X-Tol is better at looking like X-Tol than is HC-110.

Not:

HC-110 is better than X-Tol.

X-Tol is better than HC-110.

IMO, as far as "easy and standard" developers go, the closest to X-Tol I have found is D-23 straight. If "easy" is changed to "off the shelf in any photography store that stocks analog supplies", I would change that to D-76 1:1. If changed to "off the shelf from the Photographer's Formulary", well who the hell knows!

If it really must be a pre-packaged liquid, I would try DDX first, then T-Max. I would probably overexpose and underdevelop with both of these to get closer to an X-Tol look.

fschifano · Feb 6, 2010

I'm sorry, but I just don't get the "it's too much trouble to mix up my developer from powder" attitude. It's not that hard to do, you get a better and more reliable product, and it costs less. HC-110 and Rodinal aside, liquid concentrates have very limited shelf lives and there's no way of knowing how long that bottle of Ilfosol, DDX, or what have you has been sitting on a dealer's shelf. Powdered developers can last for years on the shelf provided the original packaging has not been compromised.

...and there's no way in hell I'm paying for what comes out of my tap for practically free.

Sirius Glass · Feb 6, 2010

XTOL produces finer grain and better sharpness than HC-110. If you want finer grain then XTOL is better. If you do not want finer grain then HC-110 might be better. I use XTOL and I have no used HC-110. I am happy with XTOL, if I was not, I would use another developer and that developer would be "better".

YMMV

Steve

mopar_guy · Feb 6, 2010

Try taking a look at Photographer's Formulary BW-2. I have liked my results.

Jedidiah Smith · Feb 7, 2010

Ok, thanks for all the thoughts on this one. I really do agree that mixing up 5L of Xtol is not hard - I did it many times before. It's just that I got talked into the liquid stuff. I'll probably just get some Xtol again and call it good. I don't think I've ever seen a better combo of fine grain and sharpness, unless it was Acros 100 in Perceptol diluted. Have you?
Thanks,
Jed

Jedidiah Smith · Feb 8, 2010

Just wanted to add that I'll be picking up some Xtol tomorrow to do a comparison with the HC-110. May as well see the difference myself since I bought it!

Any recommendations of dilution on the HC for most Xtol like negs from 35mm Plus-X?
Thanks,
Jed

sidearm613 · Feb 8, 2010

I just wanted to throw this in, but if you really want liquid convenience, and I can't blame you for that, why not try out the liquid forms of the pyro devs that Photographer's Formulary sells? I know that PMK and WD2D+ are both stocked in liquid form by Freestyle, so effort is minimal, and pyro defines fine grain. its a bit short lived once its in working solution, but the two parts will keep forever separately. I'll go one further and recommend WD2D. Its my pyro of choice (although I must admit to never having tried pyrocat), it has the most incredibly fine grain, and as a plus the density stain does some really pretty things to clouds and fog. I developed a roll of Neopan 400 35mm in it and got a beautiful, grainless (relatively), and really good looking 11x14 out of it. If I had the darkroom facilities I probably could have gone up to 16x20 before seeing the grain you see in an 8x10 of Tri-X in Rodinal

Jedidiah Smith · Feb 8, 2010

Really, that's interesting to me. I didn't think it was possible to get finer grain than Xtol, but maybe I was mistaken. I will have to do some reading on the Pyro devs. then. Does the Pyro dev. work better with T-grain films or non T-grain, or does it matter?
Thanks,
Jed

erikg · Feb 8, 2010

I would say that it doesn't matter, although each film stains differently, regardless of T-grain-ness. I use pyrocat as my primary developer and I've gotten results that I'm very happy with using Tri-X, FP-4, and TMY-2. The latter is my favorite. These choices are basically pretty personal. Pyrocat comes in a 2 part liquid, very easy to use and lasts a very long time. I've never tried WD2D, but I believe that the two are very similar. The thing is to try something long enough, including making a lot of real prints, before deciding a developer is awesome or it sucks. Easy to get lured in by negs fresh off the reel; held up to a lightbulb. Been there.

sidearm613 · Feb 9, 2010

Jedidiah Smith said:
Really, that's interesting to me. I didn't think it was possible to get finer grain than Xtol, but maybe I was mistaken. I will have to do some reading on the Pyro devs. then. Does the Pyro dev. work better with T-grain films or non T-grain, or does it matter?
Thanks,
Jed

Jed,
My experience with Xtol is limited, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but comparing prints from my P67 where the negative was developed in Xtol to a WD2D print (same film type, same darkroom setting, same dev process, different fixer...) the pyro neg is simply less grainy. I'm no chemist, so maybe I'm talking rubbish, but I think that, as excellent at grain as Xtol is, a pyro dev should just be better. I think it has something to do with the density stain "filling in the cracks," but once again, I ain't no chemist.

I don't think it would matter if you shoot T-grain or not. I never shoot T-grain, so I wouldn't know. I do know that John Wimberly designed WD2D with FP4 in mind, and it does look mighty good. However, I don't think it will make to big of a difference.

Is there a liquid alternative to Xtol?

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