Just want to make sure - New to BW Developing

Just bought some chem's the other day

DD-X - 1L
Rapid Fixer - 1L
Photo Flo - 50ml

I'm doing the developer 1+4 so after I've used that I just pour it away yea?
Then for stop I'm just running water for about 1min
Fix 1+4 then after used that pour it into a empty bottle to save for next time?

So is that right what I'm doing then?? Just want to make sure before I waste a load of developer or fix by doing it that way. As by doing it 1+4 on developer, thats 400ml and seeing as it's only a 1L bottle, don't seem to get much for your money:confused:

Then I've put the film in my airing cupboard to dry as it's warm in there

Sorry for all the questions guys, just want to make sure I'm doing it right

Make sure of your times, make sure you get the bottles in order so as not to fix when you should have developed. I Photo Flo a few drops in the final rinse after my rinsing. How are you going to do that? I use the 5-10-20. Fill, agitate 5 times, drain. Fill, agitate 10 itimes, drain. Fill, agitate 20 times, drain. Quicker and less water. Then I fill and Photo Flo.

Looks right. Good luck.

Oh, and make a water run. Substitute all materials with water in the bottles or some bottles so you get used to what time it will take for each stage and such. Just to get any hiccups out of the way first.

Just thought, it's not 400ml developer. It's 100ml and then 400ml water



Great, just wasted developer and fix as the fix is wrong as well so I might as well get rid of that as well

So that could translate to 200mL Dev and 800mL water for a 1 litre bottle.

Overall everything looks fine procedure wise. It looks as if you are using 80ml of DDX for each film - is that right? So its 12 films per 1 litre of DDX or 25 per 2L. If its a 36 frame of film then on a per neg basis that's not as expensive as you may think.

Two points to make. 1 Are you sure you are getting the DDX at cheapest price? It is worth looking around. I have found it cheapest at Jessops(£12.99 last time I looked) if you can order online and collect at store easily.
2. 400ml seems a lot of dev. If your tank needs this then there isn't a lot you can do but long term a secondhand Jobo tank taking 240mls might pay for itself. Durst tanks also only need 240mls.

For stop I use 4 changes in the tank but one min of running water seems OK. Fixer procedure looks fine. Again a 5L container is much cheaper.

How does the film now look? Are you pleased with the results? The great thing about DDX is its versatility in terms of the range of films it will cover. I have found it a better developer grainwise than ID11 although more expensive.

pentaxuser

Yea I messed up big time

I used 100ml of water, then 400ml developer

Which is wrong as it's the other way around

I really do hate what I've just done now as I have just wasted a load of fix and developer BIG TIME!!!

Don't throw it away. You can still use it. What you have is 100mL dev and 25mL water. So poor off 125mL of your solution and then add 375mL of water. You can do this four times to use what you mixed.

The fix is wrong? Not if you have mixed it at 1+4 it isn't. Have you used 400ml of DDX at stock strength? If the tank takes 400ml then at 1+4 it's 80ml of DDX and 320 mls of water.

So how does the film look after development in 400ml of straight DDX?

I know this is easy to say but don't despair.

pentaxuser

Go to the chat room.

It's difficult to keep up here as it's almost a conversation but if you have used 400ml of fixer and 100ml of water then there's no problem. Simply add water to make it up correctly so you end up with 2L of working fixer eventually. Fixer at working strength keeps a long time. I'd be inclined to correct it straight away in case you forget and use it again at over-strength but it isn't essential. You have 4 parts fixer to one part water so if whatever you need in the tank you can get right by working on having 75ml of fixer and 25ml of water per 100ml total and correct from there.

If I had £1 for everyone on APUG who has made a mistake then I'd have enough money to bid for HBOS

pentaxuser

So with the fix as I've got four times too much I'd just need to add four times as much water yea than fix. So 400ml fix would I need to add 1600ml of water to correct it?

Fix .......Water

100ml.....400ml = Normal
400ml.....100ml = Error
400ml.....1600ml = New ??

Is that right in my thinking? As it's four times so four times 400ml is 1600ml of water.

You can certainly salvage the fixer by doing exactly as pentaxuser wrote. Rapid fixer keeps well after dilution to working strength and has quite a bit of capacity. The developer, I'm not so sure because I'm not a user of DD-X. If the fixer has gone bad, the situation is reversible. Simply mix up some fresh fixer and re-do the step. If the developer has gone bad, there's no way of knowing until you inspect the film. Of course by then it's too late to repair the damage. Any silver halides that might have been develop-able have been washed out by the fixer. My advice is to salvage the fixer and discard any of the used developer to be on the safe side.

I'm sure DD-X is a fine developer, but it is expensive compared to some of the other offerings available. I see that you're in the UK, so Ilford's products are probably easier to source less expensively than some other brands. Save yourself some money and get a 5L kit of ID-11. Firstcall has it for £9.64, and you might be able to get it for less. It can be used, and re-used according to directions, at full strength. Dilute the stock solution with an equal part of water and it makes an excellent all round one shot developer. The stock solution will last 6 months in completely full bottles, and about 2 months in partially full bottles. Store the 5L of stock solution in smaller bottles and you're good to go. See the tech sheet for ID-11 here: http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/20062161159472874.pdf ID-11 is sold as a dry powder mix, and some folks think that it's a pain in the ass to mix it with water from your own tap. I don't think so, especially when I consider the cost difference between liquid concentrates and dry powders.

If you already added 100mL then you only need to add another 1500mL to make your 1600mL total.

Fixer:

Right now you have a partially diluted stock solution, with 400 ml of concentrate in every 500 ml of stock.

To get it to the correct concentration for working strength, you need to dilute it enough so that there is 100 ml of concentrate for every 500 ml of working solution.

By my calculation, that means you need to add one part of your strong stock solution to three parts of water.

I would put your strong stock in a container, and clearly label it with those instructions (i.e. dilute special strong fixer stock one part stock with three parts additional water).

Matt

P.S. for your next batch, put a label on the concentrate that reminds you of the correct dilutions, and discard the label with your "special" mixing instructions.

Right I'll just add another 1500ml to this one and be done with it haha

cherryrig said:

Right I'll just add another 1500ml to this one and be done with it haha

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Makes sense. Be aware though that Ilford say not to keep working strength DDX for more than 24 hours.

It must be said that DDX is one of the more expensive developers. It is a speed-enhancing developer formulated with the Delta films in mind. If you do not want to mix ID-11 from powder as suggested above then liquids such as Ilfosol 3 or Ilfotec LC29 (possibly the most economical liquid developer) will prove more economical and still give excellent results.

Good luck, Bob.

I'll have a look into those two other developers as well then

Thanks

cherryrig said:

Then I've put the film in my airing cupboard to dry as it's warm in there

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Going back to your original thread it sounded as if you had developed the film already when you asked the questions as the quote above was in the past tense. If so I am curious to know how it turned out. I thought you had developed with 400ml of DDX at stock strength then in your subsequent posts it seemed as if you has used 400ml of DDX plus 100ml of water.

No wonder you thought DDX was expensive.

For what it's worth, I'll repeat what I said. 1L will develop 12 x36frame films in 35mm or 2L will do 25 films if you need 400ml of working strength solution.

On a per neg basis the cost of DDX becomes quite reasonable but yes there are cheaper developers.

It sounds as if you use 500ml per tank and of course you could be doing 120 film which in my Jobo tanks requires more solution. What size is the film and what tanks are you using?

pentaxuser

120 film with a 500ml tank

Don't worry about what I was saying before as I've sorted it out