Life on a liquid diet - convenience darkrom

I just wanted to post my experiences as an enthusiast for the darkroom ... with little time.

My time in the darkroom comes in brief torrents and long droughts because of work and having children.

I had previously been a user of dektol/xtol/d76 and i found that the very minimal inconvenience of mixing chemicals was damping my enthusiasm. Also having one or 2 xtol bottles lose their kick and had reels of thin negs. So early this year I made some moves to improve convenience and keeping.

Dektol to Formulary Liquidol - Cannot tell the difference and keeping properties are better
Xtol to Clayton f76+ - Similar overall I have trouble telling the difference.
D76 to HC110 - A little bit grainier but overall similarly wonderful.
Ilford Rapid Fix to Formulary TF-4 - I never thought I would be excited about a fixer but I am. No stop. No magenta on TMX. Washes quickly. Plays nice with delicate older films (adox/efke). I can't imagine using anything else.

I also use "Private Preserve" an argon spray designed for wine to reduce any oxidation of the stock chemicals. I've had terrible experiences with the accordion style bottles. The only one that I think needs it is the F76+ but I use it in all and at least over a year everything has gone well. I find it much more convenient to mix the liquids than break up xtol chunks for 20 minutes.

This is probably irrelevant to most but to those with limited time maybe a liquid diet will maximize your time in the dark.

Happy new year

--Jeff

Just touching on a small part of what you wrote.

I've heard nothing but good things about TF-4 fixer. I use TF-5, which does all of what you just described, takes away the magenta in T-films. Lasts a long time (in stock and in the tray) and washes easily. I'm wondering what the difference is between the two.

TF4 and TF5 are both good stuff.

HC110 is very convenient as a concentrate. I mostly use pyrocat-hd in glycol; lasts very good

Another fan of the liquid diet here, and of the Argon spray.

Moersch ECO 4812 is my favorite paper developer, And Agfa Studionol (now Rodinal Spezial) is a great fast developer that Argon spray allows me to mix up as needed without worry.

Jeff, what were the troubles with the accordion bottles? Leakage or oxidation?

Thanks for the info for the fixer. I'm going to try that, as I'd like to not have to use stop bath in the interests of keeping things simpler.

I like it might have to try it.

Jeff

I distrust accordion bottles. I had trouble with them sucking in air and re-inflating, splitting at creases and leaking (the smaller 1L size mostly) and found them impossible to clean.

Always possible that I had a bad brand and/or atypical usage, kept them too long, any number of things for me and so YMMV.

I do much the same things, with minor variations (TF-5, which I find superior in every way to -4; and my Xtol substitute is PC-TEA). Dektol has been OK for me, but I do have a bottle of Liquidol on the shelf to try out when the current batch is done.

Although it seems like mixing chemicals should be a triviality, in practice it gets in my way too. When your time comes in small slices, little incremental conveniences count. No complaints from here about the liquid diet.

-NT

momus said:

Jeff, what were the troubles with the accordion bottles? Leakage or oxidation?

Thanks for the info for the fixer. I'm going to try that, as I'd like to not have to use stop bath in the interests of keeping things simpler.

Click to expand...

Add cleaning to your list. When they first came out, it seemed like a good idea. You could squeeze all the air out. It just isn't the best solution to getting and keeping air out. Its surprising they still sell them.

I seem to be the only one who has not had problems with the accordion bottles, though I quit using them when I read about their air permeability. I never had one take enough air in to expand.

I use mostly liquids but like LPD and Diafine too much to give them up. LPD is available as liquid but at much higher cost in spite of being twice the concentration.


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I suggest using Dasani 1L. hard plastic bottled water containers vs any of the brown photo containers. I fill five Dasani containers to the top with XTOL and store in the dark. After six months I will not use a bottle which has been opened and exposed to air for more than 6 weeks. Instead, I open a new bottle and increase the amount of stock solution to 7oz (35mm) to ensure enough energy for complete development. Using this method I get full, normal, development with 12 month old stock XTOL. With my output, a 5L package of developer lasts 12 months....after a year any remaining solution is disposed in an abundance of caution.

Concerning paper developer it makes sense to to use a product like ECO 4812. I'm not sure what (if anything) you lose if the paper developer has such an extended shelf life.

I'm a fan of Eco-Pro paper developer and Rodinal. FYI-I suspect accordion bottles are the worst option. They are made of a thin HDPE so they don't offer much of an oxygen barrier and the folds trap bubbles. I use few sizes of brown boston round bottles from SKS Bottles and decant into the the smallest size I can to minimize air trapped.....inert gas would be even better.