Liquid developer approximating XTOL?

[Anon Ymous]

I wonder whether the whole contents of a package of XTol could be dissolved in substantially less than the recommended five liters of water.

IIRC, a member of this forum has already done so, probably @zanxion72.

 

[craigclu]

I use it in gallon batches. A link to the info and a conversion chart....

[URL="https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/why-does-mixing-xtol-have-to-be-such-a-pain.127284/page-2#post-1681549"]why does mixing xtol have to be such a pain[/URL]

 

[bvy]

Somewhere (I thought) Ilford recommends DD-X as the closest equivalent to XTOL. It's what I switched to from XTOL to get most of the same properties but in a liquid. Main caveat is that it's significantly more expensive -- roughly a dollar per roll versus XTOL's 20 cents. Totally worth it as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Craig]

I mix up a batch of Xtol and then put it in a wine bag that excludes air. So far I have had a batch last at least 18 months before I used it all, so that can be an easy way to use Xtol and not have to mix up a developer each time.

 

[Paul Howell]

Clayton F60 should be close, but don't know how long it will last. In the now distant past I used both Clayton F76 and 60 with good results, at the time was shooting a lot of film so didn't keep open bottles around very long.

 

[ritternathan]

I've used and had luck with:

DS-10 Fine grain developer (published by Ryuji Suzuki somewhere on this site)

water 700 ml
Na2SO3, anhydrous 75g
TEA 99% 10ml
ascorbic acid 8.0g
Dimezone S 0.15g
salicylic acid 1.0g
boric acid 4.0g
water to make target pH 1.0 liter 8.00 ± 0.05

Notes on DS-10:
This is a very fine grain developer with no loss of speed or shadow details. This developer is intended to meet the image quality of Kodak XTOL developer, but with more robustness against trace impurities, which may have caused unpredictable failures with XTOL. DS-10 is also fine-tuned to medium speed and fast films; DS-10 does not work well with some slow films.

One way to make DS-10 work "better" with slow film is to dilute 1+2 and use at 25C or higher temperature. But I generally find slow films to work better with developers of DS-12 type, and that's why I recommend two developers for different kinds of films. The target pH is set 8.00 instead of XTOL's 8.20 to obtain slightly finer grain, though at about 20% increase of development time. If pH of 8.20 is targeted, the development time is nearly identical to XTOL time. This can be achieved by cutting down the boric acid to 2.0g, and this variation is called DS-10X.

This developer may be diluted 1+1 by combining one part DS-10 and one part water.

 

[alanrockwood]

Just FYI, Kodak experimented with tablet and "gum" developers like Xtol that were supposed to work "better" but AFAIK, nothing ever came of it. Ascorbic acid is hard to handle. Other formulas did work.

PE

PE,

What are tablet and gum developers? Are they more or less in the form of a pill that is dissolved in water for a single one-shot batch? Is so it could make a good substitute for a liquid developer.

 

[Photo Engineer]

A tablet developer is indeed a pill. A gum is based on a "silly putty" or such type developer that you cut off what you need for use. The difficulty of cutting off an exact amount was one of the major problems.

PE

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

Wow never came across a gum type developer; would there be an advantage to keeping properties in using Xtol in a gum type A and B and mixing one shot?

 

[Photo Engineer]

I guess we will never know. It was never practiced by anyone AFAIK.

PE

 

[bvy]

I guess we will never know. It was never practiced by anyone AFAIK.

PE

That sounds like a challenge, folks...

 

[Photo Engineer]

If you wish to take it that way.

IDK if it would even work. Remember my comment above.

PE