Mike Wilde
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I love the look I get from Microdol X and Plus X, or FP4 when I shoot 35mm. I know that there is no real reason that these films don't look great with other capable developers, and just put it down to some sort of emotional attachment to good subjects that I have processed in this combination in the past. I don;t usually use it for 120 or larger formats, where the fine grain behaviour is not as important to me.
Some times I will use it 1:3 one shot, and sometimes straight stock solution one shot, but I have also had very good sucess with using it straight and replenshed, per Kodak's rates. I also replenish a Harveys 777 varaint and it works well for me also; otherwise I am usually a one shot processor.
Alas, I have got the feeling that Microdol X is not long for more production, if it is not gone already. So when the chance to buy a gallon package packed in the foil/plastic under paper packaging at a camera show for $4 came up last year, I bought it.
The thing is, I don't use it nearly fast enough to get though the gallon before it poops out used or unused.
So I got to thinking about some of Pat Gainers developer ideas I read up on a few years ago, like PC-TEA, where the developing agents are dissolved in other than water. I have also used propylene glycol as a dissolving agent (for a 10% phenidone solution most often).
A mad experiment idea thus began to form in my brain. Perhaps if I could dissolve the developing agents out of the solution, to create a concentrate that would not oxidize off as in the way that it would if it were dissulved in water as a solute.
I warmed about 700mL of propylene glycol to above 130F in a stainless steel mixing vessel, on a heated magnetic stirrer, and added the full package of the chemicals, that otherwise normally call for starting with 3.3l of hot water.
As might be expected, it quickly got very thick,and stiff to stir. When the stirrer was turned off, the sulfite crystals , and maybe the chloride crystals as well, would settle to the bottom, and not go into solution. If any sulfite got into this glyol, it formeda saturated solution, so no more would dissolve. The glycol by this stage had a light tan colour, as microdol looks when it is mixed normally.
I poured the supernatant liquid off into a beaker, trying not to take too many sulfite crystals along with the liquid.
I then added batches of 130F hot water to the mixer, and stirred until no more sulfite would dissolve. I poured this saturated sulfite solution off, and then would add more hot water, and dissolve more crystals. No sign of the brown developer oxidising action appeared in the water dissolve stages.
After 3 runs of this, there was a bit more than 2 L of saturated sulfte/ chloride solution.
I transferred off the supernatant from the beaker to a 500mL storage jar, and then rinsed the settled sulfite sludge off the bottom of the beaker by adding more hot water, gently corking it, and shaking it.
This water was added to the other sulfite solution. The total volume of the sulfite solution was raised to 2.5L, from 2.2l in the hope that the sulfite would not recrystalize as the solution cooled. This morning there is no sign of sulfite in the bottom of either container, and so I guess this worked.
So now to make up a stock 500mL of microdol-x solution, you take 330mL of the sulfite solution, add 70mL of the propylene glycol solution containing mostly the developing agents, and add water to 500mL.
This now 'working solution' is good for processing 2-36 exposure rolls of 35mm film, before replenishment, and three rounds of 16mL of replenisher, before the restrainer byproducts of development build up too high.
The working solution then must be discarded after it is exhausted, or four months after it was mixed. A new workig solution can then be mixed up when the time comes to process more films.
By these means, I hope to stretch the life of what may be my last of the Kodak Microdol X for a few years to come. It also has raised the bar for my plans in terms of brewing up developers that can hang around for long times in thier A and B solutions, before calling on them to develop film. I have stock of PMK, that is still good two years after mixing, but I am not a pyro fan for al films that I shoot.
Some times I will use it 1:3 one shot, and sometimes straight stock solution one shot, but I have also had very good sucess with using it straight and replenshed, per Kodak's rates. I also replenish a Harveys 777 varaint and it works well for me also; otherwise I am usually a one shot processor.
Alas, I have got the feeling that Microdol X is not long for more production, if it is not gone already. So when the chance to buy a gallon package packed in the foil/plastic under paper packaging at a camera show for $4 came up last year, I bought it.
The thing is, I don't use it nearly fast enough to get though the gallon before it poops out used or unused.
So I got to thinking about some of Pat Gainers developer ideas I read up on a few years ago, like PC-TEA, where the developing agents are dissolved in other than water. I have also used propylene glycol as a dissolving agent (for a 10% phenidone solution most often).
A mad experiment idea thus began to form in my brain. Perhaps if I could dissolve the developing agents out of the solution, to create a concentrate that would not oxidize off as in the way that it would if it were dissulved in water as a solute.
I warmed about 700mL of propylene glycol to above 130F in a stainless steel mixing vessel, on a heated magnetic stirrer, and added the full package of the chemicals, that otherwise normally call for starting with 3.3l of hot water.
As might be expected, it quickly got very thick,and stiff to stir. When the stirrer was turned off, the sulfite crystals , and maybe the chloride crystals as well, would settle to the bottom, and not go into solution. If any sulfite got into this glyol, it formeda saturated solution, so no more would dissolve. The glycol by this stage had a light tan colour, as microdol looks when it is mixed normally.
I poured the supernatant liquid off into a beaker, trying not to take too many sulfite crystals along with the liquid.
I then added batches of 130F hot water to the mixer, and stirred until no more sulfite would dissolve. I poured this saturated sulfite solution off, and then would add more hot water, and dissolve more crystals. No sign of the brown developer oxidising action appeared in the water dissolve stages.
After 3 runs of this, there was a bit more than 2 L of saturated sulfte/ chloride solution.
I transferred off the supernatant from the beaker to a 500mL storage jar, and then rinsed the settled sulfite sludge off the bottom of the beaker by adding more hot water, gently corking it, and shaking it.
This water was added to the other sulfite solution. The total volume of the sulfite solution was raised to 2.5L, from 2.2l in the hope that the sulfite would not recrystalize as the solution cooled. This morning there is no sign of sulfite in the bottom of either container, and so I guess this worked.
So now to make up a stock 500mL of microdol-x solution, you take 330mL of the sulfite solution, add 70mL of the propylene glycol solution containing mostly the developing agents, and add water to 500mL.
This now 'working solution' is good for processing 2-36 exposure rolls of 35mm film, before replenishment, and three rounds of 16mL of replenisher, before the restrainer byproducts of development build up too high.
The working solution then must be discarded after it is exhausted, or four months after it was mixed. A new workig solution can then be mixed up when the time comes to process more films.
By these means, I hope to stretch the life of what may be my last of the Kodak Microdol X for a few years to come. It also has raised the bar for my plans in terms of brewing up developers that can hang around for long times in thier A and B solutions, before calling on them to develop film. I have stock of PMK, that is still good two years after mixing, but I am not a pyro fan for al films that I shoot.
