Microdol-x replacement

Ray Rogers · Jan 9, 2010

Just curious...

Venchka said:
The patent for Microdol-X expired ages ago. Kodak claims they will never make Microdol-X again. Publish the formula please. Kodak will score massive PR points.

Why are you so interested in Microdol-X?

What does it give you that is unattainable by other means?

Kirk Keyes · Jan 9, 2010

Knowledge...

Ian Grant · Jan 9, 2010

That Knowledge needs to include the other avenues of Kodak and their competitors research and products/published formulae. There's still a lot of data made public by Kodak over the years that's just been overlooked, lost or neglected.

One example is (there was a url link here which no longer exists) that daters back to same period as D76, and is obviously the origin of Haist's H76.

The passing of time makes it harder to find this information.

Ian

jim appleyard · Jan 9, 2010

Venchka said:
The patent for Microdol-X expired ages ago. Kodak claims they will never make Microdol-X again. Publish the formula please. Kodak will score massive PR points.

I can agree that Kodak would probably do well in the PR dept., but sadly, MX is gone. I was a good dev and I liked it a lot.

However, there are other options:
1) Switch to Ilford's Perceptol. Very close to MX if not the same thing.

2) Switch to D-76, X-Tol, Edwal's FG-7, etc. The list of other devs is long and the differences would be small, if you could even notice them.

3) Brew your own MX. There's a good recipe in "The Film Dev. Cookbook", by Anchell & Troop. It's pretty easy to mix and I followed the same times as MX and got good negs.

Trask · Jan 9, 2010

Keith, I wish I could access the book, but it's sitting in a warehouse in Antwerp and I'm in Saudi Arabia for the time being. But I do believe it was 40g per liter/quart of D-76, divide the ISO in half and develop for twice as long. I only ran four or five rolls through the liter I did up, extending the developing time as appropriate.

I'm attaching another picture developed in this combination (Leica M2, Summicron, church in Lyon). I'll be exploring this more in the future.

Keith Tapscott. · Jan 9, 2010

Trask said:
Keith, I wish I could access the book, but it's sitting in a warehouse in Antwerp and I'm in Saudi Arabia for the time being. But I do believe it was 40g per liter/quart of D-76, divide the ISO in half and develop for twice as long. I only ran four or five rolls through the liter I did up, extending the developing time as appropriate.

I'm attaching another picture developed in this combination (Leica M2, Summicron, church in Lyon). I'll be exploring this more in the future.

I have just found Ilford`s technical information sheet P 10.5 FINE GRAIN DEVELOPMENT Which also says to add ammonium chloride to ID-11 in the proportion of 3/4 oz per 20 oz of working solution (20 grams per 500cc of stock solution.) Camera exposures should be increased by about 50% and the development times are double those specified for ID-11, so identical to what you posted.
That`s another fine image, so it obviously works well.

hobbes · Dec 10, 2010

Hello, there can be another MX replacement by W.Moersch - it's called EFG (comes from Extra Fine Grain I suppose), have just bought a 2l. bag and waiting for weather improves to get out and burn a roll of TX. Then I plan to compare it somehow with negs of TX bathed in D76 1:1 and original MX 1:3 cheers.

Lachlan Young · Feb 16, 2024

Eugen Mezei said:
Side question: Has Rollei Pan 25 anything to do with Rollei RPX 25?

Not now, as far as is known. RPX 25 is a repurposed Agfa Aviphot film.

Lachlan Young · Feb 16, 2024

Eugen Mezei said:
But was it? I had a debate with somebody (here on Apug or maybe photo.net) who said RPX 25 was always the same emulsion. I remember when it came out first it was not the same emulsion it is today. (That may be true for RPX 100 and 400.)

I think the name change from Rollei Pan 25 to RPX was when it changed to Aviphot from the Filmotec (coated at Efke or Forte?) emulsion. RPX 100 and 400 were Kentmere, but I think there were also 'retro' predecessors that were initially old-stock Agfapan and also encompassed some materials from Efke - and some complicated/ involved product that supposedly involved an Agfa Mortsel emulsion coated at Efke,

Alan Johnson · Feb 16, 2024

^^^
Agree with that from when I tested it years ago it seemed to be the same as Efke 25.

Rollei Pan 25

Now that this film has been out for a bit, I'm wondering what others on here think of it? I just ordered a couple rolls along with some Efke 25 from Freestyle to try out. I have had some use of the old APX 25 film, but I didn't use it much back when. Im more used to Efke 25 and Panatomic X...

www.photrio.com

DREW WILEY · Feb 16, 2024

On a particular trip to the mountains I shot three different 120 films on the same trip : Pan F @ 25, Ekfe 25, and Rollei Pan 25. They were all quite different in terms of characteristic curve. Pan F has an exaggerated S-curve with limited tonal range; Efke 25 had an exceptionally long range due to its very long relatively straight line - up to 12 stops without need of compensating or minus development; and Rollei was somewhere in between, with considerably less shadow gradation than Ekfe, but distinctly more than Pan F.

That distinction was quite important working in that environment. A film like Pan F could be lovely under mist or falling snow, but was relatively worthless once the sun was out and the scene contrast range very high. But Efke handled that kind of situation wonderfully.
The Rollei product was suitable for more average conditions, but had quite a few little annoying artifacts visible in the skies; I didn't care much for it overall. Efke's quality control didn't deteriorate until near the end of their whole facility. Pan F-plus obviously still exists, with its own special look.

Keith Tapscott. · Feb 17, 2024

DREW WILEY said:
On a particular trip to the mountains I shot three different 120 films on the same trip : Pan F @ 25, Ekfe 25, and Rollei Pan 25. They were all quite different in terms of characteristic curve. Pan F has an exaggerated S-curve with limited tonal range; Efke 25 had an exceptionally long range due to its very long relatively straight line - up to 12 stops without need of compensating or minus development; and Rollei was somewhere in between, with considerably less shadow gradation than Ekfe, but distinctly more than Pan F.

My favourite slow film was Agfa APX 25 which I found much easier to print than Pan F Plus. I love using FP4 Plus and HP5 Plus films though.
The best results I have seen from Pan F Plus were by Bill Spears who used to post here.

DREW WILEY · Feb 17, 2024

For best results with Pan F, you need to start with a moderate contrast scene to begin with. If the scene contrast range is suitable for a color slide, it will be for Pan F too. FP4 is a relatively forgiving film in most situations, but not ideal for the extreme contrast and I often encountered in the desert and high mountains. I never shoot HP5 except in 8x10 sheets; and there too, one has to be wary of excessive contrast, or else learn supplemental unsharp masking. I've gotten wonderful prints from all these films, and numerous other types too. I use quite a bit of TMax these days.

Augustus Caesar · Feb 18, 2024

Try this:

FX-5 (Crawley)

Source.

Roughly equivalent to Microdol-X. You lose a stop in speed. Develop undiluted 10-15 minutes.

Substance	Quantity
Water at 52°C	750mL
Metol	5g
Sodium Sulphite	125g
Potassium Bromide	0.5g
Borax	3g
Boric Acid	1.5g
Water to	1L

Water 750.0ml
Metol 4.5g
Sod. Sulphite 125.0g
Sod. Metaborate 2.25g
Sod. Bisulphite 1.0g
Pot. Bromide 0.5g
Water to make 1.0 litre

FX 5b: A fine grain developer. An exposure increase of about 1 stop over the normal exposure is recommended. Recommended developing times are: Kodak's Plus-X 10.0min.@68F Kodak's TMX-100 8.5min.@68F

Microdol-x replacement

Attachments

FX-5 (Crawley)​

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FX-5 (Crawley)