michaelbsc
Allowing Ads
Hey gang, I've been searching, here, Google, the Ilford site, to no avail about the minimum concentrate of DD-X required for per roll of 135-36. There's a great discussion going on about Rodinal, but that's outside what I'm looking for.
I have written to Ilford asking for guidance, but haven't heard from them yet.
Here's my story. I've got a few old junk store cameras that are fixed, 1/25 sec and f/8, and on a nice day shooting 100 ASA I need to pull the film a couple of stops. I'm not really interested in keep "special" film for these, since they're really playthings. I keep 100 and 400 around, and that's what I want to use.
I develop in an old Phototherm rotary processor, and the machine is set up to control temperature at 75F (24C). Changing the temperature to 68F is not straightforward, since it means "recalibrating" the whole machine to be too cold. It cannot be adjusted for a single process on demand. But I can change the development time at each run, and I can obviously control the dilution of the developer solution when I mix it.
Now, pulling two stops, plus the constant agitation, plus the higher temperature makes for a really, really short development time. It's usually fine, but sometimes the development is a little inconsistent across the roll. I guess it depends on where in the rotation of the spindle the film happens to be when the pump kicks in to fill the tank.
What I want to do is dilute the DD-X 1+9, basically cut it in half, and develop longer, trying to get >5 min. I know a number of folks use DD-X at 1+9, and it's in the Massive Dev Chart, but I think most of those results use some kind of universal tank, like a Paterson. The Phototherm, as it's designed to do, uses minimal chemistry for development as a money saving scheme, far less than a Paterson tank. That was part of the sales pitch for pro labs and one hour joints when these things were all the rage. But if I dilute to 1+9 then I'm going to end up with a very measly amount of concentrate per roll of 135-36. At some point I will exhaust the developer rather than develop the film.
Ilford's data sheet does indicate some guidance about the maximum number of rolls that may be developed when reusing DD-X, and that number works out to 20ml per roll. But that also has to compensate for the waste salts that are dissolving into the developer with each subsequent development cycle, whereas I plan to use it one-shot. My hunch is that I can go lower if it's fresh every cycle. If I can get away with 12ml/roll, then I'm home free.
I know that the Rodinal crowd claims fantastic dilution ratios, but that in and of itself doesn't give me much to work with. I suppose I could switch over to Rodinal, but that kind of conflicts with the concept of constant agitation?
So does anyone have good data about the minimum concentrate volume I should use for DD-X as one-shot?
Thanks,
Michael
I have written to Ilford asking for guidance, but haven't heard from them yet.
Here's my story. I've got a few old junk store cameras that are fixed, 1/25 sec and f/8, and on a nice day shooting 100 ASA I need to pull the film a couple of stops. I'm not really interested in keep "special" film for these, since they're really playthings. I keep 100 and 400 around, and that's what I want to use.
I develop in an old Phototherm rotary processor, and the machine is set up to control temperature at 75F (24C). Changing the temperature to 68F is not straightforward, since it means "recalibrating" the whole machine to be too cold. It cannot be adjusted for a single process on demand. But I can change the development time at each run, and I can obviously control the dilution of the developer solution when I mix it.
Now, pulling two stops, plus the constant agitation, plus the higher temperature makes for a really, really short development time. It's usually fine, but sometimes the development is a little inconsistent across the roll. I guess it depends on where in the rotation of the spindle the film happens to be when the pump kicks in to fill the tank.
What I want to do is dilute the DD-X 1+9, basically cut it in half, and develop longer, trying to get >5 min. I know a number of folks use DD-X at 1+9, and it's in the Massive Dev Chart, but I think most of those results use some kind of universal tank, like a Paterson. The Phototherm, as it's designed to do, uses minimal chemistry for development as a money saving scheme, far less than a Paterson tank. That was part of the sales pitch for pro labs and one hour joints when these things were all the rage. But if I dilute to 1+9 then I'm going to end up with a very measly amount of concentrate per roll of 135-36. At some point I will exhaust the developer rather than develop the film.
Ilford's data sheet does indicate some guidance about the maximum number of rolls that may be developed when reusing DD-X, and that number works out to 20ml per roll. But that also has to compensate for the waste salts that are dissolving into the developer with each subsequent development cycle, whereas I plan to use it one-shot. My hunch is that I can go lower if it's fresh every cycle. If I can get away with 12ml/roll, then I'm home free.
I know that the Rodinal crowd claims fantastic dilution ratios, but that in and of itself doesn't give me much to work with. I suppose I could switch over to Rodinal, but that kind of conflicts with the concept of constant agitation?
So does anyone have good data about the minimum concentrate volume I should use for DD-X as one-shot?
Thanks,
Michael
