Mix and Dump One Shot Developers

[waynecrider]

Looking for a simple mix and dump 1 shot to use on a variety of films such as Tmax, Delta, FP4+, TriX. Gainers mentioned simple formula of

1/8 teaspoon Metol, 1/2 teaspoon ascorbic acid, 1 teaspoon sodium carbonate in a liter or a quart of water at the temperature you plan to use for development, no heating.

seems interesting. As long as I'm ordering chemicals I thought to ask in case I might want to add a couple of items to have another option for something more exotic or results targeted.

 

[WarEaglemtn]

You will have to buy a bottle of it but Rodinal is as easy as it comes. If you want finer grain from it add some Sodium Ascorbate. Not quite mixing from scratch but very reliable.

 

[dancqu]

As long as I'm ordering chemicals I thought to ask in case
I might want to add a couple of items to have another option
for something more exotic or results targeted.

How about less exotic? A gram of metol + ten grams of sodium
sulfite; solution volume one liter. I'd use that for two 120 rolls.
At 23 to 24 centigrade I've been giving Acros 16 minutes with
agitation at start and a few inversions every other minute.
Very good compensation IMO.

When finished, two rolls of ... , a gram of metol, and ten
grams of sulfite are done with. The developer is essentially
D-23. My formula, a full strength stock would have 8 grams
metol and 80 grams of sodium sulfite. The working strength
above is essentially D-23 at a 1:7 dilution. Dan

 

[jim appleyard]

Just about all devs can be mixed for one-shot use. D-76 at 1+1 is the classic. Metol, borax, sulfite and Hydroquinone are all you need.

And, as Dan says, D-23 works.

Can't wait to hear all the other responses.

 

[srs5694]

Ingredients that appear in a lot of the B&W formulas I mix include:

• Dimezone S (this is a variant of phenidone; either will do for most purposes, but Dimezone S lasts longer in solution)
• Metol
• Ascorbic acid
• Sodium sulfite
• Sodium carbonate (Arm & Hammer washing soda)
• Potassium bromide
• Salicylic acid
• Boric acid
• Triethanolamine (TEA)

The B&W formulas I mix most are DS-10 and DS-12 for film and Dead Link Removed for paper. The above ingredient list will enable you to mix all three of these, unless I've missed something. You'll also be able to mix Gainer's PC-TEA with those ingredients.

For simple formulas, Gainer's creations are superior to the ones I've been using lately, since Gainer's formulas have fewer ingredients. You might want to get some propylene glycol and/or TEA, in addition to the ingredients you listed, and forget the extras I listed (except for phenidone or Dimezone S). Glycol and TEA can be good solvents, particularly for phenidone, which is used in such small quantities that it's often useful to make a percentage solution of it and then measure it by volume. Sodium sulfite is used in a lot of formulas, but Gainer omits sulfite from many of his.

You might want to peruse the formulas at sites like Digitaltruth or Unblinking Eye to get an idea of what sorts of ingredients are common. Beware, though: It's easy to get caught up and think, "oh, I'll just add a few grams of Ingredient A so I can try Formula X; it's only $5." Do that a few times and your raw ingredients bill goes way up and you may never use half the things you order. (I speak from experience.)

 

[bsdunek]

Two of my favorites are Ilfolsol S and Rodinal. I like one shot use as they last a long time. Rodinal will go for years in the original bottle.

 

[nworth]

I usually mix up D-76. If I have extra, it keeps. Four ingredients is pretty simple. But there isn't anything much more simple than D-23:

Kodak D-23
This is a semi-compensating developer that produces fine shadow values while retaining high emulsion speed.
Water (52C) 750 ml
Metol 7.5 g
Sodium sulfite, anh. 100 g
WTM 1 l
Undiluted starting points for development at 20C:
ISO 100 films 5-1/2 minutes
ISO 200 films 6-1/2 minutes
ISO 400 films 8 minutes
124
Diluted 1:3, development times are longer, resulting in full mid-tones and lower contrast. Try tripling the times previously determined for the full-strength developer.

I prefer it undiluted. It becomes too much a compensating developer when made up 1+3.

There are a number of glycin formulas that look good, but keeping a stock of fresh glycin may be a problem. Agfa 8 and FX-2K come to mind:

Agfa 8 film developer
Water (52C) 750 ml
Sodium sulfite (anh) 12.5 g
Glycin 2 g
Potassium carbonate 25 g (You can substitute sodium carbonate monohydrate in the same amount.)
WTM 1 l
Develop medium speed films 10 to 12 minutes at 20C

FX-2K
Metol 250 mg
Glycin 750 mg
Sodium sulfite (anh) 3.5 g
Sodium metaborate 10.75g

FX-1b is another possibility:

Crawley FX-1b (FX-13) high acutance film developer
Metol 500 mg
Sodium sulfite (anh) 45 g
Sodium carbonate (anh) 2.5 g

The Gainer recipe should work, too.

 

[weasel]

Gainers' is about a s simple as it gets, and works very well.

 

[dancqu]

Kodak D-23
This is a semi-compensating developer that produces fine
shadow values while retaining high emulsion speed.

I prefer it undiluted. It becomes too much a compensating
developer when made up 1+3.

As a one shot, undiluted makes it expensive $ wise and
chemistry wise. Importantly the amount of chemistry used
is way more than necessary. I've tested down to 0.3 grams
metol per roll 120 and have had complete development.
Likely 0.25 grams would prove plenty.

The answer to low contrast at great dilution is longer
development and/or more agitation. D-23 at 1:7
has what it takes; 500ml one 120. Dan

 

[Tom Stanworth]

Its hard to get more cost effective than home made pyrocat HD. I am also finding that Xtol diluted 1+2 is not at all bad and at 1+3 is even more economical, although one has to respect the 100ml stock per roll of film rule. At 1+3 thats $10 for 20L working solution - 20cents a litre. pretty good. I have not tried 1+3 yet, but am very pleased with the 1+2. seems to add a tiny bit of bite over and above the 1+1, which is still pretty smooooooooth. Gentle on the highlight too. For a general all round developer I find it hard to justify anything else, asp as in full brown bottles it lasts over 6 months - easily.

DDX is expensive for sure, but diluted more than the usual 1+4 it starts to make more sense as it lasts ages and is great for those who do not use much volume. I am experimenting at 1+6.5 as it makes the maths easy (80ml in a 600ml tank and 200 in a 1500ml). Will try 1+9 later.

I like to weigh powders out. I would feel uncomfortable using such rough measurements, but maybe that is my ignorance! I love pyrocat but sadly moving powders through Kabul airport is not wise. Every time I order packet powder developer through B&H the parcel is opened by the postal/APO people and dumped back in (minus docs sometimes). Must look interesting on the Xrays. Maybe they just dont like me.

 

[Claire Senft]

Not to be picky but $.50/liter seems more correct to me.

 

[jim appleyard]

Fun little article here on cost of devs:
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Developers/Cost/cost.html

Pricing may be a bit out of date, but you'll get the idea.

 

[srs5694]

Fun little article here on cost of devs:
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Developers/Cost/cost.html

Pricing may be a bit out of date, but you'll get the idea.

I looked at this a couple of years ago and got entirely different results. Here is my spreadsheet. As an example of the differences, the Unblinking Eye (UE) article says that home-made D-76 is $1.33/liter, whereas the store-bought variety is $1.12/liter; but my own spreadsheet shows these costs as $0.95/liter for home-made vs. $2.00/liter for store-bought. The prices in my spreadsheet are now a bit out of date, but less so than those in the UE article.

There are a number of reasons for the discrepancies, the most important probably being that the UE article used Photographer's Formulary as the sole supplier for chemicals, whereas I used a variety of suppliers for my computations. Although PF is a reliable supplier, they're pricier than many others. You can save a lot on certain chemicals by buying from other suppliers. In D-76, the bulk of the cost in my spreadsheet ($0.58 of the $0.95 cost for a liter) is from sodium sulfite. Currently, PF charges $28.95 for 10 pounds of sodium sulfite ($2.90/pound). This compares with $18.98 for 13 pounds ($1.46/pound) from The Chemistry Store. If I were to use the PF costs, that would raise the cost of a liter of D-76 to roughly $1.50/liter just from the sodium sulfite.

In sum, there are cost savings to be had by mixing your own chemicals. That said, IMHO this isn't a good enough reason to do it, at least not for most people. Whether it costs you $0.10/roll or $0.25/roll or even $1.00/roll to develop film, those costs are small compared to the cost of the film itself, not to mention cameras, your own time investment, etc. Instead, mixing chemicals yourself is a way to give yourself more control over the process, enables you to easily try new developers, and lets you use products (such as PC-TEA or DS-12) that aren't readily available commercially. Some people even enjoy doing it.

 

[waynecrider]

nworth, your mention of FX2K reminds me of some negs I developed in TFX2 last year that I really liked but the A solution (whatever that is) didn't seem to hold very well. Does anyone know the shelf life of Glycin?

I'm going to add Sodium Sulfite (no brainer), and probably the Borax for D76H to the list. Glycins life is probably too short to keep around. Maybe I should add some Phenidone.

 

[waynecrider]

Btw, nowadays you have to consider the cost of shipping that keeps going up if your shopping suppliers.

 

[srs5694]

Btw, nowadays you have to consider the cost of shipping that keeps going up if your shopping suppliers.

Of course, but consider this: The 13 pounds of sodium sulfite I mentioned from The Chemistry Store (TCS) cost $18.98 to buy and $15.20 to ship, for a total cost of $34.18 ($2.63/pound). Without shipping, Photographer's Formulary (PF) charges $28.95 for 10 pounds ($2.90/pound). Thus, the shipped price from TCS is less than the price without shipping from PF, at least on a per-pound basis and to me (I live in Rhode Island; shipping to other places might cost more or less).

As a practical matter, splitting up an order makes sense when you want to buy several items and either there are significant cost differences or no one supplier can provide all of the things you want. If it's a matter of saving $2 on the pre-shipping cost, that'll certainly be wiped out by the extra costs associated with shipping two orders, but moving into the tens of dollars (as in 10-13 pounds of sodium sulfite from PF vs. TCS), extra shipping costs from buying from two sources will get swamped by the pre-shipping savings.

 

[ic-racer]

I use T-max developer and Rodinal for one-shot developing. Both stock solutions last a long time and they come in liquid form, so no chemical mixing is needed.

 

[dancqu]

In sum, there are cost savings to be had
by mixing your own chemicals.

The real savings, cost and material, come with what is mixed.
That applies especially to developers. For example, and on a per
roll basis, D76-H must be one of the most expensive and wasteful
of developers. On the other hand, D-23 at the dilutions I've
mentioned in previous posts this threads must be a least
expensive least wasteful developer.

For off the shelf, any one of a few liquid concentrates suggested
this thread will offer low cost and least material usage. Dan

 

[srs5694]

The real savings, cost and material, come with what is mixed.
That applies especially to developers. For example, and on a per
roll basis, D76-H must be one of the most expensive and wasteful
of developers. On the other hand, D-23 at the dilutions I've
mentioned in previous posts this threads must be a least
expensive least wasteful developer.

The least expensive mix-it-yourself developers I've run across include several of Gainer's creations (at $0.02-$0.04/roll; but these don't include his popular PC-TEA, which is $0.08/roll), a divided developer called DDRU ($0.02/roll), a couple of Rodinal variants ($0.02-$0.05/roll; but some other Rodinal variants cost up to $0.10/roll), and Pyrocat HD ($0.03/roll). The most expensive one in my spreadsheet is Agfa/Ansco 12 (aka Soviet Standard Developer #2; $0.43/roll). I get a cost of $0.10/roll for D-76H and $0.17/roll for D-23, but both of these are at 1+1 dilution; if you'd use D-23 at 1+7 and D-76H at 1+1, D-23 would become much less expensive (about $0.04/roll). All of these costs do depend on dilution, and of course it's possible to use a single developer at various different dilutions, which complicates comparisons. One of the reasons so many of Gainer's developers are inexpensive is that he recommends fairly dilute uses. The other is that they omit sodium sulfite, which is a huge part of the cost of most developers.

For off the shelf, any one of a few liquid concentrates suggested
this thread will offer low cost and least material usage. Dan

Calbe R09 (at 1+100 dilution) is $0.10/roll (or was a few years ago), and is the least expensive commercial developer in my spreadsheet. HC-110 (dilution B) is $0.23/roll. Kodak XTOL is $0.28/roll (at 1+1 dilution). The most expensive one in my spreadsheet is Clayton F76 1+3, at $0.79/roll, followed closely by Paterson FX-50, at $0.78/roll.

Of course, total processing price for a roll of film must include other solutions, the most significant of which (from a cost perspective) is the fixer. My spreadsheet shows costs of from $0.03 (for TF-3) to $0.11 (for F6 or Agfa 304) among the mix-it-yourself fixers, or from $0.05 (for Adorama or Arista Premium Odorless) to $0.19 (for Naccofix hardening) for commercial products. These assume equal capacities of 28 rolls per liter, which may be a little optimistic in some cases.

 

[jim appleyard]

$.03 per roll??? This film stuff is getting expensive; no wonder they all gone digital!

 

[waynecrider]

Although I appreciate some mentions above of developers mixed for storage and used as one shots, the idea of my question is the ability to ship chemicals ahead or carry the chemical powders for mix to use. Rodinal I guess would be some sort of exception. I know many travel as I and might want something available without carrying large containers of liquid or multiple bags of chemicals. I think I'll experiment with D23, D76H and Gainers formula being that they all have minimal components and see what they return on my film of interest. Thanks all for the responses.

 

[wiltw]

I use HC-110 developer for one-shot developing. The undiluted concentrate lasts a long time and it comes in liquid form, so only dilution with water is needed.

 

[gainer]

Same applies to home-brewed PC-TEA. Also some of Sandy King's Pyrocat series when they are "put up" in glycol.