Quick seasoning of replenished Xtol

Related to this thread, but worth creating a new thread IMO. Having carefully read all Xtol-related materials published by Kodak, I was unhappy with the "seasoning" part of it. The official method is to use no-longer-available starters, and the community advice of inconsistently developing 4-6 rolls to "ramp up" to 1L of seasoned solution is not acceptable to me. I did it once just to see what the baseline is, and turns out I like the results, but I still wanted a better seasoning method.

Recently I've been doing a lot of junk shooting: testing old cameras and lenses from eBay and practicing the sunny-16 rule. This, combined with my usual shooting volume, gave me a lot of rolls to experiment with. Below is what I arrived at.

The quickest way to season 1L of Xtol-R without wasting any film:

• Take 1L of stock Xtol
• Take 3 rolls of 24exp film
• Develop them normally using the published stock times. I did them all at once using a large tank which holds 1L, or you can split the liter into three parts 333ml for each roll.
  
• Now you have a 1L of replenished Xtol ready to go.

The resulting solution gives me the same results as my old replenished batch which I have created using the more traditional method of developing several rolls and adding 70ml after each, waiting for it to get stable.

Again, the reason I wanted this so badly is because I only want to use two development times: for stock and replenished, nothing in between. I will be calling it "batch replenishing"

Why not just start with dilute Xtol, at the dilution that requires the same development time as replenished? That'll give you only one time. Maybe not the alleged effects of replenished Xtol on the first rolls, but no wast of film either.

Thanks, although C-41 starter can be used as well.
I don't worry too much about the initial seasoning. I just use a quick, straight line approximation between the one-shot stock times and the replenishment times I have arrived at, and divide it over a few rolls.
And I absolutely prefer using developer in a replenishment regime - the results are a bit nicer, and the procedure is much more to my taste.

grain elevator said:

Why not just start with dilute Xtol, at the dilution that requires the same development time as replenished? That'll give you only one time. Maybe not the alleged effects of replenished Xtol on the first rolls, but no wast of film either.

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First of all, allow me to compliment you on a clever username. You are essentially asking "why bother with replenishment?", which is a separate topic which has been beaten to death. I will give you my personal perspective: Xtol to me means tight grain. I am not convinced it's finer, it just looks different, "tight" is the perfect word. I really dig how it looks with ISO400 films: smooth yet not "digital". I lose that look when I dilute and it becomes no different from D76, at least for 2-3 films I frequently use. Xtol-R allows me to be more lazy (mixing 5L less frequently) and, amazingly, the grain is even tighter.

Thanks for the compliment!
I meant to suggest using dilute Xtol to start a replenishment regime. Replenish with stock of course.

MattKing said:

I just use a quick, straight line approximation between the one-shot stock times and the replenishment times I have arrived at, and divide it over a few rolls.

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You're right, perhaps I was too anal about it. When using 3 rolls of 36exp films, the results were almost the same as 3x24.

MattKing said:

Thanks, although C-41 starter can be used as well.
<crop>
And I absolutely prefer using developer in a replenishment regime - the results are a bit nicer, and the procedure is much more to my taste.

Click to expand...

I can't say I've tried diluted XTOL, but I very much like the results I got with my first batch of film in (not yet replenished, then) stock. At 5:30, it made my Foma 400 (120) look close to true 400 speed, with nice tonal range (can't say much about grain yet, haven't made enlargements and even at 4800 ppi, my scanner won't pick up true grain). Good enough that I ordered a bulk roll of 35mm .EDU Ultra (I'd been vacillating between that, Ultrafine Xtreme, and Kentmere).

Bormental said:

You're right, perhaps I was too anal about it. When using 3 rolls of 36exp films, the results were almost the same as 3x24.

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I may have accidentally split the difference between your quick method and the canonical one. After processing two rolls of 120, I carefully measured in 70 ml of stock, refilled the graduate up to original capacity, discarded the leftover solution, and poured the measured stock back into the 2L working stock bottle (I have that much because my Yankee Agitank wants 64 ounces for 4x5 film -- even a single sheet). Didn't realize until an hour or so later that I'd processed two rolls, but replenished for one. In the end, it shouldn't make a difference; I'm well within the unreplenished reuse of the developer, and it was fresh when I started. I might actually process another couple rolls without further replenishment to get to "seasoned" faster, but more likely I'll continue replenishing at the normal rate.

MattKing said:

Thanks, although C-41 starter can be used as well.
I don't worry too much about the initial seasoning. I just use a quick, straight line approximation between the one-shot stock times and the replenishment times I have arrived at, and divide it over a few rolls.
And I absolutely prefer using developer in a replenishment regime - the results are a bit nicer, and the procedure is much more to my taste.

Click to expand...

I agree, it seasons very fast. Just shoot more film.

Here's my seasoning method:

• Write down my development times for Xtol-R, this is kind of obvious.
• Measure % time increase vs stock full strength Xtol. This number is different for all of us and depends on our replenishment rate and development frequency. Let's say it's 15% over stock.
• Xtol datasheet contains a time compensation table if reusing 1L of developer, basically 3-4% after each roll or so. I just use that to get to the target 15%
• Lately I also started verifiy developer activity with a densitometer, this makes me feel better but it only confirms that the table is accurate.

McDiesel said:

Here's my seasoning method:

• Write down my development times for Xtol-R, this is kind of obvious.
• Measure % time increase vs stock full strength Xtol. This number is different for all of us and depends on our replenishment rate and development frequency. Let's say it's 15% over stock.
• Xtol datasheet contains a time compensation table if reusing 1L of developer, basically 3-4% after each roll or so. I just use that to get to the target 15%
• Lately I also started verifiy developer activity with a densitometer, this makes me feel better but it only confirms that the table is accurate.

Click to expand...

As with other Kodak products, Kodak tests XTOL. I switched to XTOL and replenished XTOL over 20 years ago and never found a problem with it.

When I started a new batch of Xtol-R I deliberately did not season it. Sure, the fresh batch was going to be more active than the final equilibrium value but by how much? The first negatives did come out more contrasty than expected so I printed them on grade #2 variable contrast paper instead of grade #3. That small easy to do correction was my "lazy man" answer to the problem. Seasoning is more technically correct and I'd do it if I was developing important films for other people.

Maris said:

When I started a new batch of Xtol-R I deliberately did not season it. Sure, the fresh batch was going to be more active than the final equilibrium value but by how much? The first negatives did come out more contrasty than expected so I printed them on grade #2 variable contrast paper instead of grade #3. That small easy to do correction was my "lazy man" answer to the problem. Seasoning is more technically correct and I'd do it if I was developing important films for other people.

Click to expand...

The first batch always starts off as stock until the replenisher [also stock] is added in. Then it has taken the first step towards being replenished but already needs to be labelled "replenished".