Replenishing Xtol

[JohnGray]

XT-3 sounds wonderful! Unfortunately I can’t see a vendor that has it here in Australia, and the shipping from Fotoimpex is over 50 euros even for just one packet

 

[JohnGray]

I'm not against you going for a replenishment regime with Xtol or XT-3. If you want to, then go for it. It's just that for starting or getting used to either developer it's better to go 1+1 first just to be consistent. When you first use a new batch of replenished Xtol/XT-3 your results will be a little different from the same batch after 10 or so rolls since it hasn't settled down or mellowed yet. Like a good wine, it get's a little better with a little age/use. Once it has ripened your on your way to one of the best non-staining developers on the market. Also, one of the cheapest, safest, long lasting developers. Likes been said, switching over from Xtol/XT-3 is pretty much painless too. Still, the choice is yours, not mine or anyone else's for that matter.

Consistency sounds good, it’s one less thing I need to debug if I’m getting variable results…

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

XT-3 sounds wonderful! Unfortunately I can’t see a vendor that has it here in Australia, and the shipping from Fotoimpex is over 50 euros even for just one packet

Let’s make a deal, you’ll get me a ticket, I’ll get you 2 full luggage XT3 with me. I have about 64kg with BA

 

[JohnGray]

Let’s make a deal, you’ll get me a ticket, I’ll get you 2 full luggage XT3 with me. I have about 64kg with BA

 

[John Wiegerink]

Let’s make a deal, you’ll get me a ticket, I’ll get you 2 full luggage XT3 with me. I have about 64kg with BA

Get two more tickets, one for me and one for my better half and I'll bring you as much as I can fit in a suitcase. Using it replenished it a suitcase full should last many, many years.

 

[MattKing]

I'm not against you going for a replenishment regime with Xtol or XT-3. If you want to, then go for it. It's just that for starting or getting used to either developer it's better to go 1+1 first just to be consistent. When you first use a new batch of replenished Xtol/XT-3 your results will be a little different from the same batch after 10 or so rolls since it hasn't settled down or mellowed yet. Like a good wine, it get's a little better with a little age/use. Once it has ripened your on your way to one of the best non-staining developers on the market. Also, one of the cheapest, safest, long lasting developers. Likes been said, switching over from Xtol/XT-3 is pretty much painless too. Still, the choice is yours, not mine or anyone else's for that matter.

+++1

Seeing everyone is so aghast at a beginner trying replenishment, I’ll definitely start with one-shot!

Not aghast. More wanting to help you take first steps that are simple and likely to be confidence building. Replenishment is/can be a desirable refinement to what are already good practices.

 

[JohnGray]

+++1


Not aghast. More wanting to help you take first steps that are simple and likely to be confidence building. Replenishment is/can be a desirable refinement to what are already good practices.

Sorry if I seemed to be implying any gatekeeping, I didn’t think that for a moment - I just meant that people seemed concerned that I might lose precious photos by trying to do something complex straight away, and that I might be safer with a simpler process until I was more familiar with the base process. I thought seeing that concern seemed like a consensus, it’s probably wisdom that I would do well to heed. Your care and assistance is greatly appreciated!

 

[Cholentpot]

Xtol-R is great of you shoot a lot of film of the same type. Or you shoot lots of medium/large format. I've been loving the switch, it's cheap, clean and fast.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Xtol-R is great of you shoot a lot of film of the same type. Or you shoot lots of medium/large format. I've been loving the switch, it's cheap, clean and fast.

I go through periods of no or very little film processing, and Xtol-R/XT-3-R still works fine for me. You have to handle those periods a little different when it comes to replenishment, but it works fine.

 

[MattKing]

Sorry if I seemed to be implying any gatekeeping, I didn’t think that for a moment - I just meant that people seemed concerned that I might lose precious photos by trying to do something complex straight away, and that I might be safer with a simpler process until I was more familiar with the base process. I thought seeing that concern seemed like a consensus, it’s probably wisdom that I would do well to heed. Your care and assistance is greatly appreciated!

I've been musing on this post since I first saw it, and thought it might be helpful if I mentioned some things.
It isn't so much that you would be more likely to lose a negative if you try something slightly more complex.
It is more that by introducing more variables, you are more likely to experience more unexpected variability in your results, while delaying the point when your understanding grows to the level that permits you to understand and control that variability.
The biggest thing that experience gives people is a sense of the relative importance of the various factors involved when developing film. As an example, varying developer dilution, temperature, varying development time, and varying agitation all will change the amount of development, but the relative effects of a change in agitation are much less than the other three.
The other thing that comes with experience is a better ability to evaluate one's results.
If you haven't yet gotten to the point where you appreciate the effects of the other variables, it can be really difficult to tell whether variability in results arises from over or under replenishment, or from other factors.

 

[revdoc]

XT-3 sounds wonderful! Unfortunately I can’t see a vendor that has it here in Australia, and the shipping from Fotoimpex is over 50 euros even for just one packet

Vanbar in Melbourne have it in stock.

 

[JohnGray]

I've been musing on this post since I first saw it, and thought it might be helpful if I mentioned some things.
It isn't so much that you would be more likely to lose a negative if you try something slightly more complex.
It is more that by introducing more variables, you are more likely to experience more unexpected variability in your results, while delaying the point when your understanding grows to the level that permits you to understand and control that variability.
The biggest thing that experience gives people is a sense of the relative importance of the various factors involved when developing film. As an example, varying developer dilution, temperature, varying development time, and varying agitation all will change the amount of development, but the relative effects of a change in agitation are much less than the other three.
The other thing that comes with experience is a better ability to evaluate one's results.
If you haven't yet gotten to the point where you appreciate the effects of the other variables, it can be really difficult to tell whether variability in results arises from over or under replenishment, or from other factors.

That makes a lot of sense

 

[JohnGray]

Vanbar in Melbourne have it in stock.

So they do! Thank you!!!

 

[JohnGray]

Vanbar in Melbourne have it in stock.

Bizarrely they also carry adotech iv, but don’t sell CMS 20?

 

[dokko]

Bizarrely they also carry adotech iv, but don’t sell CMS 20?

Adox CMS 20 II is out of production and Adox only sells the remaining stock directly through fotoimpex.
I guess resellers still sell Adotech IV for people who still have CMS 20 II in storage

 

[JohnGray]

Adox CMS 20 II is out of production and Adox only sells the remaining stock directly through fotoimpex.
I guess resellers still sell Adotech IV for people who still have CMS 20 II in storage

Do they plan on bringing it back in future?

 

[dokko]

Do they plan on bringing it back in future?

if I recall correctly Agfa stopped making the raw materials, so the only thing that is left is what's left.

Adox wrote in a thread somewhere here about it. I think they also have some master rolls in 120 they plan to release once the confectioning of 120 rolls has been sorted out.

 

[darkroommike]

Resurrecting this old thread since it seems like the right place for the question - Is there any particular advantage to having a larger bottle for the replenished xtol working solution?

If I’m only planning to use a 500ml developing tank, for convenience can I just use a 500ml bottle for working solution, such that I would be adding the 70ml replenishment to an empty bottle then topping off with the used developer from the tank? It seems to me this would reach equilibrium faster?

Coming late to this thread but in theory a 500mL bottle of working solution is pretty small for a replenished system. It doesn't have enough "inertia" to iron out the processing density/exposure differences from batch to batch in your work. I'm planning on using a 2 liter/half gallon "jug" for my working solution and a few smaller bottles for my replenisher stock. By an amazing coincidence the smallest tank line also uses half gallon tanks. Where I first worked we had a 3.5 gallon sink line (3, and later, 4 of them actually) and when processing B&W 35mm films would dip out of the 3.5 gallon tanks for developing and then replenish the big tank and return the developer to the big tank when we were done. 3.5 gallon sink lines, now that's serious developer "inertia". Note that other format were processed in the same sink line, directly into the big tank. At the time I was there one dev. tank was Polydol (a developer I miss to this day) and the other D-76 (1:1) ((I know, I know, not supposed to do that but we did, and replenished with D-76R, also at 1:1.))

 

[Donald Qualls]

D-76 (1:1) ((I know, I know, not supposed to do that but we did, and replenished with D-76R, also at 1:1.))

Apparently it worked well enough for a lab using tanks that size. Large format customers were picky about their development even long ago...

 

[darkroommike]

I was just a flunky but one of the guys I worked for had attended the Navy Photographic School and the other one had gone to a couple of Ansel Adams workshops and was a published photographer. I knew about the publication but never knew about the AA workshops until after he passed away. Their expertise was good enough for me.

 

[Cholentpot]

Just did 4 rolls in my Xtol-R yesterday.

I've been using this for nearly a year and I'm thinking this is it. I haven't found a better easier to use combo. Results looks great across all the emulsions I've used. It pushes well, retains information. It's great for small batches and large batches. I pushed some Ultrafine Xtreme 400 to 1600 without a problem. I'm wondering if I can take it even further. I have some UFX400 pushed a stop waiting for scan but this I shot in a half-frame. I'd curious to see how the Xtol-R holds up in half-frame and pushed a stop.