Returning to XTol R!

NortheastPhotographic

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Well we all know the difficulties with XTol over the past year. What a mess for a lab I can tell you. I had switched to D76 and that is working well, but I prefer XTol for a few reasons, and specifically replenished XTol. This was problematic even before because Ilford had only spotty availability of control strips...but now...

It seems that Kodak has gotten it back together so I ordered a big stock of new XTol and Freestyle has new FP4+ control strips!

Our new/refurbished Jobo ATL2500 arrives at the port of Boston tomorrow, and I think that will make it a breeze to maintain a replenished line. After the tanks near empty, add the fresh stock needed and top off with the just used. The 'challenge' will be dealign with the grey particulate that tends to congregate at the bottom of working solution tanks. I suppose a few coffee filters will solve that problem however.
 

Tom Kershaw

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XTOL isn't too bad in my experience in terms of "gunk". Just watch the activity levels running replenished in a Jobo, which you're doing with the control strips anyway.
 
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cjbecker

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Just curious, whats your reason for preferring xtol over d76r or d23r?
 
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NortheastPhotographic

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cjbecker said:
Just curious, whats your reason for preferring xtol over d76r or d23r?
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I run a commercial operation and time is money. Mixing up D76R or D23R is possible but certainly more complex than simply mixing up XTol stock. What's more, I think pretty highly of XTol as a general purpose developer and like the results. In it's replenished form even more so. If it's more environmentally friendly then that's all for the better to boot.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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I went back to Xtol last December. I used it for a few years 1+1. Been tinkering with Xtol-R. So far, so good.... and I've got the trade concern Xtol.
 

Sirius Glass

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I was fortunate enough to miss the bad batched of XTOL.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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Sirius Glass said:
I was fortunate enough to miss the bad batched of XTOL.
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I have this bad batch and there's nothing wrong with it. In the past when I used Xtol as my main developer ( 96-2003) I never experienced the so called Xtol Failure. It doesn't exist. It's a conspiracy. The government is trying to kill it. I'm an XTol Failure denier...
 

abruzzi

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I have three bags of the "bad" xtol, and now 4 bags of the new stuff. I've been so busy during the pandemic that I haven't photographed much and all mymixed chemicals have gone bad and are in need of dumping. As I've slowly started photographing again, I've been using some old syrupy HC-110 because I had it around and can mix it on demand, but I'd like to get back to Xtol (one shot, usually 1:1) since I really like it. Which is why I ordered the 4 new bags a couple of weeks ago. I want to try Xtol-R, but I need to make sure I'm ready to do it before I try. (I'm also curious about Adox's clone Xtol)
 

cjbecker

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I knew you ran a commercial operation, and i enjoy hearing your thoughts on topics like this because of it. I was interested if it was a operational reason or final result reason for choosing xtol.

Sirius Glass said:
View attachment 275604
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Dont worry, I've seen you post this at least 50 times.
 

Sirius Glass

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My posting of that has become somewhat of a legend on this website.
 
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NortheastPhotographic

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cjbecker said:
I knew you ran a commercial operation, and i enjoy hearing your thoughts on topics like this because of it. I was interested if it was a operational reason or final result reason for choosing xtol.
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I tell myself that I see a better tonality with XTol R...but I've never done a true side by side. It's certainly finer grain than D76 but then some people like the grain of D76. I can say that if I have a good batch of XTol seasoned I see little reason to muck about with exotic developing agents even for my own work. Then again my darkroom won't be completed for some time and that's where I think I really get to enjoy the look of grain structure. Scans are IMHO not quite the same.
 

Lachlan Young

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cjbecker said:
Just curious, whats your reason for preferring xtol over d76r or d23r?
Click to expand...

Unlike those, Xtol self-replenishes and has no dump/ replace need after a certain number of rolls/ litre. You could probably create D-76/ D-23 variants that run in a similar direction.
 

cjbecker

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Lachlan Young said:
Unlike those, Xtol self-replenishes and has no dump/ replace need after a certain number of rolls/ litre. You could probably create D-76/ D-23 variants that run in a similar direction.
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Never thought of that. Good point. That would def make xtol a prime candidate.
 

MattKing

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Lachlan Young said:
Unlike those, Xtol self-replenishes and has no dump/ replace need after a certain number of rolls/ litre. You could probably create D-76/ D-23 variants that run in a similar direction.
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I think if you could, Kodak (and others) would have done so a long time ago!
 

MattKing

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Lachlan Young said:
What would the point have been? By any relevant metric for areas to improve, you'd essentially end up with Xtol anyway...
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I'm talking about before X-Tol existed - D-76 and D-23 were around a long time before X-Tol, and the prospect of a self replenishing developer would have been very attractive then.
T-Max RS is also self replenishing, but it is no longer available in the sort of package sizes that make sense for a non-commercial user.
 

mshchem

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You're doing the right thing. Control strips will keep you in between the white lines. XTOL is the best developer Kodak ever came up with.
 

Adrian Bacon

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you can make control strips relatively easily. Before getting the Ilford control strips, I was making them with HP5. My primary complaint with the Ilford control strips is Ilford can easily fit twice as many control strips in the amount of film they’re using. There is a lot of wasted space with their FP4 control strips.

that being said, I’d strongly encourage you to get an Ilford wholesale account at roberts. You’ll get an account rep and can order pretty much everything in Ilford’s catalog, and roberts has started wholesaling Kodak stuff as well. It’s pretty useful.
 

ruilourosa

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The kodak comparison chart gives a better rating to HC 110 grain compared to d 76...

Maybe grain is in the eye of the beholder...
 

mshchem

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Sirius Glass said:
Can I quote you on that?
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Absolutely!
Hopefully the new owners cherish what they have. No other developer has, in recent times, had the research effort poured in, like was done with XTOL.

Having said this I ordered a dozen 500mL bottles of Adox Rodinal last night from Freestyle. I'm going old school with some large format Ilford and Foma films. Rodinal is fun, it's fast, cheap, and actually different, much like XTOL is different. D76 is fabulous, an old friend but it's lumped in with many others.
I've never really liked Microdol like developers, not my thing.
 
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