Two developer darkroom - What should I pair with Rodinal?

[Richard Jepsen]

X-Tol is $18 for a 5 litre package at B&H, and generally not a lot more at other places.
If it only lasted the recommended 6 months, that is $3.60 per month.
Most of us regular users have no problem with X-Tol lasting much longer than that. 12 months is generally not a problem. That is $1.80 per month.
If you aren't using up 5 litres in e.g., a year, then any you decide to discard won't have cost you much money. And environmentally speaking, discarded X-Tol has very little impact.
Unopened packages will generally last a very long time, so the best practice is to buy two packets, mix up one, and have the second ready for mixing when you need it. And 5 litres of liquid takes less storage space than you might expect.
There are other reasons to consider other developers, but wastage of unused developer is less meaningful with X-Tol than you might initially think.

Xtol can be stored in 1L plastic bottles and will keep for no less than 9 months if you use distilled water. I never can use 5L so I give 2L away.

 

[Mondo1]

in my opinion there is no wrong or right here, this is pretty much a very personal matter, it has to do with your workflow, history, financial attitude, style, dreams and so on. it is pretty much like people's sexual orientation/taste/fetishes... everyone is different and enjoys different things... personally throughout the years i found myself holding on to 3 developers only, they are answers to all my dev needs, which are HC110, 510pyro and rodinal (Paranol S in my case), now that i am reflecting on this, it sounds like shelf life and convenient are very much top of mind to choose these, coz i am not like a university lab or a commercial lab that has a regular schedule of in and outs... my photography life is really organic, I take a lot of shots when the season, reason and light and my mood are all aligned and then maybe in 3/4 months time i want to process the big pile my un processed films, then i see my xtol or d76 stock solution have gone bad or need to mix a lot of powder etc anew again, so this is how these three became my first choice .... although I have to confess that sometimes i miss my good old powder mixing for things like microphen for example so I will break my own rules/styles/habits ....

 

[laingsoft]

I do run a 2-developer darkroom, but I'm a bit strange. I use blazinal and Ansco-17 that I mix myself, but treat as if it is d-76. Typically for cheap, slow film like foma or orwo I will use rodinal, for expensive film like hp5 or Tmax 400 I will opt for d-76. To be honest though, sometimes if I'm lazy I'll just do it all in rodinal.

 

[mshchem]

I'm an XTOL fan, also Rodinal. Used HC-110 replenished in the past.

 

[Augustus Caesar]

How many types of film do you use? If you use slow, medium, fast and ultra-fast film, Adox FX-39 II can be recommended for all of them. The approach I use is to vary the dilution, with 1+17 for T-Max 400 at about 9.5 minutes @68F/20C. I can give you dilutions and times for other films if you want.