Why should I use Diafine?

MattKing · Mar 5, 2024

One advantage is similar to the advantage of using replenished developer.
Due to the fact that you re-use the baths over and over, you don't have to concern yourself with wasting developer as a result of your developing tank requiring a far greater volume than the amount of developer used up by developing each 4x5 or 5x7 or 8x10 or ??? sheet.

Philippe-Georges · Mar 5, 2024

When I was still an ignorant photography student in the late 1970s, I recall to have tried Diafine for a reportage about the very frequent political rallies and consequent unrests on the street, mainly at night hand held in that horrible mercury vapour lightning, with a Rolleiflex (F3.5, the only camera I had then) on Tri-X professional (TXP320), which's box speed was 320ASA, pushed till 1600ASA (the mythical 33DIN then).
As I recall, it worked rather well but it wasn't fast enough, so I switched to D-76 to get 3200ASA, which was very hard to get on that 'professional' emulsion, on which we were obliged to shoot by our teachers when using roll film.

What stroke me about Diafine was that greyish powder like stuff sticking around the bottleneck (part A I think) after a few uses, which wasn't fun to get on your hand's skin...

Grain and contrast didn't matter then...

Don_ih · Mar 5, 2024

pbromaghin said:
I realized this evening that I missed the mechanisms/characteristics/reasons that make Diafine good for sheet film. Why is it?

Issues with the softness of the grain aren't as significant with larger format. I never found contrast to be too low when I used Diafine.

Paul Howell · Mar 5, 2024

I tired Diafine with sheet film, don't recall if it was Kodak or other. Reason is that when we moved from our house where I had complete darkroom with a water chiller to our townhome, here in low desert, my tap water was running 90+ degrees. I thought Diafine would allow me to develop at a higher temp to match the wash water. First you don't want to use trays don't take any risk of getting part B into part A. If you use tanks you need an extra tank, for part B, and a tank that can set under a tap for rinse before fix, directions are not to use a stop bath. And only light agitatiion, do not use a film drum. Second still very low contrast, and mushy. On the other hand if you use a Yankee type sheet film tank, filling and draining the tank which takes time, once the film has been each of the solutions for 3 mint. no risk of uneven development.

relistan · Mar 6, 2024

I shot lots and lots of film in Diafine. It’s a very good developer and especially in higher contrast situations. I do not know what people are talking about with mushy grain. I never saw that. Here are a few of my older shots in it. I only stopped using it on account of the price.

pbromaghin · Mar 6, 2024

Another question: how does Diafine show that it is reaching its end?

pbromaghin · Mar 6, 2024

Relistan - very nice shots!

Paul Howell · Mar 6, 2024

Nice work, I never got images as good as those with Diafine.

Paul Howell · Mar 6, 2024

pbromaghin said:
Another question: how does Diafine show that it is reaching its end?

That is a good question, when in the field I just dumped it along the fix and photo flo. at the end of the assignment. When I mixed a gallon for sheet film, I only used it a few times then dumped and built a home made water chiller for the wash.

relistan · Mar 7, 2024

pbromaghin said:
Relistan - very nice shots!

Paul Howell said:
Nice work, I never got images as good as those with Diafine.

Thanks guys!

pbromaghin said:
Another question: how does Diafine show that it is reaching its end?

Bromide drag is the usual sign. If you shoot 120 it creeps up a lot slower because of the lack of sprocket holes. After as it has run a lot of film, start to pay close attention to the edge of the frames and make sure you catch it when it just started. This is usually only after you've run a lot of film, though.

Paul Howell · Mar 7, 2024

Another thought on mushy grain. I used Diafine in the 70s, early 80s, and last in the mid 90s, optical printed. If scan rather than optical print LR, PS, Correl, can shapren the gain which I cannot do with a traditional print, and adjust contrast to a large degree than with VC paper. So if scan the Diafine faults may be corrected.

relistan · Mar 7, 2024

Paul Howell said:
Another thought on mushy grain. I used Diafine in the 70s, early 80s, and last in the mid 90s, optical printed. If scan rather than optical print LR, PS, Correl, can shapren the gain which I cannot do with a traditional print, and adjust contrast to a large degree than with VC paper. So if scan the Diafine faults may be corrected.

Possibly, but I’ve printed it plenty and had good results. That last scan above is a scanned print for example. So is this one:

Maybe the formula got better by the late 90s.

Rolleiflexible · Mar 7, 2024

MattKing said:
One advantage is similar to the advantage of using replenished developer.
Due to the fact that you re-use the baths over and over, you don't have to concern yourself with wasting developer as a result of your developing tank requiring a far greater volume than the amount of developer used up by developing each 4x5 or 5x7 or 8x10 or ??? sheet.

So long as you remember to pour Solution A back into Bottle A, and B into B. Sometimes a darkroom klutz (looks nervously around) can ruin a perfectly good developer that way.

Rolleiflexible · Mar 7, 2024

I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned what I consider to be the chief value of Diafine. If you're shooting a camera with little control over shutter speeds or apertures -- think Holga, or other toy camera, or old box cameras -- then Tri-X and Diafine are like soup and sandwich. You can shoot Tri-X at effective box speeds of 100 to 1200 and get a printable negative in Diafine. Same reason, if you are shooting quickly without time to adjust shutter and aperture. I imagine film PJs in war zones lived by the stuff.

Paul Howell · Mar 7, 2024

I was a PJ in war zones, and it was my last resort, first choice is get the film to a company field office for development, second, send the film my mail or currier back to home office. then if available a local lab or photographer with darkroom , last was developing the film myself. All had issues, Africa in the 70s, the Portagaures and Rhodesian governments would confiscate film, a local lab would sell you out, I had a co worker who had his film switched by a local lab who then sold it to another wire service. As I posted earlier, what I did like about Dianfine, when working in a hot tropical climate was that as Diafine is a panthermic developer no need for chilled water. Second, mixed easily. Third no need to stop bath, just water rinse before fix, timing is not critical. There were time when we set up a temporary darkroom in a hotel, we typical used a traditionally setup, D76, stop, fix, photoflow. For the most part, both UPI and Reuters had field offices in most capital cities with good darkroom staff, and the ability to send photos by the wire back to main office. Last, our value to the company was to cover a story, not doing darkroom work.

blee1996 · Mar 7, 2024

Rolleiflexible said:
I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned what I consider to be the chief value of Diafine. If you're shooting a camera with little control over shutter speeds or apertures -- think Holga, or other toy camera, or old box cameras -- then Tri-X and Diafine are like soup and sandwich. You can shoot Tri-X at effective box speeds of 100 to 1200 and get a printable negative in Diafine. Same reason, if you are shooting quickly without time to adjust shutter and aperture. I imagine film PJs in war zones lived by the stuff.

That's an awesome point. I have quite a few lo-fi or just old cameras with dubious aperture/shutter quality. The freedom to shoot without worrying too much about over/under exposed photos is a big win. In these scenarios, getting good enough photo is the main goal.

relistan · Mar 8, 2024

Paul Howell said:
I was a PJ in war zones, and it was my last resort, first choice is get the film to a company field office for development, second, send the film my mail or currier back to home office. then if available a local lab or photographer with darkroom , last was developing the film myself. All had issues, Africa in the 70s, the Portagaures and Rhodesian governments would confiscate film, a local lab would sell you out, I had a co worker who had his film switched by a local lab who then sold it to another wire service. As I posted earlier, what I did like about Dianfine, when working in a hot tropical climate was that as Diafine is a panthermic developer no need for chilled water. Second, mixed easily. Third no need to stop bath, just water rinse before fix, timing is not critical. There were time when we set up a temporary darkroom in a hotel, we typical used a traditionally setup, D76, stop, fix, photoflow. For the most part, both UPI and Reuters had field offices in most capital cities with good darkroom staff, and the ability to send photos by the wire back to main office. Last, our value to the company was to cover a story, not doing darkroom work.

That sounds like some interesting life experiences, Paul! Most of us haven't seen any kind of conditions like that for sure.

pbromaghin · Mar 8, 2024

Rolleiflexible said:
I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned what I consider to be the chief value of Diafine. If you're shooting a camera with little control over shutter speeds or apertures -- think Holga, or other toy camera, or old box cameras -- then Tri-X and Diafine are like soup and sandwich. You can shoot Tri-X at effective box speeds of 100 to 1200 and get a printable negative in Diafine. Same reason, if you are shooting quickly without time to adjust shutter and aperture. I imagine film PJs in war zones lived by the stuff.

That's a pretty big draw for me considering my tendency to screw up exposure!

Randy Stewart · Mar 8, 2024

Diafine is a creature of its time, the early 1960s when film and chemistry were both sold with hype of "speed". If it was :faster, it was better, the rest be damned. Its cousin is Acufine, which is basically the non-divided version, both sold by the same company at the time. It is a "powerful" developer, meaning strong and fast acting, using lots of sodium carbonate as its accelerator. Therefore, it tends toward large grain. Like all divided developers, it has a distorted and uneven tonal spacing, heavily compressing the highlights to a degree where normal darkroom tricks cannot fully correct. It gives the user no control over the degree of development (no pushing or pulling) and no control over contrast. It's a poor choice for images depending on tone and grain, like landscapes. Its only subject forte might be street photos at night, where its film speed support will enhance shadows a little, and excess highlight compensation will survive high contrast lighting. If you do not already have Diafine on hand, and you want to try a divided developer, consider first trying Divided D-76. This basically works the same way, for better or worse, without the harsh accelerator effect. If you mix your own from scratch, it's very cheap to prepare. Or, you can buy it packaged from Photographers Formulary for less than 20% of the cost of a package of Diafine. I went through my divided developer phase nearly 50 years ago and got it out of my system. (Divided D-76, and divided D-23 - That's about as cheap as tap water for those who value cost more than anything else.) IMO there is no rational reason to use Diafine, although there are two or three YT video channels where the producers swear that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Paul Howell · Mar 8, 2024

When in the Air Force we had Acufine on hand for low light photography, unlike Diafine the images had increased acuance, and as Randy Stewart noted increased grain. We got a batch of GAF 500, a replacement for Trix, it was cheaper, the Vietman war had ended for the U.S, our budgets were cut. My boss sent a new guy to shoot an incident on the flight line, did not involve aircraft, I think a tug ran into a pick up truck so we didn't need to use 4X5. It as late in the day, even dark. The images were horrible, grain made the images unusable. I had to go and reshoot with a Konica Omega Rapid and used TriX. In that case GAF matched with Diafine would have a better match.

Rolleiflexible · Mar 8, 2024

One other thing to know about Diafine is that it was created specifically to process Tri-X. People claimed to be able to push TX400 two stops, to 1600. My experience ages ago led me to conclude that anything much above 1000 was going to lose a lot of shadow detail. But the negatives were surprisingly printable.

Paul Howell · Mar 9, 2024

In the 70s I pushed Trx X and HP5 to 1200, as emlustions got thinner less part A could soak in speeds dropped, but Dinafine data sheet still list TriX at 1600 and Tmax 400 at 500 for 35mm and 650 for MF and sheet film.

https://www.freestylephoto.com/static/pdf/product_pdf/acufine/acufine.pdf

Why should I use Diafine?

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