Occasional developer

M

Mike Kelly

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Jun 23, 2021
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Hi. Due to various constraints I only develop film every couple of months. I often need to throw out developer that is going off or I don't want to risk using. Are there any small volume or one shot mixes available? I keep some Rodinal handy but wondered about ID11 powder - does the stock solution last well? I use mostly FP4 and Fomopan 200 for landscapes. Thanks for any thoughts.
 
For FP4+ , HP5+ and Fomapan 200 I use:

Kodak HC110 concentrate lasts almost forever - mine is 4 years old - I don't use it very often
I am using Pyrocat HD which also lasts almost forever - I'm just waiting to mix up a new batch as I spoiled the last one - idiot. :rolleyes:
I am using ID11 made up in June 2020 and put in a wine bag
I also use Xtol Replenished which is now well over a year old - I can't read the date 'cos it got wet but it looks like 2019. My first batch lasted over three years before I ran out replenisher and decided to start a fresh batch.
You could mix your own D23. Chemicals are very cheap.

Just a few to be going on with, I'm sure other members will chime in. :)
 
Both Ilford’s Ilfotec HC and Kodak’s HC110 keep very well indeed and are good all-round developers, straightforward in use and give a reasonable balance of qualities. You can use a wide range of dilutions with both. They are readily available off the shelf, or online.
Clearly there are other developers which offer certain advantages, if you have specific needs.
 
As noted above, Kodak HC-110 and Rodinal both last a very long time. Another good choice for long life/one shot use is Pyrocat-HD made in Glycol - you can mix your own or buy it premade that way.

Finally, a note on D-23. I use it premixed at 1:1 and do NOT throw it out after use. It just goes back into a glass brown bottle. Sometimes, there are gaps of 1 or 2 months between uses and I've not observed any problems. When I have reached the expected capacity of the developer - I'm estimating 25, 8x10 equivalents - or the developer is 6 months old, I'll throw out 3/4 of the developer and replace it with new. Apparently "salting" the new D-23 with old developer improves its performance - or so I have read, I've not yet done this.

As a general matter, storing mixed developer should always be in brown glass bottles kept in a cool, dark place. Plastic bottles present considerably less barrier for oxygen migration and will allow the developer to oxidize in place.
 
The champion for longevity seems to be Rodinal - literally bomb-proof - but not everybody likes the results.
 
David M said:
The champion for longevity seems to be Rodinal - literally bomb-proof - but not everybody likes the results.
Click to expand...

Yes, my preference for pre-mixed would be HC-110 over Rodinal, based on the Rodinal images I have seen over the years. But HC-110 has gotten ungodly expensive in the US. I can only imagine what it costs in the UK.

For sheer economy, you can't beat Pyrocat-HD and the results are spectacular. Since I don't develop every day (or week, for that matter), and Pyrocat is prone to failure if stored too long, I just mix it in smaller (500ml) batches which easily last 4-6 months at my cadence of work. I avoided using the Glycol formulation because you have to heat it so much to get the stuff to go into solution. For my purposes, doing small mixes of the water-based Pyrocat-HD formula has been just fine.

As noted above, I do use D-23 as well and have found that it lasts nicely in brown glass and can be reused many times.
 
In the UK, from Silverprint.
HC110, 1litre concentrate: £ 31.82
IlfotecHC, 1litre concentrate £ 29.35
Roughly comparable in price with the advantage going to Ilford. As far as I can tell, they are pretty much interchangeable in use.
One litre of either concentrate will give 32 litres of Dilution B - 1+31 which works out as roughly a pound a litre. More economical with higher dilutions, of course and some (including me) may prefer the results.

Kodak D76, powder to make 1 litre: £6.82.
Use at 1+1 dilution, which I guess is the most common, that would be £3.41 per litre.
ilford ID11 is slightly more expensive: £7.49 for a one-litre pack.

In all this, because the original question involved occasional use, I’ve assumed one-shot development and discarding the used developer. Obviously the solutions could be re-used in a single session with increased times.
 
In the interests of balance may I say that in 50+ years of developing film I have never, ever stored developer in glass bottles. I have always washed and reused the plastic bottles in which it came, domestic plastic bottles, bulk buy plastic bottles off the internet or, in recent years, wine bags, and all stored in the dark. With plastic bottles I use them a number of times for the same developer and then they get washed and reused for stop bath and fixer. When I need (rarely) to dispose of a plastic bottle my local council is now happy to recycle them. :) Plastics, in one form or another, will never go away now so hopefully science/technology will devise an environmentally suitable product. :)
Science shows that oxygen can pass through certain plastics, some more than others, but from my own reading and usage experience I will be long gone before it spoils any of my developer in that way. As the song says 'I did it my way' ;)
 
David M said:
In the UK, from Silverprint.
HC110, 1litre concentrate: £ 31.82
IlfotecHC, 1litre concentrate £ 29.35
Roughly comparable in price with the advantage going to Ilford. As far as I can tell, they are pretty much interchangeable in use.
One litre of either concentrate will give 32 litres of Dilution B - 1+31 which works out as roughly a pound a litre. More economical with higher dilutions, of course and some (including me) may prefer the results.

Kodak D76, powder to make 1 litre: £6.82.
Use at 1+1 dilution, which I guess is the most common, that would be £3.41 per litre.
ilford ID11 is slightly more expensive: £7.49 for a one-litre pack.

In all this, because the original question involved occasional use, I’ve assumed one-shot development and discarding the used developer. Obviously the solutions could be re-used in a single session with increased times.
Click to expand...

In reading the HC-110 data sheets some years ago, I realized that you absolutely could reuse Dilution B. As I recall (this is from memory and possibly wrong), 1/2 US gallon of Dilution B is good for 6, 8x10 equivalents or 2 months in a brown glass bottle, whichever happens first. So, back when I used HC-110 regularly, I didn't throw it out every time, preferring instead to do the above. I got very good and consistent results.

HC-110 is more-or-less D-76 formulated for machines previously found in volume processing labs. It was formulated for long life and consistency. Our use in small batches benefits thereby, to this day.
 
ID11 lasts a long time. My current batch was mixed in October 2018 and is still going strong, stored only in airtight clear plastic drinks bottles. 5 litres costs £15. I use it at a dilution of 1:2. So the cost is £1 per litre of working strength developer. I use 500mls to develop 4 sheets of 5x4 film, so the cost works out at 50 pence for 4 sheets.
But I should stress that I don't use the 1:2 dilution for economy. I use it because it gives improved results over 1:1. And I wouldn't choose any developer because it was cheap, despite being a Yorkshireman. If you factor in the cost of cameras and lenses. And film. And the time and effort involved in getting your photographs, then it makes sense to choose a developer that delivers the results you want. ID11 at a dilution of 1:2 is hard to beat, in my opinion, so that is why I've been using it almost exclusively for the last 12 years.
But I also use Perceptol, diluted 1:2 or 1:3. This is twice the price of ID11 because it is only available in 1 litre packs. But I don't object to the cost. Dilute Perceptol is my developer for FP4. I love it. Pyrocat HD gives similar results, but is less convenient to obtain.
So, Mike, you say you use FP4. So blow the expense and give Perceptol a go. And also try ID11, and see which you like best. (Similar cost for 1 litre packs)

Alan
 
Alan Clark said:
ID11 lasts a long time. My current batch was mixed in October 2018 and is still going strong, stored only in airtight clear plastic drinks bottles. 5 litres costs £15. I use it at a dilution of 1:2. So the cost is £1 per litre of working strength developer. I use 500mls to develop 4 sheets of 5x4 film, so the cost works out at 50 pence for 4 sheets.

<SNIP>

Alan
Click to expand...

As I recall, ID-11 is Ilford's formulation for Kodak D-76. The Kodak product had a problem with creeping alkalinity over time as I recall, which was amplified with storage in plastic. I wonder if Ilford conquered this problem.

Like you, I stored D-76 stock in a "cubitainer" plastic container for many years. The more I read up on this, though, the more I realized that there was considerable reason to move to glass instead. The good news is
that I have a "free" supply of brown glass bottles. I go to my local microbrewer and buy a "growler" which - upon being emptied - provides me with excellent chemical storage. All I have to do is replace the trashy caps they use on the bottles with a true polycone style cap. Bonus: You get BEER!
 
I had a stint of Rodinal use ... and am going back to Ilfotec HC ... it does all I need to do pretty much
 
Thanks for all the helpful replies and advice. to be a bit systematic about it I will;
A. Use more film!
B. Buy some ID11, mix and use a litre at a time, store it well.
C. Try HC110 next.
D. Use more film.

Thanks again. Mike
 
On the brown glass v plastic, I used to use Unitol (a very simple to use one use developer). Johnsons originally sold it in brown glass bottles, with a reusable plastic cover that went on the top of the bottle neck, and a s rew cap on that. They later switched to plastic bottles.

When Unitol went off the market (together with Johnsons), I switched to Rodinal. I wouldn't care to use Rodinal for 35mm, but I don't care to use 35mm either.

My reasons for Rodinal don't really matter. These are the only developers I've used since the 1960s. Rodinal lasts seemingly forever, but I'm still using the Rodinal made by Agfa. Anecdotal evidence suggests some of the Rodinal variants lack this longevity.
 
Stephen Batey said:
On the brown glass v plastic, I used to use Unitol (a very simple to use one use developer). Johnsons originally sold it in brown glass bottles, with a reusable plastic cover that went on the top of the bottle neck, and a s rew cap on that. They later switched to plastic bottles.
<SNIP>
Click to expand...


Just one other note on the plastics v. glass matter... There ARE plastics that are far less permeable to air and thus suitable for chemical storage. I would expect that the plastics used by the chemical manufacturers like Ilford and Kodak would be of that ilk.

However, your typical photo store container or remaindered milk jug is unlikely to be made of such material. I've also found that plastics tend to be inhabited by their former contents in varying degrees. It's often difficult to impossible to complete cleanse them of their ghosts.

Glass, on the other hand, is considerably easier to clean and reuse, and provides an excellent barrier against oxidation. Practically speaking, the only air available for oxidizing is that at the top of the bottle if it is not full.

In full disclosure, in my household, we are on a constant mission to reduce our consumption of plastics and try to find useful ways to reuse the plastics we do use. The amount of plastic debris modern society produces is just ... well .. shameful. So part of my move to glass was to not use plastic where practical. All I need now is a fast/efficient way to produce distilled water so I can get rid of the many gallon jugs that are used to deliver my current supply...
 
Even glass will retain traces of it’s former contents. My wife keeps bees and people kindly donate their empty jars to us, which we can’t use anyway. We have to thank them nicely, because they mean well. But a pickle jar, even after multiple passes through the dishwasher’s hottest cycle, still smells of pickle.
I’ve always assumed that Ilford and Kodak wouldn’t use plastic bottles if they were inadequate.

Incidentally, while looking up prices, I came across the instruction sheet for HC110. Kodak helpfully give quantities in all kinds of historical units - the last colonial relics of the British Empire. It was like finding a price list in pieces-of-eight. Do people still use these units?
 
I don't use metric in cooking, and only gave up fluid ounces in photography when Unitol was discontinued. I also generally use 5"x4" and 10"x8" film, although I do use 13cm x 18cm metric film :). I also have no concept of distances in metric, or areas other than in acres etc. As to whether a metric tonne is anywhere near a real ton, I have no idea at all.

Chains, rods, perches, furlongs - those I can understand and relate to.
 
It amuses me highly how confused we are in Britain: we initially measured car engine power in horsepower ... then, even though that being firmly in the non metric age still ... we started referring to cars by their displacement in litres ... in the fifties you bought fuel by the gallon for your Riley 1.5 litre car! Most of us can't imagine the power of an engine in cubic inches as the Americans use ... yet it's a more imperial system than we have!
I can't visualise someone's weight in kilos ... or for that matter pounds ... but I would know to run if spilled the pint of a fifteen stone boxer!
I use neither rod, pole, perch, bushel, peck ,fathom or pipe ... yet can visualise twelve inches better than 30cm ...
My workshop is entirely metric ... except for the lathe that's calibrated in thousandths of an inch!
I have never used imperial measurements for photo chemicals - but buy 5x4 film :)

I'm off to buy an eight by four foot sheet of 12mm ply now because my brain hurts ...
 
No confusion for us. We simply use a richer palette of units. We trained on pounds, shillings and pence. We regard the pint as sacred, it seems, but readily accept the 75 ml bottle of wine and the 2 litre soft-drink bottle. We sell raw meat in metric, but cooked steaks in ounces. No need to go on. Aren’t humans wonderful?
Confusion is clearly very possible. NASA missed one of the moons of Mars because of dual units and I once had to correct their website where they’d applied the factor for converting US miles to international kilometres the wrong way round.
As for 5x4, 10x8 and so on, these are purely nominal, as is 2”x1” in wood. Best to regard them as names (literally “nominal”), expressed in digits, rather than accurate specifications.

As for US cooking measurements, they baffle everyone else, but they seem to be workable, as most US citizens don’t seem to suffer from starvation. Perhaps this is too far off-topic, in which case, I apologise.
 
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