diafine streaky negatives

[dfoo]

I developed a couple of rolls of silvertone 100 (which is supposedly the same as Agfa APX 100) this morning in diafine. 4 minutes in each bath with 15s of agitation initially, and then a few inverts at each minute. What I've found is that while some negatives are very nice, some have big streaks in the highlights. I've found this post http://www.1point4photography.com/blog/diafine-days/ which talks about bromide drag, and he blames lack of agitation for the streaks. Any thoughts?

 

[Al Kaplan]

If it's bromide drag it should extend out past the picture area and probably out past the perforations to the edge of the film. Likewise, it'll extend across the space between the frames.

 

[dfoo]

Thanks Al, I'll give that a check in the morning. The streaks definitely are not in every frame, but in they sure ruin the shots they are in!

 

[Al Kaplan]

Bromide drag isn't always a bad thing. Last summer I was playing around with with developing prints by doing things like dipping my hand in the developer tray and then pressing it hard it against a dry exposed sheet of enlarging paper, flicking little drops of developer off my finger tips onto the paper, etc. then letting it stay on the paper like that for five mnutes or more before tilting the paper this way and that so the drops could run across the surface before finally putting the paper in the fix. I got TONS of bromide drag!

More as a goof than anything, I showed some to the owner of a gallery where I was going to have an exhibition. He loved them! When the show opened it seemed that other photographers wondered how I'd managed to screw up my prints so badly but artists working in other media loved them. I've since sold several of the prints. I guess now I'm going to have to pick up some litho film and play around with getting bromide drag on them.

 

[FrankS]

I tried Diafine and it didn't work for me. Too little agitation and you get bromide drag like your example, too much agitation and you get underdevelopment because you rinse the developer out of the emulsion with the activator in solution B. Development goes to completion so there is no possibility of contrast control by varying time and/or agitation.

 

[venchka]

Where's Clavey? Earth to Wes! Come in Wes!

Folks, RFF member wclavey does some really amazing things with Diafine and just about every film and format you can think of. C-41 even. Based on Wes's prints made over a period of decades, I have to say that problems with Diafine are the result of operator error. Sorry. That's the way I see it. Wes Clavey can explain how he gets good results with Diafine.

 

[Al Kaplan]

It might have something to do with the ph of your water.

 

[Merkin]

I want to second what Al just said. DEFINITELY use distilled water when mixing your diafine, no matter how clean your tap water is.

 

[Doug]

That's an odd way for the streak to run, crosswise to the film. Developer streaks often run along near the edge of the frame parallel to the film length. I'd wonder if the curled end of the roll contacted the next wrap on the reel, but OTOH it would be contacting the base side, not the emulsion side.

Because the process in Part A is simply to soak the emulsion with developer, agitation can best be done about like you would with other developers, not critical but an inversion and twist every 30 sec would be fine.

But because the process in Part B simply activates the developer that is present in the emulsion, too much agitation can wash away the developer and result in underdevelopment. Be slow slow slow and very gentle in moving the solution but only a little to avoid the bromide drag. I treat it almost like stand development with infrequent and minimal movement, and go 5 minutes in each bath.

I have standardized on Diafine for all my traditional silver film processing, which in truth isn't all that much. So one valuable benefit is the stuff lasts forever in the jug even when it gets rather evil looking. Some say it starts to work even better when it's "broken in"! But don't store Part A in a standard thin plastic milk jug... it can eat its way through!

 

[Ronald_H]

Diafine was my first developer and I was amazed what it can do with Tri-X in contrasty situations.

Although claims are made that it lasts forever, my first batch was quite dead after a year or so. No idea why.

To get back to the topic, I never had streaking/bromide drag with it...

 

[sniki]

Since I use this two rules I never had bromide drag with Diafine.

1) use distilled water when preparing A & B solutions;
2) at once souping film in solution B start to continuously rock - better - very gently lull film for first minute.

That's all folks!