CineStill Df96 Monobath - any experience ?

Good idea about the coffee filter.
I've had other rolls of Orta developed in regular chemistry w/o any issues. Using DF96 however is a no no.
 
Ok, did the coffee filter thing. It was full of 'mud' by the time I filtered all of it.
Yikes.
Now to see if it still works...
 
Ranger9, I used partial-fill. Fresh chemistry, proper temperature. I turned both rolls the same rate, constantly, poured the chemistry out (back into the bottle), and filled with fresh water and cranked the knob for a minute or so (just rinsing). Then I took the reel out, and dipped it into a large bowl full of water with a few drops of dish soap. It was as easy as the videos showed, and I didn’t have any problems. Do you think your film was damaged at all before development?
 
I've had good luck with DF96. I usually aim for 75-80 degrees, I think it functions best in this range, anything over 800 has less reliable results (possibly due to decreasing/uneven temps during development period). Remember, you can err longer times if you want, it doesn't affect development. DF96 works this way: temperature is how you control development, agitation is how you control fixing. More temp, more development. More agitation, more fixing/less development. Thus the middle ground on both is what I usually take.

I have good luck with HP5 at 400 and pushed one stop to 800, Delta 400 looks good, and Foma 100 is especially nice in my opinion.

I would fully submerge the film, having it half submerged and cranking it sounds like a recipe for failure to me, you introduce uneven temps and the fixer part of the solution seems to react poorly to the unevenness of the half submerged method. Also pre-soaking hasn't done any good for me at all.

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David_Manning said:
Ranger9, I used partial-fill. Fresh chemistry, proper temperature...Do you think your film was damaged at all before development?
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I think prior film damage is unlikely given the variety of marks. Which temperature did you use — 70, 75, or 80? (all three are listed as “normal” in the instruction leaflet, depending on the method of agitation used.)
 
ranger9 said:
Anyway, I would NOT be inclined to use that batch of developer again, as presumably it's got a whole roll's worth of emulsion suspended in it now. Maybe a pass through a coffee filter would be worth a try? You could always test with a clipped-off piece of leader before committing to another roll.
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Ok, took ur advice. Tested a clipped piece - perfect. Developed a roll - developer was not cloudy as I filtered it as you suggested. Came out fine.

Thanks for the heads up.
 
Update to my previous [bad] experience: I shot another test and tried again developing in a Lab-Box using Df96. I stuck with 80 degrees and 300ml fill... but this time I was very careful to turn the agitation knob as smoothly, continuously, and evenly as possible.

This test came out MUCH better, with almost no evidence of uneven development -- just a couple of transverse marks, and they were faint. The results make me feel more optimistic about using this developer for photos I actually care about.

The evidence that smooth, even, continuous agitation is important has me thinking about the stepper motor in my parts box. Has anybody had any luck with a non-invasive way to adapt a motor to the Lab-Box?
 
I have some ways to get to the quality you are posting Huss with the Cinestill monobath. Tried it in the Stearman SP-445 a couple times and once in the monobath.

SP-445, Ilford HP5 Plus. Lack of proper agitation?

Checkmate by Maryland Photos, on Flickr

And this is 120 in the lab-box. Same film. The frames were underexposed so had to fix that in photoshop. But that was likely the camera, a very old TLR probably needing some shutter tweaking. Development seems even.

120scans003 by Maryland Photos, on Flickr

Both scanned in Epson V700
 
The results above look reasonably good. They do seem a tad "muddy", but sometimes that can work. For one thing I can see this as a a super simple way to test a camera/lens with film. I once relied on the 1 hour C41 labs for that - now they are all gone!
 
Steve thanks for pointing out the existence of this chemistry. I just ordered two packets to try it. I've tried most of the popular home B&W and color processes since the 60's so I'm not afraid of chemical complexity, but this stuff looks fascinating for its potential fast turn around time - reminiscent of Polaroid.
 
maryland_fotos said:
I have some ways to get to the quality you are posting Huss with the Cinestill monobath.
Click to expand...

All I am doing is following the instructions but for one thing. Using the 70/6min dev temp/time, I invert agitate the film tank smoothly for 10 seconds every minute.
The instructions recommend less than that at the minute marks, but when I did that I had developing streak marks through the sprocket holes.

15 seconds needs to be added to the dev time for every roll used, until you hit 8 minutes. That's it.

It really is a pour into the tank, time, agitate, pour out process. Cannot imagine it being simpler.
 
Have had better results in the lab-box (120 film) and the Cinestill monobath than the couple of tries I did with the SP-445 tank. Maybe the lab-box knob just made the agitation smoother, rather than my dodgy tries at tilting the SP-445 back and forth.
 
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