CineStill Df96 Monobath - any experience ?

steveyork said:
This happened with me too when I used Cinestill monobath on Kodak Eastman SO331. Resulted in just a clear strip of film. No images.

Otherwise my experience with this developer is mixed. When it worked, it was excellent, but a good number of frames it left black dots. Because of this anomaly, I only used it for a few rolls of film.
Click to expand...

Never had black dots on mine.

Did you filter the DF96 after you had it strip the emulsion on the Eastman SO331?

I filtered mine after it stripped the Silberra film, the emulsion was trapped by the filter and the solution was clear again.
 
Huss said:
Good call about powdered vs bottle for knowing when it was mixed/the age. I did not think of that.
Mine was the bottle, and I also have the mix waiting to replace it. I'll be using the same bottle. There is a batch # on my bottle but I have no idea what it means - 11208.
I used mine over a period of 2 months and with 20 rolls of film - the last two were failures, so 18 rolls. Also... early on I had the failure with Silberra which stripped the emulsion into the liquid which I filtered out. That could not have done anything good to the developer! So perhaps I could have got some more rolls out of it.

Either way, if I take B&W to my local shop it is $7/roll (normally $10 but they give me a discount). With DF96 it is just over $1/roll.

As for scanning - I am using my digicam from which I have got better results than anything outside a drum scan. For 35m film I use the Nikon ES-2 slide copier device.
Click to expand...
I may have to try a digital camera setup, I am just really in doubt as to the quality level that my Epson V550 gives me. I may try my Ricoh GRIII in 35mm crop and macro mode- I think that should give me a pretty good file. Any tips on cobbling together a backlight/light box?

Also there is a program called Kandao RAW+ that allows you to combine multiple RAWs for enhanced detail and exports a DNG, that might be a useful route for editing in order to pull in a maximum image quality for the small surface area.
 
Huss said:
Never had black dots on mine.

Did you filter the DF96 after you had it strip the emulsion on the Eastman SO331?

I filtered mine after it stripped the Silberra film, the emulsion was trapped by the filter and the solution was clear again.
Click to expand...

Sorry, it wasn't black dots, but these weird clear dots, dots with halos, holy dots, ha, ha, and it wasn't washing. See picture below. It happened on my first roll. Still have the developer but it's a couple months old now, and probably no longer any good.

Mono Test #2 by Steve, on Flickr
 
Could that have been air bubbles that prevented correct development? After I agitate, I give the dev tank a sharp wack to dislodge any bubbles.
 
Has anyone developed Acros (original) in this stuff? Cinestill doesn't list instructions for it as they consider it a discontinued film. Thanks!
 
steveyork said:
I always whack the development tank after agitation, but never had this issue with any other developer. Like I said though, when it worked, it was great.
Click to expand...

I developed 20 rolls (18 successful - the last 2 the dev had expired) and never got bubbles like that.
I did have to deal with bromide drag by increasing agitation (35mm film only - through the sprocket holes - no issue with 120 film).
 
New batch of DF96. This was shipped dry and I had to mix it up myself - no biggie right? Just add packet A to 750ml of distilled water while stirring, then add packet B, keep stirring, top off to 1000ml.
Packet A was powder, packet B was large granules, that took FOREVER to finally dissolve. At least 10 minutes of stirring away. It seems ok now, and the film came out great but I was a but surprised. Temp was about 80 for the water.

Leica M4-2, 7A 35mm f2, Arista 400, Cinestill DF96 Monobath

 
Just developed 120 Acros in Cinestill monobath. Just did the normal 4ish minutes for room temperature (its around 77F). Its drying now, the negatives look contrasty, but that's Acros.

Huss, that's how I got the monobath - as powder. I found some deionized water online and used it to mix the powder in. The granules do take time to dissolve. I may actually have not bothered with the temperature, so it was somewhere around 75F.
 
Just developed two more rolls of film, for total of 4 in this batch. The developer is already murky which is unusual as before it took a lot of film before it go that way. Only developed Arista 400 in this batch, so nothing unusual and nothing I had not used before.

I almost messed up.. I poured the DF96 into the measuring jug, then poured it directly into the dev tank. A minute later I realized I had not taken the temp! So I did (therm stuck into dev tank) and it was much warmer than I normally use - 78 degrees. So I upped the agitation and developed for 4.20. To take into account the high temp.

Negs look ok, will see how they look when I scan them later.
 
maryland_fotos said:
Huss, that's how I got the monobath - as powder. I found some deionized water online and used it to mix the powder in. The granules do take time to dissolve. I may actually have not bothered with the temperature, so it was somewhere around 75F.
Click to expand...

I still see small floating crystals in my DF96, so not everything dissolved and it's been a week now. Used distilled water as per instructions.
 
This batch of Df96 was pretty clean when first mixed, and stayed so while I put about 7-8 4X5 sheets through it. Now I can't remember if I used warmer water or just room temperature for mixing the powder/granules in.

But after the last batch of 4 4x5s, its gotten pretty cloudy. I used the cloudy stuff for the 120 roll today. Will have to do the coffee filter thing from the prior page on this thread.
 
Acros 100 developed for ~4 minutes at room temperature, with intermittent agitation. There's a light brown stuff going down the 120 frames, kind of in the middle of the roll. Maybe that was the gunk I noticed in the monobath just before using for this roll.

Lighthouse by Maryland Photos, on Flickr

The frames were too bright, which could the camera shutter running slow.
 
Nice pic. I've noticed a little bit of bromide drag through the sprocket holes on my latest roll of film.
I'm agitating a little bit more than recommended (a sec or two) as Cinestill mentions increased agitation = more fixing. So I don't want to go over board.
I have noticed that it seems to always be on the top roll of film in a two roll tank, the one on the bottom is fine. Tank capacity is meant to be 650ml for 2 rolls, I've been using a bit more than that but I will increase it to 700 and see what happens.
 
I usually use a little bit more than the required amount for the tank. I have gotten bromide drag with Fomapan, haven't noticed it with other films that I can remember. I think it can be avoided going for higher temps and more agitation. Usually I use 75 degrees for everything, but I suspect Foma 100 may do better with 80 degree constant agitation.

I've had my DF96 get murky, but as long as it's not dark brown, it seems to work well. My second bottle of premixed stuff is going along well with 5 or 6 rolls developed.
 
Will have to try the 80F idea.

Filtered the gunk out this morning, and then developed Delta 400 for 8 minutes. I had a suspicion that the camera was overexposing, so I went with 70F, with continuous agitation. Found the recipe on https://darkroom-solutions.com/cdc

Will try to scan later in the day and post a sample. The negatives look okay at first glance - less dark than the Acros 100 frame above, which needed some Photoshop work to recover detail.
 
Films like Delta need double the processing time according to the instructions. I found out the hard way...
 
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