Diafine - brown, curling negatives?

[yossarian123]

Hey, something weird happened last night. I've been using a batch of Diafine for roughly 10 rolls with no issues at all. But last night's eastman double x were developed and they were really brown and the negatives were a curling a lot (much more than I expect from XX).

Could this be Solution A getting contaminated? Fixer was fine, it was pretty fresh and the temps were well within the normal diafine range. I've tried to keep A & B separate but who knows - how much of B needs to sneak into A before the whole batch is ruined??

 

[stompyq]

Bad film or bad fixer. If solution A is bad you will not get any shadow detail and not much of a negative.

 

[Calzone]

If any part "B" contaminates part "A" your part "A" will eventually get killed. All that is needed is time to render your part "A" useless.

Meanwhile the slight contamination of part "B" by soaked film and the "wetting" of the film by part "A" kinda "seasons the part "B." After about 20-25 rolls of film I notice that the mids in my film get more pronounced, and this is a good thing.

I have used Diafine extensively. One season I shot on average 150 rolls of film a month when Legacy Pro (rebranded Tri-X) was $2.89, and rebranded Acros short dated was available for $1.89 a roll.

Eventually Diafine got dark brown and was no longer amber, but still worked fine. The developers did get thicker and were more like a syrup, and I had to add an empty reel to the top due to foaming, but the developer still worked fine.

I mix a fresh gallon batch of Diafine about once a year. Also I tend to throw out the black sediment that settles at the bottom of the bottle. I suspect that the black sediment is accually silver. When basically I have exhausted the stock that I use to top off due to spillage, draining out the sediment... I remix up a fresh gallon.

Not sure what caused your curling though. I assume you got developed negatives.

Cal

 

[yossarian123]

Yeah, the negatives developed pretty well I guess. I'll have to verify tonight when I actually scan them. They were definitely much browner than normal and seemed possibly a shade cloudy.

I'll post a photo of the negs later tonight.

I'm normally an HC-110 guy but decided to go strictly Diafine this winter since I'll be shooting XX @ 800 & Tri-X @ 1250 until the Chicago glooms goes away.

 

[Calzone]

Yeah, the negatives developed pretty well I guess. I'll have to verify tonight when I actually scan them. They were definitely much browner than normal and seemed possibly a shade cloudy.

I'll post a photo of the negs later tonight.

I'm normally an HC-110 guy but decided to go strictly Diafine this winter since I'll be shooting XX @ 800 & Tri-X @ 1250 until the Chicago glooms goes away.

Y,

If XX is 5222 I use ISO 500 and develope 4+4.

For Tri-X 800 ISO and 3+3.

I get nice midrange on my negatives.

Cal