Diafine ?

[taffer]

I've been wondering about this 'magic' 2 bath film developer since I read its review in Davidde Stella's site.

http://www.davidde.com/articles/diafine.html

Do you have some experiences with it ?

For what I've read, you must expose your film according to the EI that 'works' for Diafine with that film, but the fact of having such a wide temperature range seems interesting enough...

Anyway there's probably no way of getting it here, and with today's regulations that product can't be shipped overseas, so I'll probably go for Rodinal at €3,80 for 500ml, not bad and easily available.

Of course plus tank, stop bath, fixer and etc...

That will be in the summer, I hope, I'm not really good doing numbers, but on my last pushed HP5+ they charged me near €5 for developing (no prints), so I may go cheaper doing the developing myself... if I manage to do it without ruining anything, that is...

Oscar

 

[back alley]

go for it oscar!

practice with a dummy roll - loading the film onto the reel. that's the hardest part of developing your own film.
first practice with the light on and watch what you're doing. then try it in the dark. work slowly and stay the course and you will be fine.

joe

 

[Kris]

Oscar, after being ripped off AU$17 (c.a. US$11) for pull processing of Delta 3200 at 1600 not including printing, now I'm thinking of developing B&W film myself too!

What I need is pretty much developing tank & reel, few jars, metering jug, the chemicals and thermometer right? I can leave film leader out all when rewinding so no need to pry open the film cassete.

Now how do you guys control the temperature of the chemicals? Also, where do you guys do the developing? I don't want to do it in the bathroom because I don't want to get chemicals splashed onto my toothbrush (good if i see it, if not...oops). Using the sink in the kitchen also pose the same risk...splashing the chemicals onto cutlery or dishes without realising it can be pretty dangerous.

 

[oftheherd]

It doesn't take much care not to splash chemicals onto cutlery or dishes (or toothbrushes), if you are leaving them exposed. I have usually put a deep enough tray in the sink, and left the tank in that for temperature control. Of course, the chemicals were heated (or cooled) first. Temperature control is important, but not as critical in b/w as in color negatives or slides. Tapping was done against the bottom of the sink, and agitation was with the top aimed into the bottom of the sink. Seemed to work pretty well. I have also used one of those rubber trays with a raised end for some of the chemical containers, with the low end draining into the sink. All seemed to work pretty well.

You can for sure leave out the leader, but if not, the old beer/soda can openers will get you into your canister if need be. If using reloadables, you can just snap them open with your hands.

 

[HelenB]

Oscar,
I've heard that Adorama will mail Diafine.

Having used them both, I believe that Barry Thornton's 'DiLuxol Vitesse' is similar, but his developers are not available at the moment, following his death last year.

Best,
Helen

 

[taffer]

Thanx everybody, yes Joe, now I'm pretty sure I'll go for it, but should have to wait until classes are gone and I have free evenings again...

Kris, a friend of mine is based in New Zealand and told me the price for Delta100 processing + contact sheet was more than NZ$30 !

Thanx also for the link Helen ! Neither keh nor b&h were mailing it. Anyway as I'm completely new to this, I'll start with what I can find easily here. BTW shooting with removable take-up spools has some advantadges, like being really easy to leave the film leader out 🙂

I'll take a 'googlelook' for DiLuxol too, just curiosity.

Best !
Oscar

 

[Doug]

Leaving the film leader out is convenient, but there are a couple of problems to watch for. First, you can confuse a used roll with a fresh roll, as both have leaders sticking out! I got into the habit of tearing off about half the exposed leader as a sign that roll had been shot. Some people write info on the leader about the subject, date/time, developing instructions, etc. Then when you see a roll with scribblings on the leader, that's a good sign it's been exposed.

The other problem is just the possibility that there might be some gritty particles stuck in the fuzzy light seal of the cassette... this could scratch the film as it makes yet another (third) journey rubbing on this seal. The less the film is exposed to the danger of scratching, the better.

For some reason, my practice has been to tear leaders. AND later pop the cassette open to extract the film.

I haven't developed film myself for a few years, but Diafine was one of my favorites. I liked that it lasts almost forever in use, and is so insensitive to time and temperature. It's sitll important though to have all baths at about the same temp so as not to "shock" the film! The worst would be to subject the film at some point to a much warmer bath, this often resulting in reticulation.

There's lots of info about Diafine on the 'net, but briefly... The film emulsion soaks up developing agent in part A, during which no developing action takes place. Agitation and time are of virtually no importance, and you just have to give it enough time for all the developing agent to soak in that's going to.

I like to try to reduce the amount of part A that gets into part B, so I take the time here to let the film drain thoroughly.

The part B contains the activator, triggering the start of development. Of course the only developer present is soaked into the emulsion, so you can't overdevelop. The developing action tends to be localized, and you can mess that up by over agitation. Just a little gentle agitation, widely spaced times, to flush away some of the development byproducts. This is where I made mistakes and got too vigorous with the agitation, and ended up with thin negs.

So, localized, the development action proceeds quickly to exhaustion in the heavily-exposed parts of the neg, then runs out of juice to continue. This keeps the highlights from getting blocked up (if exposure was correct). In the shadow (thin) areas of the neg, the developer is not exhaused quickly, and continues working away for quite a while, boosting shadow density and detail.

Again, time and temp are not critical, as the activated developer is largely self-regulating. Agitation is important though, and should be kept minimal. No big hurry in pouring in parts A and B, or in pouring them out, so things can be a bit less hectic. Less clock watching, and less hurrying!

As a consequence of the way Diafine works, there is no push or pull processing possible; all you can do is optimize your exposures for the various lighting conditions.

 

[dzeanah]

I'm lazy, and live in Florida where it's damn near impossible to get the house 68^F in the summer months (it was 80^F when I woke up at 4AM this morning!). Diafine is a Godsend, as it's relatively insensitive to temp and duration (i use 5 minutes instead of 3, but that's just me). It is somewhat sensitive to agitation though, so follow the instructions on the box.

It's also convenient to mix and match films, so I can develop Tri-X, FP4+, and HP5+ in the same batch and not worry about it.

The most interesting thing to note is that it's a compensating developer, and can go a long way toward taming contrast in high-contrast scenes. (See below for a shot of a white dog in a patch of sun at 4PM on a Florida summer, with full shade behind her. I'm not an expert scanner yet, but contrast was controlled nicely.)

Final point: it seems to work best with "older" emulsions. I like its performance with FP4+ (at EI 250) better than I like it with Acros and TMX; and Tri-X shot at 1250 is simply wonderful.

 

[HelenB]

Barry Thornton mentions a technique for pushing with two-bath developers that would be applicable to Diafine - though I'm not sure that I could ever be bothered with it. However... I did do a similar thing recently when I developed some films in a speed-decreasing developer instead of Diafine (I was trying to do too many films at once: too many identical loaded tanks on the bench). Instead of fixing, I washed the film then developed it a second time in Diafine to get the speed I required.

You develop normally with A and B, then thoroughly wash the film and re-develop in A then B. This can be repeated a third time. It is critical that the intermediate wash is thorough, because otherwise you will contaminate Bath A with Bath B.

Best,
Helen

 

[oftheherd]

The folks here, http://gallery.bcentral.com/GID2025592P3141720-Darkroom-Supplies/Diafine-2-Bath-Film-Developer.aspx claim to ship internationally, but may not. They have contact info at http://gallery.bcentral.com/GID2025592-Contact.aspx.

 

[HelenB]

Adorama ship Diafine internationally, they have it in stock and they are cheaper!

 

[Peter]

I too is planning to do my own developing at home with Diafine. There is no shop in Singapore that stock Diafine since the 80s. Hence I would have to buy from Adorama. The price of developing and contact printing is about USD 5.00 in Singapore but there is nothing like the joy of darkroom work. Some of my friends think otherwise as quality control is an issue. Singapore can be dusty during the dry season and there is no anger like ruining a good roll of shots! 😛

 

[taffer]

Yep, but while Adorama ships only UPS, the other one uses the cheaper and good ol' USPS which makes shipping charges a lot more interesting. However, sometimes I wish their Airmail Parcels were as fast as their Lance Armstrong ! 🙂 Must be hard to cross the ocean on a bicycle though 😛

@dzeanah, the amount of detail you've keep into both shadow and highlight areas on that negative is amazing !

 

[Doug]

Dzeanah, great example of ability to keep detail in the highlights and shadow!

Helen, that's a fascinating idea, going through the A&B one or two more cycles. I'd really like to see what that ends up looking like!

I used to do something a bit opposite of that sometimes; dilute the A bath 1:1 and drop the EI down to the box-rated ISO. I'd have to research my files to recall just why, and the results...

 

[taffer]

I did it !

I did it !

Ok ! Done, I've just ordered a couple packets of Diafine. According to the envelope they give one gallon each (around 3,5 liters) so that should last for some time 🙂

Hope I won't mess it up 😛, now I only need the tank (Paterson 4-system seems to be a good choice), Fixer, Foto-flo, a measuring jar (from the all-at-1-euro store probably) and a couple bottles...

I'll keep you posted, I don't really know how my new adventure is going to end 🙄

 

[jdos2]

FNAC is your friend for Photo supplies!

Good luck, and have fun. Please post some pictures of the Diafine negatives. I can't find it locally and will have to go through a web-delivery too.

 

[taffer]

Will do Jeff, thanks for the encouragement !!

In fact around the main FNAC in Barcelona you can find 2 or 3 big photo stores carrying lots of photo supplies, however, I'll try to get as much as I can used from the internet, and the rest from the local stores.

Have you used Diafine before ?

 

[Doug]

Oscar, great! I only got a 1 quart kit. And over the weekend I cleared 20 years of junk out of the darkroom, washed it down, cleaned all the tanks, reels, etc... And souped 6 rolls of film that had accumulated. Delta 3200 (120 from Bronica RF), Tri-X, FP4+, Pan-F (all from Olympus Pen F), and Verichrome Pan (110 from tiny Pentax). Now I need to figure out how to use my film scanner.

The negs all look pretty good, maybe with the exception of the Delta 3200 which looks thin. There is shadow detail, though, so the exposures at EI 1600 could have been ok. Maybe not enough Diafine could be absorbed into the emulsion...

And in rooting around in the darkroom, I found an unopened Ilford development kit for XP1 film. I still have a few rolls of that in the fridge, and one waiting for processing. And I wonder how that kit would work with XP2...

 

[back alley]

sounds like some 'sperimentin' about to happen...

joe

 

[taffer]

More diafine questions

More diafine questions

Summer is natural time for 'sperimentin' 😀

Well a paterson system-4 is on its way here now. My question now is about preparing Diafine itself.
Is there any recommendation to completely disolve all the contents of the packet at once or is it better to prepare only the amount you need and leave the rest in powder on the packet? Any significant advantadge? Does it age better in liquid/powder shape ?

About the bottles to store it, may I simply use plastic bottles made opaque with a layer of black tape ?

I guess this won't be my last question about it, so thanks for your help and patience ! 🙂