Microphen reuse?

[martin s]

I read a few threads on photo.net, some people seem to reuse the stock solution. I just mixed A+B with a liter of water according to the manual, and it says I can reuse it 10x, but many use it a few more times. How many 500ml tanks w/ 2 rolls do you think I can pull of?

martin

 

[blazejs]

Well, I haven't used Microphen itself but used Hydrofen what is more or less a copy of Microphen. I would suggest rather one-shot 1+1 soup. First because stock is working fast, second because you'll get more predictable results. When using stock you have to add some time after 5th roll (if I remember correctly).

 

[drewbarb]

You can indeed re-use full strength stock Microphen several times. Just pour it back into the container after each use; the unused developer in the bottle will effectively replenish it- though your times will increase a bit. Keep an eye on your film, and watch how it looks. Every couple of uses, increase your time by 5 to 10%. I always keep track of how many rolls have been through the dev; once a batch has been used 8 or 10 times- or it's more than about six weeks old- I dump it and start fresh.

Ten years ago, I worked at a lab, where I learned to use Microphen this way. I've used it like this as my main go-to developer for push processing for ten years. I think the rule of thumb we used was 50 rolls processed per gallon of Microphen stock- but anyway, these days I never use it that many times.

 

[varjag]

I used 1L stock for 20 rolls, just adjust the time accordingly. I found Ilford's advice of 10% increase per roll processed way too fast paced though: I was getting very quickly into overdevelopment.

Also had a 5L fuel canister of the stock that lasted over a year. I lost count of the rolls developed in it - discarded it just because it started to look quite polluted in the end.

 

[martin s]

Thanks a lot! I will discard it after 20 rolls, which might take a while I'm guessing since it's only HP5+ at 1600 I want to develop in Microphen.

martin

 

[Silva Lining]

I love Microphen!

Sure you can re-use - This weekend just gone I developed 2 x TriX 36 exp 35mm, 1 x Ilford PanF 35 mm and 3 x TRiX 120 in 1+1 solution. I generally add on 10% after the first 4 or 5 rolls and then add about 20 seconds for each extra roll after that . I've used solution in this way for up to 12 rolls in one sitting with good results - - that would give a total of around 36 rolls for a full litre of solution.

If you used it in 1+3 dilution I expect you'd probably squeeze nearer to 50 rolls out of it 😉