Mixing XTOL

[brothernature]

Hey all,

I just mixed a batch of Xtol, well the eco-pro version. On my first attempt there was quite a good amount of powder still at the bottom after part A and B were mixed, and the final amount of water added. I started over and was very careful about mixing part A very slowly, until it was dissolved. It was still tough to get part A to dissolve completely, it took a very long time. I added part B and again, spent a long time stirring and crushing bigger pieces at the bottom until I didn't see any bigger specks.

When I started dividing it up into 500mL amber bottles, I noticed that it wasn't 100% clear, there seemed to be very fine particles still swimming around.

I'm using distilled water at 20 degrees Celsius.

I'm going to develop a test roll first, but will this be okay to use? Any tips for better mixing?

Thank you.

 

[lynnb]

Yes it will be quite OK going from my experience. I've found it not unusual to have a very small amount of sediment in the bucket I use for mixing. I've not found any problems when very small specks of sediment are in the working solution, though obviously I'd prefer if there were none.

 

[jbrubaker]

Use hot water

Use hot water

Using hot water will help to disolve the powder. It won't harm the developer. ----jb

 

[Rob-F]

I think 20C is too cold. I think 30C, or about 80 to 85F, is about right.

 

[Freakscene]

Kodak recommends up to 30C for Xtol and Freestyle/Legacypro recommends up to 29C for EcoPro. The warmer the better, and if you can keep it warm that’s better too. A lab heated stirrer is cheap - as little as ~$30 on eBay. Youcan set it to 30C, turn on the mixer, and go do something else. Just don’t go to bed and mix it all night. It should be clear if mixed properly, but yours should be fine.

You could also try Moersch Eco: http://www.moersch-photochemie.de/content/shop/negativ/128/eco_film_developer

Good luck,

Marty

 

[brothernature]

Thanks everyone, I'll try a higher mixing temp next time.

Good news is the solution didn't seem to have any problems. I processed a few test rolls with good results.

Maybe this belongs in a separate thread, but I have a question about density. I processed my first test roll of HP5+ shot at 250, in 1:3, 20C, for 14 minutes. It came out very dense, however when I went to scan it, the roll scanned much better than the results I usually get with HC-110 negatives that look that dense. The grain was still fine, the highlights weren't blown out.

I just ran a second test roll through, this time reducing the development time by 30%. They still came out looking too dense to my eye, but I'll have to scan it in a few hours to see.

Just wondering if anyone has any insight on this. I'm curious as to how even an overdeveloped Xtol negative looks much better scanned than one overdeveloped in HC-110.

Thanks!

 

[Freakscene]

Thanks everyone, I'll try a higher mixing temp next time.

Good news is the solution didn't seem to have any problems. I processed a few test rolls with good results.

Maybe this belongs in a separate thread, but I have a question about density. I processed my first test roll of HP5+ shot at 250, in 1:3, 20C, for 14 minutes. It came out very dense, however when I went to scan it, the roll scanned much better than the results I usually get with HC-110 negatives that look that dense. The grain was still fine, the highlights weren't blown out.

I just ran a second test roll through, this time reducing the development time by 30%. They still came out looking too dense to my eye, but I'll have to scan it in a few hours to see.

Just wondering if anyone has any insight on this. I'm curious as to how even an overdeveloped Xtol negative looks much better scanned than one overdeveloped in HC-110.

Thanks!

Trust how they scan or print, not your eye.

If for some reason you rely heavily on visual assessment of your negatives re-calibrate your eyes by looking closely at different negatives. A good approach is to do a ring-around with HC-110 and one with Xtol and compare. A ring-around, classically, is a 3x3 chart of nine photographs, all of the same scene, arranged in three rows of three. Horizontally, the rows are “underexposed, “normally exposed,” and “overexposed,” and the vertical columns are “under-developed,” “normally developed,” and “overdeveloped.” This gives visual confirmation of nine different combinations of exposure and development. I learned to print them with the same contrast and enlarger exposure time, but this was a bit controversial; some advocated that each negative should be printed the best it could be. I always opted for the former because it accentuates rather than hides the differences in exposure and development. Proponents of the other approach usually argued that whatever your neg looks like you are going to do your best to print it well. It probably doesn't matter, except the latter approach also gives you more of an idea of how hard or easy a negative will be to print. For scans, to understand your negatives, I'd suggest basic adjustments given that your raw scans should be pretty flat and uninteresting.

So for this exercise you can both have scans and negatives to look at. This will help calibrate how you see your negs.

But from a basic perspective, if the contrast is not too high those negatives probably are not overdeveloped. My time for HP5+ @EI200 in Xtol 1+3 (you did make your diluted developer one part stock plus three parts water, not one part stock to three parts water ratiometrically, right?) was 14 min, but that was for wet printing, not scanning.

Stick at it, it sounds like you're getting it right.

Marty

 

[brothernature]

Trust how they scan or print, not your eye.

If for some reason you rely heavily on visual assessment of your negatives re-calibrate your eyes by looking closely at different negatives. A good approach is to do a ring-around with HC-110 and one with Xtol and compare. A ring-around, classically, is a 3x3 chart of nine photographs, all of the same scene, arranged in three rows of three. Horizontally, the rows are “underexposed, “normally exposed,” and “overexposed,” and the vertical columns are “under-developed,” “normally developed,” and “overdeveloped.” This gives visual confirmation of nine different combinations of exposure and development. I learned to print them with the same contrast and enlarger exposure time, but this was a bit controversial; some advocated that each negative should be printed the best it could be. I always opted for the former because it accentuates rather than hides the differences in exposure and development. Proponents of the other approach usually argued that whatever your neg looks like you are going to do your best to print it well. It probably doesn't matter, except the latter approach also gives you more of an idea of how hard or easy a negative will be to print. For scans, to understand your negatives, I'd suggest basic adjustments given that your raw scans should be pretty flat and uninteresting.

So for this exercise you can both have scans and negatives to look at. This will help calibrate how you see your negs.

But from a basic perspective, if the contrast is not too high those negatives probably are not overdeveloped. My time for HP5+ @EI200 in Xtol 1+3 (you did make your diluted developer one part stock plus three parts water, not one part stock to three parts water ratiometrically, right?) was 14 min, but that was for wet printing, not scanning.

Stick at it, it sounds like you're getting it right.

Marty

Thanks Marty.

Big facepalm, I just realized I did 1+2 😕 1 part stock, 2 parts water.

Is there a calculation to adjust the development time from 1+2 to 1+3? Or I'll just do another test roll I guess, and start with a time a little longer than the 9.5 minutes I did today.

The 3x3 chart is a great idea, I'll have to do that.

I'm reading from The Film Developing Cookbook by Troop/Anchell. They say that ideally you want a negative that is as thin as possible without losing shadow detail. So, should I keep scanning to check the negatives, and keep reducing development time until I notice a loss in shadow detail? Just wondering how you fine tune your timing.

Thanks again.


P.S. For those interested, here is a scan, unedited.



I'm pretty happy with it, the grain is nice and shadows seem open. I'll have to try different scenes though.

 

[Freakscene]

Thanks Marty.

Big facepalm, I just realized I did 1+2 😕 1 part stock, 2 parts water.

That will do it.

Is there a calculation to adjust the development time from 1+2 to 1+3? Or I'll just do another test roll I guess, and start with a time a little longer than the 9.5 minutes I did today.

If you go to Tim Gray's extremely handy website, the 1998 Xtol document is archived here: https://125px.com/docs/techpubs/kodak/j109-1998_04_b.pdf and you can compare times for Xtol stock, 1+1, 1+2 and 1+3 dilutions. I am assuming EcoPro behaves identically to Xtol - this may not be accurate but it's a start given that Freestyle's directions for EcoPro are not exactly detailed.

The 3x3 chart is a great idea, I'll have to do that.
I'm reading from The Film Developing Cookbook by Troop/Anchell. They say that ideally you want a negative that is as thin as possible without losing shadow detail. So, should I keep scanning to check the negatives, and keep reducing development time until I notice a loss in shadow detail? Just wondering how you fine tune your timing.

You can fine tune that way, yes. But you need to know what the negatives should look like or at least what you want your negatives/scans to look like.

P.S. For those interested, here is a scan, unedited.



I'm pretty happy with it, the grain is nice and shadows seem open. I'll have to try different scenes though.

This scan looks a little bright and maybe with some loss of highlight detail to me. But the information is there in the negative, so it's probably scanning method rather than any problem with the negative. Our screens also could be calibrated differently.

Thanks again.

No problem, take care.