Tri-X in Diafine, but at 400?

[jackbaty]

I usually shoot Tri-X rated at 1250 for processing with Diafine. There are times, however, when I'm in bright daylight and 1250 is a little fast.

Is it reasonable to shoot Tri-X at 400 and still process it in Diafine? What should I expect if I just get silly and shoot part of a roll at 1250 and the rest of the same roll at 400?

 

[maelswarm]

Nope, I've done that and you'll get a dense neg but it's still quite useable if you scan it and do some contrast/curves in post-processing.

 

[WoolenMammoth]

would it kill you to shoot a test roll and find out for yourself? we are talking bracketing FOUR whole frames...

but yes, diafine will develop your negs over a vast range of exposure all with a different look and all usable, especially if you are scanning. Whether or not you like it, obviously is personal but easily investigated. All the two bath developers are the easiest to experiment for exposure with since development time is more or less (within reason) static, so that whole part of the equation is out of consideration.

 

[jackbaty]

would it kill you to shoot a test roll and find out for yourself? we are talking bracketing FOUR whole frames...

Would it kill me? Probably not, and I intend to do just that over the next couple of days. Asking here wasn't too painful either, so I did that first.

 

[WoolenMammoth]

sorry, that came across a little snyde. Diafine is just so easy to test for you might as well. just bracket 4-6 shots and you'll have all your answers. Totally usable from 320 to 6400.

 

[maelswarm]

sorry, that came across a little snyde. Diafine is just so easy to test for you might as well. just bracket 4-6 shots and you'll have all your answers. Totally usable from 320 to 6400.

You mean Tri-X can be pushed to 6400 in Diafine? I thought it had pushability limit of 1250 with Tri-X... have you tried pushing film with Diafine to 6400?

 

[Al Kaplan]

Let's not say "push" because that usually means to increase the developing time which increases contrast. When Diafine first hit the market they were claiming 2400 to be the standard useable speed. Then they started claiming 1600, and eventually 1200. Part of this was due to "improvements" made to Tri-X. A thinner emulsion and finer grain every time the "New Improved" reappeared on the film box! But the thinner emulsion couldn't soak up as much solution A as the thicker emulsion, and Diafine works by developing the solution A in the film with the activator in Solution B. Less available A in the film and you get less development.

Now that we've established that Diafine doesn't really "push" anything so much as give you maximum shadow development without fear of overdeveloping the highlights, 3200 really is just giving you a "salvageable" image on the negative, not a great negative with great tonality in the darker areas. There might be nothing but clear film in those murky shadows. 6400 will move the clear film syndrome further up into the mid tones. If any image at all is the goal then go for it!

Most PJ's back then were printing on a number 3 paper grade, which in itself gives the illusion of about a one stop push. Newspaper and magazine news doesn't require a fantastic tonal range so much as a recognizeable image.

When I try to print some of my own negatives from that era I'm amazed at what we used to consider acceptable, but it was a matter of getting the filmed souped and printed fast. An experienced guy (women didn't do that stuff then) shooting the half-tone negative (the one with the dot pattern) with a process camera from your print did a bit of his own "post processing" by making three exposures on the litho film: one of the photo without the half tone screen, one of the half tone screen without the picture, and a third of the photo through the screen. How much relative exposure he gave each of these could add detail to the shadows or to the highlight areas, increase or decrease overall contrast, etc. (See, we had "curves" back then too....LOL) and it was mostly done through a combination of experience, intuition, and plain dumb luck.

Anyway, some pretty lousy underexposed or overexposed negatives together with a wrong guess at developing times could still look pretty damned good on the cover of Life Magazine! (They had better printers than I'll ever be!)

At 400 you'll end up with a dense negative. Printing exposure will be long and you'll get increased graininess. You'll also be running your highlights up on the shoulder of the H&D curve so they'll look too flat and have very low contrast.

 

[WoolenMammoth]

one man's "pushability" limit is another man's "unusability" limit. If you expose trix at 6400 you'll get an image in diafine. I certainly dont shoot trix at 6400 to use with diafine, but when you look at the shadow detail that is still present in trix at 1250, what does that meter? 6400 is only two and a half stops away from 1250 and there is certainly two and a half stops of detail before black with trix at 1250 so that really shouldnt come as any shock what so ever... You will get a super flat negative, but you will also get an image...

Again, with a developer this easy, there is no excusable reason to take my advice or anyone elses on this one, go and bracket a roll of film and judge the results for yourself, thats all I did to come to my conclusions. Couldnt be easier. Shine a light on something and bracket it for half a roll, snip it and see...

 

[bmattock]

Al was correct about 'pushing' with Diafine, but I think a little more explanation might be in order...

The term 'push processing' simply means over-developing the film. By the same token, 'pull processing' is under-developing the film.

Most developers continue to develop the film until they are stopped from doing so, by stop bath or fix. They just keep on keepin' on, until you make them quit it.

This is good. It lets us under-expose and over-develop and get more-or-less properly-exposed negatives. Yay, us.

Diafine is NOT a push processing developer. It does NOT keep on keepin' on if you leave the film in it for too long. That is because Diafine is a two-part developer that 'develops to exhaustion'. The Part A developer seeps into the spongy emulsion like a sponge absorbs water, and when you pour the Part A out, the part that got sucked in to the film stays there. The Part B developer then attacks the film and doing its thing, but only as long as there is Part A for it to rub up against. When the Part A left in the 'spongy' gelatin emulsion is gone, it stops working. That is what we mean by 'to exhaustion'.

Diafine does not 'push' Tri-X to ISO 1200 and beyond. It has that effect, yes. But it is not a push. That is the normal speed of Tri-X in Diafine, that's all.

What that means in terms of Jack's original question is this - if you shoot Tri-X at EI 400 and process it in Diafine, you get very thick negatives, as Al said. They might be usable, especially if scanned with a dedicated film scanner.

Diafine is pretty forgiving, I've found. I don't make a habit of it, but if I find myself trying to get the last few shots of a roll in dying light and I've been exposing at EI 1200, instead of decreasing my shutter speed beyond what I can reasonably hand-hold, I'll just rate the last few frames at EI 1600 or even higher and I usually get something I can use in Diafine. I would not do that with Tri-X pushed to differing speeds on the same roll in any other developer.

 

[maelswarm]

I agree, shouldn't have said "push" but rather compensating developer that develops shadows without blowing the highlights. I was just surprised that Tri-X rated at 6400 could be useable in Diafine. I'll try it out sometime, but I would rather try using Neopan 1600 which will develop at 2400 in Diafine.

 

[bmattock]

I agree, shouldn't have said "push" but rather compensating developer that develops shadows without blowing the highlights. I was just surprised that Tri-X rated at 6400 could be useable in Diafine. I'll try it out sometime, but I would rather try using Neopan 1600 which will develop at 2400 in Diafine.

'Usable' is a relative term. I've done it, but it wasn't pretty. If I knew I was going to be shooting at EI 6400, I would not use Diafine, I'd use D76 at 1+1 for precise control. If I ended up shooting at God-knows-what from 1200 to 3200 on a single roll, I'd dunk it in Diafine. Just my 2 cents.

 

[kxl]

I usually shoot Tri-X rated at 1250 for processing with Diafine. There are times, however, when I'm in bright daylight and 1250 is a little fast.

Is it reasonable to shoot Tri-X at 400 and still process it in Diafine? What should I expect if I just get silly and shoot part of a roll at 1250 and the rest of the same roll at 400?

An ND filter solves your problem. 😉

 

[jackbaty]

Thank you all, as usual, for the thorough replies.

WoolenMammoth, you're right, I should just go bracket a roll and see what I get.

An ND filter is probably another good solution.

I think an even better answer is the one I've settled on: I bought a nice M4 from another RFF gentleman. Now I've got a second body to load up with a more appropriate film for use outdoors. At the very least, it's a really fun workaround!

 

[iamzip]

This is an interesting conversation. One of the advantages of digital cameras is the ability to switch iso on the fly. But if you can vary the ei so widely on one roll when souping in diafine...

I've shot a roll at box speed, and slightly "pushed," and just recently had a roll in my Moskva 5 which I have not yet souped; I was trying to use the sunny 16 rule, but also switching back and forth between box speed and a slight "push." I haven't souped this roll yet, so we'll see what happens.

How far has anyone "pushed" Neopan 1600 in diafine?

 

[MichaelW]

Now I've got a second body to load up with a more appropriate film for use outdoors.

You can rate Plus-X at 400 & dev in Diafine. Looks great.

 

[Ronald_H]

Diafine was my first developer and Tri-X my first film. The fact that one year later I just ordered a new box of Diafine and a fresh brick of Tri-X should give you some indication of what I think of it. Tri-X @ 1250ISO in Diafine works better than it has any right to, especially after shooting other emulsions in something like HC-110.

I don't do 'wet' darkroom work, and underexposed negs are hell to scan, so I don't go much further than 1250. But Tri-X is already forgiving in itself. In Diafine it's even better.