Xtol's peculiar agitation?

Juan Valdenebro

Juan Valdenebro

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I'm about to receive Xtol for the first time...
Some people use normal agitation with it (and surely it develops...) but its datasheet and some photographers say the developer works, for tone, MUCH better with the recommended agitation, that's kind of wild...
Has someone any recommendation?
Thanks!
 
To be more precise with my question:
I'm planning to use Xtol for Tri-X at 3200, with the 1+2 dilution... There's a common time of 17-20 minutes at 20C with the standard agitation, but there's a special Anchell&Troop "semistand" case, for pushing, giving 50% more time and agitating every third minute... That would be close to 30 minutes... Has someone used it? I know the wild agitation must be great for general use, but what about contrast control in a 3 stops push? Wild or gentle agitation if every third minute? Any other experiences?
Thanks...
 
Xtol agitition is the same as for any other developer, with the published times. Xtol is a good developer for pushing, but you should develop your own benchmark for normal development first.

If you plan to use highly dilute formulations such as 1:2, be sure you adhere to the 100ml of stock solution per roll. This would mean 300ml of solution for one roll, which may mean constraints as to how many rolls you can develop in a given tank. Personally, I don't see any advantage of 1:2 over 1:1 which gives more reasonable tank volume constraints. Officially, Kodak has withdrawn recommendations for 1:2, probably because so many people were screwing up the 100ml stock per roll recommendation, not because it doesn't work.
 
Thanks for the answers and wishes! 🙂
Yes, the recommended agitation is several fast inversions in 5 seconds, every 30 seconds: nearly shaking a cocktails mixer...
I've read LF posts where people discuss how to agitate film sheets in wild enough ways for best tonality with Xtol...
I think I'll try first a third minute agitation plan, for a contrast control push, and I'll respect the wild agitation: if I agitate a lot less times (one sixth) at least I'll do it how Xtol likes it...
Cheers,
Juan
 
I've used it a lot for ACROS, 2TMY, Neopan 400, Neopan 1600 [ :-( ]. I don't shoot a lot of Tri-X.

I follow the recommended agitation and use it at 1+1. It gives results very close to D-76 but with slightly better speed and slightly finder grain. In my experiments with 1+2 I got perceptibly more visible grain (similar to D-76) and perhaps a slight increase in acuity.

As stated above: never less than 100 ml of stock per 36 exp - 135.

Making your stock in distilled or deionized water can be a good idea, depending on what your local water is like.

A 2-bath fix can be a good idea, though this suggestion is not XTOL-specific. My impression is that this has improved my 2TMY negatives a bit.
 
Note that Kodak's small-tank recommendation for D-76 is identical to their recommendation for XTOL:

4. Provide initial agitation of up to 5 cycles, depending on your results. For KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX Films, provide initial agitation of 5 to 7 cycles in 5 seconds. For an invertible tank, one cycle consists of rotating the tank upside down and then back to the upright position. For a noninvertible tank, one cycle consists of sliding the tank back and forth over a 25.4 cm (10-inch) distance. With tanks that have a handle for turning the reel, rotate the reel back and forth gently through about one-half turn at a rate of one cycle per second during the agitation intervals. Steps 2 through 4 will take approximately 7 to 20 seconds, depending on the type of tank.

5. Let the tank sit for the remainder of the first 30seconds.

6. After the first 30seconds, agitate for 5seconds at 30 second intervals. Agitation should consist of 2 to 5 cycles, depending on the contrast you need and the type of tank.
Click to expand...

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j78/j78.pdf
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j109/j109.pdf

In general, you should stick to your usual agitation scheme -- but be aware that if you agitate less than Kodak recommends, your negatives are likely to have lower contrast and EI, and that you may need to increase your development times a bit from the Kodak starting points. In my view, agitation is the one thing that you should almost never vary: consistency gives you control, and control lets you get the results that you want.
 
Rob-F said:
I thought I remembered that the Kodak recommendation for XTOL was to shake the tank vigorously up & down for some number of seconds during each agitation. Am I remembering this wrongly?
Click to expand...

That is one of the inversion regimes recommended by Tetenal for most of their developers, at least in one-shot dilutions. Not that unusual, really, at least in Germany, where Tetenal is the most popular brand. But such a "one shot" agitation regime may be new to you if you are familiar with D76 and other traditional large tank developers, where the main purpose of agitation was to reduce the bromide/iodide concentration at the film surface, the concentration of active agents being large enough to be unaffected by a single roll of film even locally.
 
semilog said:
...
I follow the recommended agitation and use it at 1+1. It gives results very close to D-76 but with slightly better speed and slightly finer grain. In my experiments with 1+2 I got perceptibly more visible grain (similar to D-76) and perhaps a slight increase in acuity.
...
Click to expand...

I think you're right!
Being Tri-X (grain) and being a wild push (grain) it makes sense to use 1+1 instead of 1+2, to keep more solvent effect working...
I'll start my Tri-X/3200 tests at 24 minutes, with every third minute (recommended) agitation, at 20C.
Thank you!
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
I think you're right!
Being Tri-X (grain) and being a wild push (grain) it makes sense to use 1+1 instead of 1+2, to keep more solvent effect working...
I'll start my Tri-X/3200 tests at 24 minutes, with every third minute (recommended) agitation, at 20C.
Thank you!
Click to expand...

Please share your results, Juan. I am interested to see how it goes for you.
 
All development schemes must provide for removal of built up bromides. I have used many over the decades, and they all work providing sufficient agitation is done.

All do continuous for 30 sec on immersion

Popular in the 60 was taurus, invert and twist, twist and repeat to upright. Repeat one more.

One of our honored members came up with rolling which he wrote up in Modern Photography Magazine in 1960s. 8 oz in a tank with two reels , film on lower. Roll 1.3 turns, roll back, repeat one time. Repeat every 30 sec

Inversion works well and I do it to this day. Same 8 oz and set up as above.

5 to 7 inversions in small tank every 30 sec. This is in current Kodak data sheet. Tried it and it works.

Shake up and down? Better not get the film off the reel spirals. Never tried, never will.

Patterson Super System 4 is a no miss perfect system. Just follow the instructions on the twist stick only for first 30 sec. After that invert.

I am going to look up the mans name now. Think it was Bill Pierce.
 
First real data (of mine):
I developed Tri-X exposed at 3200 in Xtol 1+1, mixed using distilled water.
It was a test roll, using mostly gray levels in different low light scenes: pure black, pure white, several levels of gray and kodak´s medium gray card.
Temperature was 20C, time was 24 minutes, agitation was 30 seconds of fast complete inversions at the beginning, and 10 fast inversions every third minute.
Metering was absolutely precise, checking three times: incident, reflected on gray card with Sekonic's spot, and camera.
Tank was inside water at 20C.
Results: base+fog was clear and clean: great improvement over Rodinal here; development was a bit weak for highlights (a bit short) because pure white on scenes didn't reach a really dark gray on negative, though it was close... But the scenes were also shot at 1600, and pure white was perfect on negatives for those 1600 scenes, so the used development scheme is indeed for 1600 shooting instead of 3200.
Then I shot a second roll, at 3200, and for my 3200 shooting I'm finally doing just the same described 1600 development, but at 24C instead of 20C.
I'll shoot a real roll now at 3200, and scan some scenes to share soon.
Cheers,
Juan
 
This scene was in the second roll (Xtol 1+1, 24C 24min), the one well exposed and well developed (3200 shooting with Tri-X)
When I saw the girls talking by phone (all destinations) I felt they were obsessed with getting in contact with God... I stopped (was on my bycicle), and after having shot gray cards on most of that roll, I had 2 frames left, so, while they could see my back only, I quickly took my camera out, prefocused its lens at 8 feet, and set AE at +1 because the scene was a bit lighter than medium gray. Turned and raised my camera to shoot instantly... I think I'll use the center of the image only, to cleanly show the nuns and all destinations story only, keeping out the little girl and other distracting elements.
I think Xtol is an absolutely superb developer. Yet I can't believe this is Tri-X at 3200. Both for tone and grain I'm happily surprised.
I never learnt how to upload images here, so here's a link to a screen size view:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40894234@N07/14447693923/sizes/l/in/photostream/
and a link for the original size scan:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40894234@N07/14447693923/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Cheers,
Juan
 
It looks already good but you can extend the development with a few minutes to have more contrast.

To show your photo images you can tag between img /img in between the BB codes selected from the image.
Flickr just changed a bit the acces to the codes. You can go via ... and then show/download images, select show click on the right size and then the right mouse click to select the code, then copy/paste it in.
 
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