Home brew wine box storage is brilliant!

This schmuck is grateful for your clear and useful video. Thank you!!!!

Ingenious idea using the wine box!

I've read about people dissolving powder developer in propylene glycol as a means of one-shotting. The PG is supposed to prevent any oxidation from taking place, and mixing the full bag of powder means you don't need to worry about different quantities of powder ending up in the stock solution if you were to simply add powder to water in a one shot fashion. Anyway would be interesting to hear if anybody has done that with xtol. Might be handy.

I'm now obsessed with getting a winebox and doing this.

To my surprise the kodak technical data sheet says that you can develop 15 rolls of film with 1 liter of stock solution with time adjustments (so 75 rolls for the 5 liter). Adox, for xt-3, is a bit more conservative with 10 rolls per liter. I wouldn't dare to try this many rolls though. My guess is that Replenishment and one shot at 1:1 are more consistent and easy to do (and as you say, that's already quite cheap)

Genius on the wine bag!

Great info! Thanks!

Amazing video!!!

Very good video. Thank you again.

Superb video, thank you!

This is a subject where the old adage that history forgotten is doomed to be repeated proved true. If you pulled some issues of Modern Photography or Popular Photography from 60 years ago, you'd find all of this discussion over developer replenishment versus one-shot. At that time, Kodak sold a dozen developers, and each had a specific replenishment solution sold separately. Why? Photo processing, except for DIY at home, was done in large vats of solution with film hung from racks being moved from vat to vat. The volumes of those vats were from 10 gallons on up. The solutions had to work over time and usage without change, so the developing agents were renewed with added replenishment solutions based on quantity of film developed. These solutions were chemically tested every day to make sure the compositions did not stray out of spec. Small volumes were sold so folks could do this at home. The problem of doing this at home is that most folks will not monitor the usage and do the replenishment with sufficient accuracy, so the working developer drifts out of spec and films start coming out "different". The modern usage adds another problem: There are no true replenishers, which have ingredients designed to replace what is lost during development in the main solution. Just adding more of the original developer will add developing agent, but it also adds everything else, meaning that over time, you are no longer using the original developer formula, but some other mix of components - a different developer. So long as you are happy with your on-film results, no problem. This lack of consistency won the day in the '60s, and many folks shifted to one-shot variations of their favorite developers. True, that can cost a bit more, but it's not that much more, and the simplicity of use and consistent results dominated thinking then, and it is hard to overcome today. Oh, and those wine boxes were a fad in the 70s, but died after a few years. The plastic liners are oxygen permeable, so long term storage of developer in larger volumes will kill a lot of developer and money. Amber glass bottles are the gold standard, so get some small ones and break up 5 gallons into 20 quarts. Hell, try freezing some of them if you have the freezer space. (Allow for expansion during freezing.) Video is a great discussion.

Super Video !! Excellent teacher !! Tanks a lot !

Great video. Very well explained! I'm going to give it a go today.

Your research is convincing. I think I will give it a try. Thanks.

Nice video - great idea with the wine-box. I am missing a discussion about finding good development times for the various films. Using the stock times will underdevelop somewhat with a replenished solution. When it has stabilized, bi-products will make it less active than stock and therefore more time is needed. The replenisher regime will then keep it at that activity level. Some mention that times will be somewhere between 1:1 and 1:2 times - so this is something one has to find. I try to come up with a factor and then test against same film (easy to do with sheet film) developed in stock solution to see if I am close. Unfortunately when found a working factor - it may not be the same for all films, but a good starting point.

Absolutely perfect video I think. Just made my first batch this evening thanks to this video! Thanks man, appreciate it!

You know this already, but using the replenishment method makes 4x5 development incredibly economical for me. I dev 4-6 sheets at a time and it works so, so well.

Thank you for the clear explanation! first time using XT3. Going directly to the replenishment maner.

Got to that that wine box. Very interesting video.

Thanks for demystifying XTOL. Sounds like the future. I'm very keen to move towards more ecologically responsible chemicals.

I am also a big Xtol fan. However, I don't use it anymore. It turns out, you can get exactly the same results with Black, White, and Green developer from Flic Film. It uses exactly the same active ingredients as Xtol, but it has been formulated into a one shot, long shelf life, syrup. No more mixing big batches of 5L at a time, no more annoying powder, no more bothering with replenishment! Great video as always sir!

Good video, thanks for posting. It should be noted that XTOL is a solvent-type developer, hence the finer grain, which comes at the cost of slightly lower sharpness (as compared to non-solvent types, like D-76 and ID-11). XTOL stock solution will last over a year in full glass containers. In my experience XTOL slightly lowers film ISO. For example, HP5+ should be shot at ISO 320 (1/3 stop slower than box speed) when developed with stick strength XTOL.

muy buen video me ha encantado con el revelador D-23 tambien tengo echo el reponedor y por cierto me acabo de suscribirme a tu canal, yo suelo hacer mis propios reveladores y fijadores con productos en crudo, como D_76 , D-23 fx15 osea varios me gusta el cuarto oscuro tengo una pequña habitacion muy completa bueno no me enrollo mas un saludo desde BARCELONA ESPAÑA.

Many thanks for your detailed explanation. I like it a lot: it convinced me to switch from HC-110 to Adox XT3, as in the Netherlands it is not so easy to get Kodak XTOL anymore. So now I am re-testing the development times for my film stocks to achieve 1.3D above base+fog for Zone VIII, at box speed and pushed & pulled one stop (so, FP4+ @ EI64, EI120 & EI250; Delta 400 @ EI200, EI400 & EI800; Delta 3200 @ EI1600, EI3200 & EI6400... So quite some work). Anyhow, in contrast to 'my times with HC-110', I realised that 'my times with XT3' are quite a bit longer from the Ilford data sheets recommendations for the aforementioned films regarding XTOL. With HC-110 my dev times were always quite near the recommended time from Ilford. I am using replenished stock solution (70 ml per 135 or 120) and at 20 degrees C exactly, three gentle inversions every minute. Do you know if this is common with XTOL in general, or might be that Adox XT3 is actually quite a bit different from XTOL?

You should not pour powders like that into a funnel, it makes dust you breathe unnecessarily. You should put the cut corner of the bag either directly in or like 1/4" above the surface of the water. Also although XTOL is way less bad for the environment than D76 or similar, you should still not pour it directly down the drain, more so just for the sake of your pipes. It is best to neutralize it with a bit of vinegar, doesn't take much, to reduce how corrosive it is to the pipes before it gets diluted enough to stop mattering.

I have bought a couple of 1 liter Adox XT-3, is the replenishment method working in the same way even with XT-3? Thank you :)

I love Xtol Heads up eco pro has a legacy developer that’s the same as Xtol but it’s cheaper and lasts longer

Hello, does xtol develop all types of paper as well, and how long is it enough? Is that long and is the contrast good.. Reply please,, Thank you

Now that Kodak chemistry is no longer made, have you found a replacement for Kodak XTOL, and if so, what is it?

Q : everyone included Kodak, say the life span of Xtol, is around 1 year in powder, if kept dry and cool, and will last about 6 month once mixed with water, adding it may suddenly not work at all with no prior sign, from 1 day to the next. In your video lookalike, you just keep in an ordinary cabinet, yes must give to you, genius thought of the bag, but how sure you can be that it will really last that long ?

Do you see any difference between xtol 1:1 vs replenished xtol? I always use 1:1 dilution but may consider to replenish it if that makes any quality improvement. Thank you!

5L packaging newer was a problem for me ) it clearly says the weight of each component so you divide it by 5 than took your digital scale and weight 1L portion. or 500ml. or 300ml. 5L size doesn't mean that you must use it all at once.

12:39 420 is blaze it 69 is nice

I'm replenishing xt-3, and here on my third roll using replenishing method, (fomapan 100) the developer turned really green. Is this something you've experienced before, and should I be worried about it?

Has anybody tried replenishing a diluted 1+N mix of XTOL?

Maybe I'm over thinking this but the 70ml replenishment is for 1 liter of working solution and not 5 liters correct?

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