Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/05

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Nuts? Expiration rates of XTOL
From: Mark Rabiner <mrabiner@concentric.net>
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 10:42:01 -0800

Johnny Deadman wrote:
> 
> > You guys are all nuts!!! :)
> 
> Maybe, but beside the point...
> 
> > I'm a big fan of f11; point and shoot. In my Rollei 35 and M6 bodies both
> there
> > is Delta 3200 which I shoot at 1600 Xtol 1:3 12 minutes 70 degrees blend every
> > minute for 5 or ten seconds.
> > With a yellow green filter my effective ASA is 800 but that will come off hand
> > held in low light.
> 
> Okay, I JUST about buy D3200 at 1600 in Xtol! But I still think the grain is
> smushy. And at 1:3 you can only put 2 films in a 1l tank. But hey.]
We've run through this one a bit before but:
I'm filling up metal tanks with reels of film, a one liter tank with 4 rolls or
a 2 liter tank with 8 rolls. I'm resisting the urge to load my film back to back
as I've done with other developers over the decades as I'm less prolific now but
I have done some of this with Xtol exceeding its supposed limits by quite a
margin but compenated enought to avoid ruining 16 rolls of film at a time think
god. In a few instances they were just a tad thin.
The reason I know I have not hit the maximum the solution can handle is that if
I give it more time is gets denser. So the stuff is still active. I hate to take
what Silva Z is saying into question or yours either Johnny but I think
different films make the developer expire at different rates and so far I'm OK
with the TriX I had been using and the Delta 400/3200 I am now using.

Mark Rabiner