Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/08/12

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Subject: Re: [Leica] OT - B&W negative developing info. in general
From: "J. Gilbert Plantinga" <jgp@gilplant.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 23:51:02 -0400

I use Xtol 1:1 one-shot so a 5 liter package soups 40 rolls of 35mm 
film. I don't know about shelf life because I can't usually get through 
a month on just two bricks of film. I know it's supposed to be risky, 
but I store it in brown plastic 1 liter bottles (sometimes only half 
full, but the remainder gets used in the next couple of days) and I mix 
and dilute with tap water. I've been doing it like this for three years 
now and it's not failed me once.

Gilbert

On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 10:34  PM, Dante Stella wrote:

> What I like to do with Xtol is come home from a trip with 20 rolls of 
> 120 film, mix up five liters of fresh Xtol, run a test roll, then do 
> the 20 five at a time, recycling the used developer back into the 
> bottle (i.e., mixing it with the unused developer), afterwards 
> pitching it most of the time.
>
> 2.5 liters is more than enough to do 5 220 rolls in a big Paterson 
> tank, so 5 liters is easily enough for 20 120 rolls.  After 20 rolls, 
> I usually start upping the development time by 10%.  Likewise, 5L of 
> Xtol should be enough to do 16 rolls of 35mm film.
>
> What they never seem to tell you with these chemicals is that there is 
> a disconnect between the physical capacity required to submerge the 
> negs in developer (i.e., 17 oz for a 120 or 220 on a plastic reel) 
> versus the actual amount of developer solution required to develop a 
> certain number of square inches of film (which seems to be a lot > less).
>

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