Diafine - what's the catch?

[pschauss]

Thanks again for all of the advice on Diafine. Last weekend I shot one roll of Tri-X at a basketball game. The only telephoto lens I have for my Minolta 7000i is a 70-210 f4, so I used that, set mostly at 100mm. I set the meter at 1600 and the shutter at 1/125, although the camera's meter thought that the scene needed 1/60 at 4.5.

I increased the agitation from 5 seconds every minute to 10 seconds every minute.

I printed a contact sheet which looked good to my standards as well as a 5x7 print of one frame. The 5x7, which I printed at a contrast level of 2, had decent contrast and enough shadow detail for what I was trying to do. The grain was no more than what I expect from Tri-X and considerably better than a previous experiment I did with HP5+ rated at 800 in Diafine.

I fully expect that some of my shots will be a bit blurred because I shot them at 1/125, but if I get 10 good shots out of 36 I will pleased with the results. I will definitely try this again while I save my money for a faster lens.

[k_jupiter]

I second this recommendation. The only developer I've been able to get reasonable results with on the surplus Macophot UP100 film (from J&C last year) is Diafine. In all others I got horrendous speed loss.

I have been developing my surplus in Homebrew 777 with no speed loss whatsoever. I haven't tried it in Rodinal (I mean why?) bu the 777 brings out full shadow detail and well controlled hightlights at 80 to 100 EI.

Hadn't thought to do it Diafine. I don't see any reason why not though.

tim in san jose

[Jordan]

777 eh? Interesting. I think I'll pass, though, it'd mean a special order of glycin and phenylenediamine... I've only got a couple of rolls of that surplus film left here anyway.

[Andre R. de Avillez]

BTW, I have been able to get an I.E. of 80 with D-76 1:1 on the surplus film, but that was back when my fungi-infested TLR still worked, and getting a "right" E.I. with that was sort of hit and miss (the densitometer and the enlarger disagreed on how much base fog/flare the lens produced-- the first said nothing, the second said lots). But that's beside the point, I guess.