Anyone tried Fuji Artdol? Or will I be the first...

[Amund]

I`m a LF newbie, but not afraid to "experiment" :-)
I developed my first LF negative yesterday in my 35mm tank, and got an evenly developed neg! (I have a couple of tubes on the way from JandC, but couldn`t wait)
I couldn`t find any info about Artdol anywhere, so I ordered a pack from Dirk to try out, and I will tomorrow...

I`m using a Graflex Crown Graphic with a 127mm Ektar and Fuji Acros 100 Quickload.

[fingel]

I'm curious how you managed to cram a 4x5 piece of film into a 35mm tank?

[Jim Moore]

I'm curious how you managed to cram a 4x5 piece of film into a 35mm tank?

I'm going to guess that he used the tank like you would a "tube".

Jim

[Amund]

I'm going to guess that he used the tank like you would a "tube".

Jim

Yes I did.... :-)
It`s a regular two-reel 35mm plastic tank. Two minute pre-soak, then filled it with 30ml Xtol 1:1, continious rolling in my kitchen sink for 9 minutes, stop , fix: voila, a prefectly even negative!

In Artdol the development time for Acros 100 is 4.5 minutes, must be a pretty active developer....

Will post results tomorrow, and with some luck, pictures too....
:-)

[Amund]

Being a bit hungover today, I never got much out, so I took two shots of my messy livingroom table :-)

http://www.pbase.com/plexi/image/37666475

http://www.pbase.com/plexi/image/37666479

The Artdol does what promised, develop film....
That`s all we can learn from this :-)

Will hopefully get out and shoot some nighttime images next week, Fujia Acros is the very best for long exposures, not much resiprocity failure to speak of....

[Dirk-san]

Hi Amund,

looks good to me... but then it is very hard to judge without seeing the negative I suppose. How did you agitate in the 35mm tank? In the long term it is better to have a reproduceable technique I think.

I have long struggled with how to best develop my 4x5 negs, but I think I have the solution now:

The how: http://www.unicircuits.com/archives/000321.html
The what: http://www.unicircuits.com/archives/000322.html

Regards

Dirk

[Amund]

Hi Dirk, I have now bought a couple of the developing tubes from JandC, and they deliver as promised. I used the 35mm tank the same way, continious rolling in tempered water. I`ll buy some more Artdol from you soon, I love the short development time.

[Eirik Berger]

blix: Have you tried Acros with Artdol? I have ordered Acros in both 4x5" and 8x10" from Megaperls webshop. I have done some Film speed testing using Xtol 1:3, but I havent desided yet which developer to use for this film.

I chose Acros (like you) because of its nice reciprocity capacaties, in LF long exposures are often used. But I dont know the film well enough to choose developer yet, some help would be appreciated.

Best Regards

Eirik Berger

[Amund]

Eirik, I bought the Ardol for use with Acros and too me it looks fine. I`m about to try it in different dilutions than the 1+2 Fuji recommends, but I like the short development times, and have had no problems with uneven development.
I haven`t done any sharpness comparisons, but it looks kind of like stock XTOL, very smooth and grainless.

[Bob Carnie]

I did buy some fibre paper off Dirk earlier this year and it was excellent (rembrant) but the duties and shipping absolutely killed any future sales , it cost me more to get it here than the paper itself, but a very nice paper for sure.
Have not tried any of his film