I hate Microdol as it is a grain-dissolving developer that robs you of sharpness. XTOL is probably as good as D76 and won't hurt your septic system. They don't sell the XTOL in small packets anymore, so you have to make a bunch.
I love Prescysol for just about everything. You mix it and discard it (highly diluted). You can get it from Photographer's Formulary. Get a few syringes for measuring the concentrate. I also love PMK-pyro, another highly diluted one-shot developer, but you have to be pickier with films for that developer. Jeffery On Dec 9, 2010, at 11:13 AM, John Graves wrote: > Now being retired, I have also given some thought to the (film) cameras and > gear that I have accumulated but don't use. So home processing appeared on > the scene. Am I better off sticking with Tri-X or has anybody had any > experience with Kentmere (sp) that is being pushed a bit by one of the local > stores. Also seeing some reports about a new to me Kodak developer > (Xtol)that is easy to use and environmentally friendly. Given a choice I > think I'd buy the small packets of D-76. > > Also, I am on a septic system. I read on the web that developers and stop > baths are fairly close to vinegar and also fairly dilute. So there is not any > problems flushing them (literally.) But the fixer does contain silver and > some other potentially nasty stuff. Flush it also? Or mix everything > together and flush it. That is another suggestion I saw. > > As a really secondary question, as I was inventorying my gear, I came across > a really old pack of microdol. Is there a shelf life for sealed package of > chemicals? Is microdol still available? > > John Graves > WA1JG > [email protected] > > Thibouille wrote: >> 2010/12/8 P. J. Alling <[email protected]>: >>> Tri-X in D-76 is pretty forgiving, you can soup in a bathroom and pretty >>> much time it with your pulse. Learned to do that in a Photojournalism >>> course taught by a semi-retried Photo-Editor from the Providence Journal. >>> Except for the fact that that the film used was 35mm rather than 4x5 it was >>> a technique that wouldn't have been alien to Weegee. >>> >> > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
