Diafine does it again!

[bill_napper]

Diafine is the best! My wife talked me into teaching photography to

her girl scout troop. (Bunch of 13 and 14 year old girls - 7 in all)

We ended up with 4 different types of B&W film from 125-400 ASA to be

developed quickly. I ran all of them thru a Diafine soup and every

roll printed just great. Don't think if would have been possible with

any other developer. Everyone should keep some around for "special"

uses! I normally use D-76 or HC-110 but I like my standby Diafine!

 

They all took portraits of each other that were really stunning! I

set up a single flash for them and they did the rest. Really

impressed by the negatives!

 

Bill

[bljkasfdljkasfdljskfa]

Could you please post samples? Thanks.

[olivier_reichenbach]

Yes, I'd love to see a couple of examples. And since Diafine is supposed to give you quite a

lot more speed, I am very curious to see pictures from films shot at their nominal ISO.

[bljkasfdljkasfdljskfa]

I've shot Tri-X at nominal speed, processed in Diafine. I just don't have a scanner :(. If you shoot Tri-X at the pushed speed, trust me, it's still pushing. At nominal speed in Diafine, Tri-X doesn't look much "faster" at all, maybe half a stop faster. I used to think it actually made TX as fast as the recommended times suggest, but I was wrong. There's no magic.

 

In any case, the negatives look ugly flat, with very poor tonality compared to Xtol. Why should you try to counteract that at the printing stage, when you can have good contrast and good tones in a different developer to begin with? Diafine is useful for high contrast film or contrasty scenes, though. But really, how often do you shoot in high contrast sun (noon, mid-afternoon)? My guess is most people who care avoid those times of the day in the first place.

 

For high-contrast film like Technical Pan it may prove to be a good choice, and this is where I will experiment this summer with Diafine.

[al_divenuti]

Dan -

 

Your results are very common.

 

Diafine produces marginally better speed than most developers, especially with Tri-X. But it's biggest benefit is that it seems to give normal-pictorial gradation (i.e. doesn't have the exaggerated contrast of "pushed" film) when film is shot at high EIs.

 

Not surprisingly, this means that film shot at normal speeds will probably be very flat.

[bljkasfdljkasfdljskfa]

Problem is still produces very flat negs, even when you push.

[trixshooter]

I think that Bill Napper's use was perfect. He had a bunch of young ladies having fun making pictures. Rather than deal with time/temperature film batches, he just ran everything through Diafine.

 

Who care is the contrast is perfect, or if the negs looked flat. The girls had fun, were exposed to photography and best of all Bill is a hero.

 

Would I use Diafine for my personal work or projects? Absolutely NOT! The stuff is horrific for fine photographic work.

 

Bill, great work, you are certainly a hero in the girl's eyes.