dia-fine developer

[martin_4668]

Does anyone have experiences with the Dia-fine b/w developer. It doen´t seem to be available in europe, and hard to get in US as postorder.

[Donald Qualls]

There seems to be some confusion with dealers about whether Diafine can be shipped -- apparently because the package size is specified as "one quart" or "one gallon", which are liquid measures, even though the contents is dry powders in two steel cans. I'm told that at least one American dealer can and does routinely ship the stuff, while another won't "because it's a liquid."

Best I can suggest is shop around. There was, at one time, a British made developer very similar (if not identical) to Diafine -- Aculux, I think it was called, from Barry Thornton, and production may have been recently resumed with the settlement of his estate; if this material is once again available, I'd expect you to be able to get it through British distributors like Silverprint or Jessop's, or through Fotoimpex in Berlin.

It's also relatively simple to make up a "work-alike" formula that is widely available on the internet -- I don't have that recipe handy, because I can pretty easily get the real deal here, but if you do a search for "Diafine recipe" (without the quotes) you should quickly pick up a link -- you'll need phenidone, hydroquinone, sodium sulfite, and sodium carbonate, all of which you should be able to get from Retrophoto or Fotoimpex.

[Bill_1856]

Check the B&W Film and Processing Forum on photo.net. Lots of good stuff there on Diafine.