Reusing developer in the short term

[alavergh]

Since I started with 35mm tank developing, I'm used to throwing out my developer in between rolls of film.

At the moment, I develop my 4x5 film in 5x7 trays and use about 500mL of developer, well, the solution as it should be mixed to be used. I usually feel comfortable doing 4-6 sheets at a time.

Now that I'm messing around with different developing times I am looking what the best way is to do this. I suppose I could reverse the sheets that need to be taken out early and all that, but I don't yet feel comfortable with that. Say I need to do 2 sheets at 5 minutes and 2 more sheets at 7 minutes.

Is it safe to assume if I only developed about 2 or 3 sheets in a tray of developer, I can immediately use it again for another 2 or 3 sheets?

Thanks

[Heroique]

Do you have a developer spec sheet that describes its "useful capacity"?

It's usually stated in terms that one can convert into a personal situation.

For example, Kodak says the useful capacity for D-76 is: 16 8x10 sheets per gallon in a tray.

With some quick math, you might convert this into [X] 4x5 sheets per [Y] ounces in a tray.

[Doremus Scudder]

Since I started with 35mm tank developing, I'm used to throwing out my developer in between rolls of film.

At the moment, I develop my 4x5 film in 5x7 trays and use about 500mL of developer, well, the solution as it should be mixed to be used. I usually feel comfortable doing 4-6 sheets at a time.

Now that I'm messing around with different developing times I am looking what the best way is to do this. I suppose I could reverse the sheets that need to be taken out early and all that, but I don't yet feel comfortable with that. Say I need to do 2 sheets at 5 minutes and 2 more sheets at 7 minutes.

Is it safe to assume if I only developed about 2 or 3 sheets in a tray of developer, I can immediately use it again for another 2 or 3 sheets?

Thanks

Yes and no. Developer loses activity with use. Reusing 500ml of developer as you describe (especially if it is a high-dilution developer like PMK or HC-110) would normally require an increase in development time to compensate for the developer exhaustion, even if the capacity hasn't bee reached. That makes it pretty unreliable for testing.

Here's what I would do: water pre-soak all your negatives to be developed at a different time and set them in a tray next to the developer tray. Take the first negative from the water tray and immerse it in the developer while simultaneously starting the clock. Add negatives from the water tray at your desired intervals, say, every minute or two minutes thereafter. With just two different times, two minutes apart as you describe, this is a piece of cake. Don't be afraid; what's the worst that could happen? You'd ruin a couple of test negatives...

Alternately, you can start developing everything at once and then move the negs to the stop bath at intervals, say after 5 minutes, and 7 minutes, etc. The problem here is that you risk upstream contamination, i.e., getting stop bath into the developer, from the hand you use to put the negs in the stop bath. Having a tray of spent developer to dip your fingers in after they have been in the stop and before going back to the active developer would alleviate this risk.

Go for it!

Best,

Doremus

[Bruce Barlow]

OW! These are precious negatives! They deserve only the best! Fresh developer every time!

Life is way too short to do any less than the best, and that means fresh, tasty developer every time.

I use a quart, minimum, in a 10x12 tray to develop LF negs up to 8x10.

[welly]

If you're concerned about using up lots of that lovely developer, use a high dilution developer such as Rodinal or Ultrafin. At up to 1/100 dilution for Rodinal and up to 1/20 for Ultrafin, you'll almost never run out of developer! With my current batch of Rodinal, I've developed about 20 sheets of 8x10 and have hardly skimmed the top off the bottle. Ok, a slight exaggeration but I still have a good 2/3rd of the bottle left.

[Bruce Barlow]

Good point. There are a lot of developers out there that cost pennies per load. That means most of them aren't going to break the bank if you use fresh, as we're recommending, each time.

[alavergh]

Thanks for the replies. I've looked around to find some of the capacity info and while I'm fairly certain I'm safe, whoever the next person was helped me understand why I was worried. Given the increase in development time needed, I'll probably just keep everything the same and whip up another batch of developer.

Somebody mentioned Rodinal and I actually have some on order for the dilution reasons mostly, but hopefully I get a bit of the sharpness benefit of it too.

[Jody_S]

As a general rule of thumb, add 25% developing time each time you re-use. I started when I had to use 1600ml in an FR tank to do 4x5, there was no way I was throwing all that out just because I developed 3-4 negs. Since then, I've started using much more dilute HC-110 and I do throw it out after each developing session, though I may use it twice in a session.