Rodinol to D 23

[Tin Can]

I am switching film developers for the first time in 8 years

I will still use Rodinol, but decided to add D 23 asap

2 very influential members here use it

I believe one is Jim Noel, always a stable voice

The other is Ken Lee who provides direction on his website. http://www.kennethleegallery.com/html/tech/D-23.php

His images show truth

Thank you both

[Kiwi7475]

Interesting. What precipitated this after 8 years? Is it related to Rodinol or the believe that D23 will be better (tonality, less grain)? Or economy of the developer?

[Alan9940]

D-23 is a marvelous and simple to make developer. It has produced wonderful negs with every film stock I've tossed at it! Enjoy!

[mdarnton]

I use D23 with xray film and have used it with 35mm Tri-X several times in the past. If it has a shortcoming for normal film, it's a lack of highlight contrast. I seem to remember that the two-bath version doesn't have that problem, with results that are more similar to D76. Otherwise, it's very convenient to use and a nice developer without the golfball grain and empty shadows of Rodinal, which I never liked at all.

[Jim Noel]

There are several advantages when using D-23. A short list includes:
- Undiluted and un-contaminated lasts for a very long time. My current bottle was mixed in November 2018.
- heavily used stock D-23 can be used to add silver density to thin negatives
- it's very cheap
- Very useful with a water bath to control high contrast situations
- a simple formula which quite likely is the least dangerous developer in common use
- negatives developed in this yield beautifully to toning for increase contrast
- if diluted it is slow acting enough to be a very good one for use with high contrast films including lith
That is all I can think of at the moment.
Stay healthy and do something photographic every day.

[Ken Lee]

In the limited BTZS testing I performed, the film speed and contrast curves with D-23 1:1 were very similar to those of other popular developers like D-76 and Pyrocat HD.

If we enlarge small negatives, employ special development techniques, shoot under extreme lighting or print under UV, our choice of developer can make a big difference.

Otherwise, we are free to consider secondary factors like convenience, cost, toxicity, simplicity of formula and preparation, etc.

[Tin Can]

Yes, I wanted low cost, simplicity, cheapest source was B+H today, I checked them all

I will be making UVA prints soon and learn what works

I like Rodinol, as it is also cheap and very quick to mix

But bottles do go quickly even at 1/100 with big negs

Large X-Ray I have used Ilford PQ 1-19

Thank you and Jim!

[Kiwi7475]

Yes, I wanted low cost, simplicity, cheapest source was B+H today, I checked them all

I will be making UVA prints soon and learn what works

I like Rodinol, as it is also cheap and very quick to mix

But bottles do go quickly even at 1/100 with big negs

Large X-Ray I have used Ilford PQ 1-19

Thank you and Jim!

You are buying D23 by photographers formulary from B&H? If you buy the two chemicals from aircraftchemicals it costs 44cents to develop an 8x10 sheet (500 ml). That’s treefiddy for 4L. B&H sells 4L of PF’s D23 for $19.95.

[Peter De Smidt]

Yeah, just buy the constituents. It's so cheap and easy to mix.

Jim, do you mean it stores a long time, or do use it replentished?

I plan to follow Michael's practice and use it to develop xray film in hangers.

[David Schaller]

I just mixed some up the other day from Artcraft chemicals. The hard part might be finding distilled water!