This is very helpful. I’ve just gotten into home development and chose the Df96 for the “simplicity”. Just about done with my first bottle so about 15 rolls so far. Mostly 35mm, a few 120’s.
I use the intermittent and it’s seemed to work well. If the pic wasn’t good I figured it was more my error in exposure when shooting.
I keep seeing info about AGO (and now it floods my IG algo lol) and it looks great. Because I may warm the Df96 to 75 but I’m sure it drops over the course of the 6 now 7 minutes (close to end of the developer lifespan of 16 rolls).
How did you compensate for that prior to using the AGO? Or have you only used it in the AGO?
Hi Dave, thanks for reading the article and for your comment! I only used the ago, but if I think I would stick with manual constant agitation if I did not have the agitator. The agitator compensates for temperature drops by increasing time, which I think is not something very reliable with the CineStill because it uses temperature, not time, as the constant to make things right. I think that's why the CineStilll suggests a minimum time, because they assume that temperature might drop when people do the agitation, so at least they make sure that people go at least up to that time mark. As a good practice, it is interesting to pre-heat the tank by putting it in the water at the correct temperature so there is no temperature drop when the chemicals get in (being careful not to have water getting through the funnel).
Interesting product. Thanks for the detailed write up!
For someone like me who does manual inversion, I think the temp and inversion frequency variables would make this more complex than my current method (x-tol 1:1 with only time shifts for various film stocks/push/pull).
An all-in-one product seems easier, but thank you for pointing out that there is more to look at than simply the combination of chemicals into a single bath.
This is very helpful. I’ve just gotten into home development and chose the Df96 for the “simplicity”. Just about done with my first bottle so about 15 rolls so far. Mostly 35mm, a few 120’s.
I use the intermittent and it’s seemed to work well. If the pic wasn’t good I figured it was more my error in exposure when shooting.
I keep seeing info about AGO (and now it floods my IG algo lol) and it looks great. Because I may warm the Df96 to 75 but I’m sure it drops over the course of the 6 now 7 minutes (close to end of the developer lifespan of 16 rolls).
How did you compensate for that prior to using the AGO? Or have you only used it in the AGO?
Great article, appreciate it!
Hi Dave, thanks for reading the article and for your comment! I only used the ago, but if I think I would stick with manual constant agitation if I did not have the agitator. The agitator compensates for temperature drops by increasing time, which I think is not something very reliable with the CineStill because it uses temperature, not time, as the constant to make things right. I think that's why the CineStilll suggests a minimum time, because they assume that temperature might drop when people do the agitation, so at least they make sure that people go at least up to that time mark. As a good practice, it is interesting to pre-heat the tank by putting it in the water at the correct temperature so there is no temperature drop when the chemicals get in (being careful not to have water getting through the funnel).
Interesting product. Thanks for the detailed write up!
For someone like me who does manual inversion, I think the temp and inversion frequency variables would make this more complex than my current method (x-tol 1:1 with only time shifts for various film stocks/push/pull).
An all-in-one product seems easier, but thank you for pointing out that there is more to look at than simply the combination of chemicals into a single bath.