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I’ve had a series of bad film developing outcomes over the past several weeks. Nope, it’s not always smooth sailing over here. My film was coming out severely underdeveloped. I was having trouble figuring out why since I was using different film stock and cameras with similar outcomes. Then it occurred to me that the common denominator was the developer. Adox FX-39 II. It had gone bad. My particular bottle was manufactured in Februrary, 2025. I bought and opened it in May, 2025. I’d only used about half the bottle of stock solution. This means that it was also half full of air which sped up its deterioration.
I keep a number of developers on hand. Since I’m generally not using any one developer more than the others, they tend to sit around for a while. I’m so used to Rodinal and Diafine developers that essentially never expire that it hadn’t even occurred to me that my stock FX-39 was withering away right under my nose.
With the developer issue figured out, I was determined to have a GOOD outcome with my next roll. I threw a roll of bulk-loaded film I had laying around into my Leica M3. The roll of film had a piece of tape on its cannister reminding me it was 400 ASA. So, I went out and shot it up at that speed.
I came home to develop it. It occurred to me that I didn’t know which 400 ASA film I’d just exposed. I have FOUR bulk loaders full of film. Two of them are 400 ASA. Ilford HP5+ and Arista EDU Ultra 400. Different films usually require different developing times. Enter Diafine. This two-bath, all-purpose developer almost always performs well at times of 3 minutes for the first bath and 3 minutes for the second bath. So that’s what I did.
My immediate reaction on pulling the film out of its final rinse was that the frames were too thin. The shadows were too dark. Too grainy. I checked the Massive Development Chart and discovered that using Diafine for Arista Edu Ultra 400 was not even listed as an option. I’m guessing this means that the combo is not recommended. I was really wishing I’d been more careful about labeling the film which would have allowed me to be more mindful about choosing a more appropriate developer. Too late for that. I scanned what I had and made due. Here are the few that I’m okay posting. The others have gone to the scrap pile.
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