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I decided it would be useful to know how much my hand-mixed developers are costing me, and to be able to compare costs between developers, so I did a few calculations and created these charts. The shipping costs of both bulk chemicals and commercial formulas have been omitted. I have selected quantities of bulk chemicals that a reasonable home darkroom worker might stock. (Hundred-gram quantities of amidol are necessary to get a reasonable price break, but few would want 100 grams of phenidone, which is only used in very small quantities.) Prices are from Photographer’s Formulary, B&H Photo, and Freestyle Sales. I was surprised to see that store-bought, ready-mixed formulas are usually cheaper than hand-mixed. However, one of the cheapest film developers is Pyrocat-HD, which is not commercially available. Hand-mixed PMK is also quite reasonable. Kodak HC-110 is an excellent bargain. Kodak T-Max and Rodinal are very reasonably priced (providing you use the Rodinal at dilutions of 1:50 or greater). I was astonished to find that T-Max developer (1:4), which I had always thought rather expensive, is cheaper than D-76 (1:2). Ilford Bromophen (a universal developer formula) is the cheapest paper developer I could find (if you use Ilford’s recommended dilution of 1:3). Other than that, Dektol (1:2) is probably the best buy. However, I prefer to use Dektol at 1:1, and D-72 as well, which raises the cost considerably. The most expensive developers are those which contain Amidol and Glycin. Ansco 130 (metol, hydroquinone, and glycin) seems quite expensive, but it lasts many times longer than most commercial developers, as does Agfa 115. Adams’ variant of Ansco 130 (metol and glycin) is quite economical when its useful life is considered. The primary failing of a comparison such as this is that there is no way to compare solution lifetimes. Ethol LPD is also said to be a very long-lasting developer. If any reader’s would like their favorite developer added to the list, just e-mail me and tell me what dilution you use. I’m not familiar with a lot of the commercial developers, since I mostly mix my own. |
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