Clayton® Chemicals for Darkroom Applications
Consider Clayton chemicals for the finest results with MACO™ films for electron microscopy
Introduction:
Over the past five years, the field of traditional photographic processing
has undergone enormous change. With the advent of digital imaging
generally, there has been a tremendous contraction in the amount of emulsion
images being processed, which has led to huge consolidation in the
photographic industry, which has included the dropping of long time popular
photographic products by major manufacturers (e.g. Agfa, Ilford, Kodak) and
which has actually led to the outright bankruptcy of some such firms.
At the same time, there has been a switch to the use of orthochromatic
emulsion products which will actually yield the very best results if one is
using, for example, instead of the traditional developers, a new class of
products called "high energy" developers.
Clayton Chemicals has a long history of manufacturing the very highest
quality darkroom chemicals including an outstanding "high energy" developer.
You might not ever had heard the name "Clayton" before, but not because of
its quality, but only because you don't see Clayton spending millions of
dollars advertising, exhibiting at trade shows and otherwise incurring large
marketing and distribution costs in order to get their products out into the
market place. They have been very successful in identifying what the
consider "top in class" (e.g. #1) in a market place and let that designated
firm be their exclusive distributor within that market place.
SPI Supplies has been given that very special designation by Clayton
Chemical. Our goal is to add the full range of darkroom chemicals produced
by Clayton and the advantage to our customers is not only higher quality
products, but they can purchase their products at lower prices.
Liquid vs. dry powder:
We believe this is a greatly misunderstood issue. Just about any dry powder
product, be it developer or fixer, in order to completely dissolve, and
depending on the local water characteristics and pH, could take as long as
24-72 hours to completely dissolve. But in the real world, users rarely
want or have the luxury of waiting this long for their chemicals to
dissolve. Hence, their films end up with tiny particle size spots of under
or no development which can be quite annoying, especially if one is seeking
to end up with an image of publication quality. That is why the liquid
versions of these products are recommended.
But we also know that shipping "water" around the world can be costly and
beyond what customers might be willing to pay. Therefore, in addition to
the liquid products, we also offer the same products in dry powder form.
SPI Supplies does have a flat rate shipping program but most of the liquid
product offerings are exempt from the flat rate shipping programs.
Why are the Clayton products cheaper?
In a single set of words: Virtually no marketing expenses. Everyone has seen the full
page color advertisements from Kodak, Ilford, Agfa and Fuji. And giant trade show exhibit
booths. These extravagances cost money. And the money comes from the pockets of the
customers who purchase products manufactured by these companies. Clayton incurs no
marketing expenses because they distribute through a select group of specialty distributors,
usually "top in class" like SPI Supplies. And anyone who has dealt with SPI Supplies knows
the main method of promoting SPI Supplies products is through our very heavily used website.
We sell direct to our end user customers and at least in the USA, we do not deal through any
distributors. This insures that everyone in the world is able to purchase at low prices and
to go to sleep at night, confident that they limited photographic budgets are not being
squandered with full page full color advertisements promoting film and other photographic
products and and extravagant trade show exhibit booths.
We have also been successful in introducing the MACO® ORT 25c Orthochromatic film
to those customers who found Technical Pan Film 6415 no longer available from Kodak®.
Available products:
Developers:
- Clayton F76 Plus Film Developer
- Clayton Dry Powder
Stop Bath:
- Clayton Odorless Indicating Short Stop
Wash:
- Clayton Archival Wash
Fixer:
- Clayton Archival Fixer
- Clayton Dry Powder
Non-Streak Surfactant:
- Clayton Film Rinse Additive
To Ask a Question or Make a Comment
To Place an Order or Request a Quote
Return to:
Friday May 16, 2008
© Copyright 2008. By Structure Probe, Inc.
Contacting SPI Supplies and Structure Probe, Inc.
All rights reserved.
All trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.
Worldwide Distributors, Representatives, and Agents
