Today I found an online UK supplier that sells 25kg of Sodium Thiosulphate (aka hypo) for £70 delivered! I am thrilled.

Hypo, which I use as my second stage print fixer, is my biggest darkroom expense chemicals-wise. The typical price here in the UK seems to have climbed up to around £9 / kg. A kilo makes 4l of solution, which is enough for about a two day darkroom session when working on 16x12 and/or 20x16 prints.

I use plain hypo as the second stage fixer because it’s basically one-shot; virtually all of my prints are bleached prior to toning, and ferricyanide wrecks fixer, so it makes no sense to use an expensive one, such as Ilford Rapid Fixer (about £4 / l at current prices). Plain hypo doesn’t keep well, whether you use bleach or not, but I have found that if I briefly wash the prints prior to the second fixing, I can reuse it for about 48 hours, 72 at a push.

I use Rapid Fixer as the first stage fixer, for here the economics are reversed: I find Rapid Fixer will happily last me six months, the main factor being exhaustion rather than it going off, but when second fixing anyway, this is less of a problem in any case. (And also, when selenium toning, one doesn’t have to worry too much about whether the fixer is exhausted or not, for when it is, the print will turn yellow, or even bright orange, when the fixer is truly gone, when it goes into the toner.)