Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/01/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Once this happened to me: I had a very "important" film, so I decided to wash it in hotter water: washed the emulsion clean away: as a 13 year old, I will never forget the way the emulsion stayed in the tub as I pulled the clear film out :-( On 09/01/2005, at 4:51 PM, Marc Osborne wrote: > Hello everyone, > > After a 10 year hiatus I decided to dust off the darkroom equipment > and start doing some B&W shooting, developing, and printing again. I > went to the local camera store and bought Sprint developer, stop bath, > and fixer. This is a local company, based in Rhode Island, that I > remember as making fairly good products, already in liquid form, so > the final mix was alway easy to do. > > I never had a problem through the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. I used my > father's (now mine) IIIf and generally Kodak film and chemicals so > ending up with a completely transparent roll of film was very > disappointing. Here was my process: > Loading the film onto the Patterson tank was no problem. I had > complete darkness. > Chemicals all at 68 degrees fahrenheit. > Sprint recommended time for Tri-X 400 was 10 minutes. Poured in the > diluted 1:9 developer and agitated and knocked off bubbles as per > standard photography book and patterson tank sheet recommendation. > Poured out developer back into what I thought was empty developer > bottle. > Poured in properly diluted stop bath > REALIZED I might have poured developer into fixer bottle:( > Poured out stop bath and ran downstairs to remix fixer...lost maybe 2 > to 3 minutes in doing so. At that time the stop bath had been poured > back into it's proper container but the roll of film was undoubtedly > still dripping with it. > Poured in fixer and agitated for three minutes. > Poured out fixer and washed for 30 minutes. > Mixed bottle cap of photo-flo with 1 quart of water. > After 30 minutes of washing and occasional agitation poured out water, > poured in photo-flo and thought it was pretty darn bubbly. Agitated > for a minute, made it more bubbly, poured it ouf, poured in more water > to get rid of bubbles. > Pulled film off the reel and looked right through it. Completely > transparent end to end. > > This was not the return to my glory years of B&W that I had foreseen. > I just bought an M2 to I could gradually retire the IIIf and make use > of all the advances of the M series. But this was a rude shock. Please > help. Where did I go wrong? Was it the interval between the stop bath > and the fixer? Could the Sprint chemicals have been on the shelf too > long? I don't know where to start again. > > Thanks, > > Marc > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > Alastair