[Leica] film washing tips

[Kyle Cassidy <cassidy@netaxs.com>]

Dave Waterloo wants to know:

> This is ever-so off-topic, but I trust LUGgers a lot more than I do
> usenet trolls, so if anyone can provide me good advice I would
> appreciate it.

actually dave, the folks on rec.photo.darkroom (where this belongs) are
the most civilized of any of the usenet groups. 

[then to summarize dave's message, he washed without photo flo and got
streaks and is asking how to get rid of them now.]

i won't address how to get the streaks out now, but i'll offer a
preventative suggestion -- if you discover you're without photo flow, you
can use a couple drops of ordinary dish soap. however, if you're using
plastic reels, make sure to wash them very throughally afterwards as i've
had a problem which i belive to be caused by the dish soap adhering to the
plastic after insufficient washing and interfeering with the development
of the next roll where the film touches the reel. i've never had this
problem with metal reels (i've had entirely different problems with metal
reels :-)

anyway, to summarise: dish soap = photoflo in a pinch.

kyle "the gnarled little LUG bridge troll" cassidy

p.s. just want to point out something about off topic posts; dave
correctly identified his post as off topic. i very often see people post
things like:  "i took these negs with my leica so this post is on
topic." that doesn't make it on topic. it still makes it off topic.

i'll add a bit of ob-leica content here to steer the arguments back in the
right direction:

i got a 28mm for my leica, finally. this weekend i had it on my m3 with
the aux finder and had two unique experiences with it. i was at the car
dealership buying a car and carefully documenting the event for whatever
reason i doccument such stuff and i'm trying to take a picture of our car
salesman trying to sell some snake-oil to my wife and i'm holding the
camera to my eye, thinking "this is the tightest 28mm i've ever seen,
goddamn it, what the hell is going on here?" and i'm backing up, backing
up, trying to get everything in, it still seems oddly telephoto to me.
finally, i back into a car and i can't get any further away and i'm
thinking "damnit! this 28mm lens is _useless_ why i might as well be using
a @#$@#$ing 50mm!" so i didn't take the shot. only about 5 minutes later
did it occur to me that i needed to look through the aux finder to see the
28mm frame lines .... then, if _that's_ not bad enough, later in the day,
i'm _AM_ looking through the aux finder, and i'm trying to FOCUS thinking
"where the hell is the damn BOX? this damn camera won't focus for @#$!" i
even checked to make sure my finger wasn't over the rangefinder
window......

this m3 is not for me, my friends.

anybody want to swap for a bessa-r?

kc