Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/01/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]That was an amazing amount of information on spots on negs! I rarely use distilled or de-ionized water for washing, occasionally for mixing up developers, that's all. I do use Photo-Flo, a squirt in a 2.5 liter jug and the film on the reels gets dunked in there for 30-60 seconds. I then unroll the films and hang them up to dry. I do wipe the film from top to bottom with my finders, one quick run down, barely touching the surface. Rarely any problem with scratches (once I had a sliver of stainless steel stuck in a finger and did not realise it and, yes it did scratch the film) and almost never any watermarks. Certain films are more prone to it too, Delta 100 is one and T-Max 100 also. I suspect that the newer, thin-emulsion films have more of a propensity for picking up these spots, could be a different surface tension or the gelatine in the film is more sensitive to drying marks. Using alcohol as a last wash was fairly common at newsrooms in the 'early" days. You throw the film in a quick wash with water (5-10 sec) and then into a "booze-bath" for 15-30 seconds and pulled it out and waved it around to evaporate the alcohol. Film dried quickly and there was less chance of having to peel the emulsion from the glass in the neg-carrier. No smoking in the film room was strongly recommended and after 10 or 15 rolls, the fumes got to you and even the night editors ravings started to make sense! The alcohol gets quickly diluted by the water and needs to be changed frequently. Tom A