Gear, Eco-Friendly Chemicals, and Common Beginner Mistakes?

[250swb]

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One thing I would really like to know, though, is-- what are the common beginner mistakes? And how are they to be avoided?

 

Stick with ONE good beginners guide and work through it. Its all about being familiar with datum points, so do not allow yourself to become distracted by variations or adjustments to your processing until you are getting consistent and repeatable results. If you strictly use those datum points (like chemicals, temperature, time etc) any other faults, like negatives being thin or too dark, can then be traced back to the initial exposure.

 

Steve

[cbretteville]

If you haven't already bought a changing bag, I strongly recommend one of Roger Luo's cotton bags:

Anti-static Heavy Duty Darkroom XL changing bag LF 10x8 | eBay UK

 

I swapped my Paterson for one of these in December last year. I'm really satisfied with it. My hands don't get as clammy as in the Paterson polyester bag. The cotton bag is also less likely to draw in dust as it is cotton.

 

No affiliation with Mr Luo other than being a happy customer.

 

Carl

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[pico]

I've never read so much bull in my life.

 

If you are sensitive to D76, then you have far more problems than the rest of us. Cats and Rodinal? How the hell do they ever get together. Cats I have no use for.

 

Plastic reels are for the uninformed. Stainless steel reels are a requisite

 

Hanging film? How about two or three clothes pins? Too unsophisticated?

 

Staying away from T-Grain films is a very good idea. They suck.

 

Graduates (and opaque bottles) 1 liter (or a bit larger) bottles will serve you well.

Graduates of one liter down to syringe size (for great dilutions of Rodinal) are good.

 

Other than some exotic toners and bleaches, nothing in the B&W process is going to kill your neighbors.

[Xmas]

I've never read so much bull in my life.

 

If you are sensitive to D76, then you have far more problems than the rest of us. Cats and Rodinal? How the hell do they ever get together. Cats I have no use for.

 

Plastic reels are for the uninformed. Stainless steel reels are a requisite

 

Hanging film? How about two or three clothes pins? Too unsophisticated?

 

Staying away from T-Grain films is a very good idea. They suck.

 

Graduates (and opaque bottles) 1 liter (or a bit larger) bottles will serve you well.

Graduates of one liter down to syringe size (for great dilutions of Rodinal) are good.

 

Other than some exotic toners and bleaches, nothing in the B&W process is going to kill your neighbors.

Hi

 

Your broken rib must be giving you real jyp.

 

Metol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

dermatitisis is equally annoying & note the rest of your post is similarly fictive.

 

Noel

[earleygallery]

All you need is here ILFORD PHOTO - Processing a Black & White film

 

and here The Massive Dev Chart: B&W film development database

[StS]

Another one on graduates - three (ideally all different looking;)) having more capacity than your film tank and small ones with fine grading for mixing.

Kitchen graduates do the job, in my experience.

 

Another vote for dedicated film clips with safe grip - using heavier weights gives flatter negatives, in my experiences.

 

Stefan

[dwrz]

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Well, I developed my first roll today. Conditions were really not optimal since I was in between appointments. I probably should have held off but I just wanted to get my feet wet-- the roll was shot today also, not very seriously.

 

They didn't have a changing bag in stock and first lesson learned is that this is an absolute must. First of all very time consuming to tape up the door, second I realized that there were some little phosphorescent stars left over from many, many years ago. Had to tape those also.

 

I had to mix the Xtol in a mop bucket. I had a few crystals at the bottom (maybe about the size of a penny in total). I only had 3x1L beakers with 10ml marks, so I've finally figured out what the graduates are for (plus the size I need).

 

It took me a good number of minutes to place the roll in the reel. Not fun.

 

Water was warm (very hot here today), so 4:30 dev time. But I'd forgotten the agitation/inversion times. So I inverted 4 times, then agitated every 30 seconds.

 

I remembered the stop-bath was at least 10s, so I left it there for 30. But, in my rush, I'd forgotten how long the fixer was supposed to be in. I left in in for 30 seconds. Not good, not sure what effects there might be in the long term. Then a few minutes in water+photoflo.

 

The roll looks ok, but I really can't tell how well it's come out more than saying that it looks normal to me. Maybe a little brighter than a roll of Delta 100 that I had done for me.

 

Definitely a lot of lessons learned, and hopefully next time I will be able to have a bit more rigor. I'm hoping to have the roll scanned tomorrow.

Edited June 9, 2011 by dwrz

[cbretteville]

Congratulations on souping your first roll!

 

You can re-fix and re-wash the roll. That should help some. I try to avoid dev times shorter than 5-6 minutes for fear of uneven development. Diluting the xtol to 1:2 or 1:3 increases time. Another thing I do is to cool the developer down a degree or two. I use a steel bole or a steel measuring cup and place it in cold water, stirring the developer slowly while keeping an eye on the temperature. I take it out when it gets to about .5 degrees of where I want it.

 

BTW, a good cotton changing bag is well worth it.

 

Carl

[StS]

Congratulations to your first roll . The nice thing about black and white technology is, that it produces useable to good results, even if processing is not completely accurate. This reminds me very much of my starting.

 

I guess, lots of people leave it there, which is fine, however, doing it accurately, one might discover that there is a little bit more to be found in one's negatives.

 

Cheers

 

Stefan

[StS]

...and yes, Carl is right, 30 seconds of fixing is definitely too short. The negatives should probably look still "milky". With fixing, it is better to err on the long side, which only increases the rinsing time, lest remaining fixer salt crystals could destroy the film layer. It is best to check in the data sheet, if you don't have it, try 5 mins, which should do the job.

 

Stefan

[stunsworth]

Well, I developed my first roll today.

 

I had to mix the Xtol in a mop bucket,,,

 

Congratulations, you've discovered how resilient film development can be.

 

A tip on the mixing of the Xtol. I used to buy a 5 litre bottle of deionised water. I'd mark the level of the water on the bottle, pour the 2 litres or so (can't remember exact amount) into a pan, mix the powder, then top back up to 5 litres - there was always a bit of water left over. That avoids having to use a bucket.

 

Then I'd decant the developer into 1 litre bottles filled right up to the top - if you use plastic bottles you can squeeze them a little before putting the top back on to ensure there's no air trapped at the top. I never had any problems with bad developer over several years, and maybe a couple of thousand rolls of film.

[dwrz]

Thank you for all the advice-- definitely helps.

 

One other thing I noticed-- fully admitting that I did handle the roll kind of carelessly-- lots of dust, scratches, and water smears. Anything I can do to avoid these in the future? I thought the Photoflo was supposed to help with these, but it didn't really seem to do much.

[stunsworth]

Dust is frequently due to the conditions in which the film was dried. The more dust free the better. One tip is to dry the film in the bathroom after running a shower for a few minutes. The steam will dampen down a lot of the dust - though the film will take longer to dry due to the extra humidity.

 

Scratches can be introduced in several places. The first is when you remove the film from the canister. If you pull the film out of the cartridge, and dust in the felt lips of the cartridge can scratch the film. Also when loading the film, if you struggle to get the film onto the reels that can introduce scratches. Finally if you use a squeegee, that can introduce scratches.

 

Drying marks on the film can be prevented by using deionised / distilled water in the final wetting agent rinse. I live in a soft water area, but was plagued with drying marks until I stopped using tap water for the final rinse.

[cbretteville]

I use battery water (it is deionized) with a couple of drops of Tetenal Mirasol (basically Photoflo) as the final rins. (It is important to not use too much whetting agent.) I leave the film in for about a minute. Then take it off to dry. I never use a squeegie.

 

If you use a plastic tank/ reels I recommend you rins the tank and reels in hot water thourughly after emptying out the final risns water. This will delay the reels getting sticky from the whetting agent as long as possible.

 

Carl

[dwrz]

I processed two rolls yesterday-- Tri-X 400, and Tri-X 400 pushed to 1600. I then had this and the roll I shot last week scanned.

 

The first roll came out with-- I forget the actual term-- sprocket marks. Parts of the negatives were brighter or darker depending on whether they were in front of a sprocket hole or not. A quick search on Google gave the solution to leave the film longer in fixer. A couple of minutes more (total of five) eliminated the problem.

 

Second roll was less problematic. I left it in the fixer for 5 minutes just to be sure.

 

Here are the problems I've encountered:

1. I have not been able to get film smoothly into the reel once. Besides struggling to get it in, at some point it always jams and so I have to roll it out and start over. This is incredibly frustrating and the worst part about development.

2. The first roll I developed last week came out fine. I was more rigorous this time around following the instructions, but I am not happy with the results. The negatives came out rather dark and very, very contrasty.

3. Dust and scratches are a _huge_ problem. I wore cotton gloves, and yet I would say a third of shots are unusable due to this problem. Is this common? This is such a serious problem it would be a real obstacle in terms of developing my own film in the future.

 

Questions:

1. Water is very hot here. Despite my efforts, it is very hard to get it (and keep it) below 75F at the moment. How should I adjust development? For Tri-X at 400, 75F means less than 5min of development.

2. Agitation. How much? I was doing three inversions every minute. How fast are the inversions? It took me about 10 seconds to do those three inversions.

3. How can I lower contrast?

4. What can I do to eliminate dust and scratch problems?

 

From the first roll:

 

1600:

 

 

400:

 

I didn't really do my part, the photographs themselves are no good. But I would like to smooth out the development problems.

Edited June 15, 2011 by dwrz

[Xmas]

A couple of minutes more (total of five) eliminated the problem.

after 1 min in fixer it is safe to open tank and inspect the reel for milky appearance, drop it back, fix for twice the time it takes to clear the milk

1. I have not been able to get film smoothly into the reel once. Besides struggling to get it in, at some point it always jams and so I have to roll it out and start over. This is incredibly frustrating and the worst part about development.

the reel needs to be bone dry 24 hour in airing cupboard.

the film needs to be relaxed the lecia curls the film in reverse direction and some films will remember this for 24 hours or more...

2. The first roll I developed last week came out fine. I was more rigorous this time around following the instructions, but I am not happy with the results. The negatives came out rather dark and very, very contrasty.

reduce dev time by 20% from time and temp recommendation to allow you to scan

do not try to uprate that makes the contrast higher

3. Dust and scratches are a _huge_ problem. I wore cotton gloves, and yet I would say a third of shots are unusable due to this problem. Is this common? This is such a serious problem it would be a real obstacle in terms of developing my own film in the future

Dust is a problem worse of you wet print, I run hot shower for 5 mins, before hanging and use squeegee, if that is not enough you will need to make up a drying box

Questions:

1. Water is very hot here. Despite my efforts, it is very hard to get it (and keep it) below 75F at the moment. How should I adjust development? For Tri-X at 400, 75F means less than 5min of development.

you may need to use a high temp dev and harden the emulsion...

2. Agitation. How much? I was doing three inversions every minute. How fast are the inversions? It took me about 10 seconds to do those three inversions.

I never ahitate

3. How can I lower contrast?

Use single coated lens if -20% Dev time is not enough

4. What can I do to eliminate dust and scratch problems?

Did you crack open the cassette with swiss army knofe, or use a film extractor

 

Noel

[stunsworth]

I used 4 agitations in 10 seconds. Steady inversions.

 

Could lint from the cotton gloves be causing the dust problem? If not try the shower trick that Noel mentions.

 

Practice loading film in daylight with a discarded roll of film.

[dwrz]

How do I relax the film? Do I need to just let it sit in the casing or do I need to open it? If so, how do I leave it open without exposing it to light?

 

I ran the shower, then placed a heater in the room to speed drying. :\

 

Thanks for the advice! I will keep it in mind and make the proper adjustments for the next roll.

[stunsworth]

How do I relax the film?

 

I never bothered, but I think what Noel meant was to leave the rewound film in the canister overnight

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Xmas]

Hi

 

Apologies not clear.

 

If you rewind a film that has been in a Leica and try and load it in a reel then you may need to load it with the emulsion outside rather than inside. the start will have the most curl, as it will have been at the inside end.

 

Alternatively leave it in the cassette for 24 hours.

 

Some films have no memory some others are stiff and can remember the curl for a long time. I think HP5+ and Tri-x have both long memories and Forma zero memory.

 

Noel