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Took the first step yesterday...


pridbor

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Have been reading these posts of yours for a while, and some on the M and R forums too, where unavoidably someone encourage folks like me to (re) enter the "Dark side" of Photography.

 

So after maybe 6+ months I ordered all the necessary accessories to develop Film :-) Not a big step you might say, but last I did such work, I was only about 15 years of age! So it's relearning from the bottom, but I look forward to it and hope that I get some acceptable results, such that the wife might even agree with me to proceed to get the real Darkroom Equipment?

 

Will most assuredly have a bunch of amplifying questions to the already good descriptions of Film Development I have seen here, so be forewarned :-)

 

I think my most important task now is to go and take some Photos

 

Preben

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So thinking about my next step, I suddenly remembered that I have a full house Water Softener System, which means that I have salt in my water; Water softened by Salt.

 

Anybody knows if I need to Buy destilled water to mix with my developer etc?

 

Preben

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Congratulations! I returned to film recently and love it, I process black and white and colour. I don't know the answer to your question about salts and I am sure google would give you multiple contradictory answers. I would suggest you shoot a test film and develop it using your water supply. If you don't see anything you don't like you are probably good to go.

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Preben, I have the same situation as you do, but we have a faucet in the kitchen that provides non-salted drinking water. I use that to distill all my water in a small home distiller, basically a boiling tank that then condenses and drip-feeds distilled water into a container. I can make about 12 litres of distilled water per day, more than enough. I mix all chemicals with it, including drying agent, and get perfectly dried, spot-free negatives at the end.

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Thanks Gents, I think that I will do as a previous member suggested, take it slowly and carefully.  This to me means that I buy distilled water this time around, cheap and easy to get anyway, and I won't have to question the outcome due to too many unknown factors i.e. just my own doings :-)

 

I'm pretty close to taking that first step, hopefully this weekend! I will let you in on my results, good or bad. I'm starting with a C41 process as I had already bought those films, and had decided to have them processed externally.

 

Later I might ask your advice on which films to use in order to not having too many different chemicals on hand.

 

Thanks

 

Preben

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With our hard well water our house has a softener, but we have a reverse osmosis filter system under the kitchen sink for drinking water that removes the salt and gives almost distilled purity. It can produce over 50 gal per day. I fill a couple of 1 gal bottles and keep them in my darkroom (guest bath), and use it for film development and washing (using the Ilford method). I use a 250 ml stainless tank, make 1-shot Rodinal dilution, 1-shot stop, and keep a qt. of EcoPro fixer to reuse. I end up using maybe a half-gallon of water per roll, including wash. I only do B&W for now. I did E6 color decades ago, but haven't restarted.

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I just started to train myself in loading the spool. I'm sure you gents have that down to an art, but I will have to go slowly, as per Michael above, and I agree.

 

So my first real trouble was to get the entire film loaded, Why you might ask, nothing to on the surface, but when you get to the end of the film it's virtually completely wound up and thus hard to load, IMHO.

 

I'm trying to hold my little finger and my thumb such as to straighten up the film right at the entry, but I'm wondering how you folks deal with this?

 

And on the removal, which I havent done wet yet, with the dry film it curls up "very neatly", I'm sure that isn't what I'm looking for. Is the film more "handleble" when wet I.e. if I attach my clip to the end of the film then it will keep it from twisting/rolling up??

 

Looking for advice before diving in for real :-)

 

Thanks again for your insight, been a long while since I last did this, and at 15 nothing stops you, even making lots of mistakes :-)

 

Preben

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Ilford loads a lot easier than Kodak, I tend to shoot more Ilford for this very reason, you can actually push the Ilford onto the spiral without ratcheting it, Kodak just takes finesse and cussing.

 

If you want some real fun try Kodak 120. :)

 

The film will hang fairly straight when it is wet, no need to worry about curling up then.

Edited by mikemgb
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I also much prefer Ilford films for processing.

I use stainless reels and tanks, where you "bow" the film on its width a bit, catch the end of the film on the reel center, and wind from the center out, instead of the plastic reels that feed the film in. Having used stainless (Nikor first, now Hewes) for 50+ years it seems so easy I could do it blindfolded. (Even in the dark!)

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I just started to train myself in loading the spool. I'm sure you gents have that down to an art, but I will have to go slowly, as per Michael above, and I agree.

 

So my first real trouble was to get the entire film loaded, Why you might ask, nothing to on the surface, but when you get to the end of the film it's virtually completely wound up and thus hard to load, IMHO.

 

I'm trying to hold my little finger and my thumb such as to straighten up the film right at the entry, but I'm wondering how you folks deal with this?

 

And on the removal, which I havent done wet yet, with the dry film it curls up "very neatly", I'm sure that isn't what I'm looking for. Is the film more "handleble" when wet I.e. if I attach my clip to the end of the film then it will keep it from twisting/rolling up??

 

Looking for advice before diving in for real :-)

 

Thanks again for your insight, been a long while since I last did this, and at 15 nothing stops you, even making lots of mistakes :-)

 

Preben

Loading will get easier with practice. Make sure that your reels are 100% dry. Thumbs placed at the 'entrance' to the reel will help guide the film, and also let you know if it has jumped the track.

 

Different films curl to a different degree. Rollei 25 uses genetic material from Shirley Temple's hair. A path used by some is to reverse load it on a developing tank reel after processing (I haven't tried this - I just put up with its manic foetal memory). For most films, hanging them to dry with a (small) weight on the bottom is sufficient to get them flat enough to handle.

 

Keep going!

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Loading will get easier with practice. Make sure that your reels are 100% dry. Thumbs placed at the 'entrance' to the reel will help guide the film, and also let you know if it has jumped the track.

 

Different films curl to a different degree. Rollei 25 uses genetic material from Shirley Temple's hair. A path used by some is to reverse load it on a developing tank reel after processing (I haven't tried this - I just put up with its manic foetal memory). For most films, hanging them to dry with a (small) weight on the bottom is sufficient to get them flat enough to handle.

 

Keep going!

 

As pointed out by EoinC, film loading depends a lot on the kind of film which is used. I am using the Paterson system to load the 35 mm film. I made very good experience to load HP5+ 400 film onto the reel because it is thinner than the Kodak films and more flexible to roll. This credit comes with the debit that it can also be bent more easily and showing bend marks in the final negative if not loaded correctly. Kodak films can be more tricky to load - worst I had was the Kodak Gold 200 film (I used an expired roll which still provided excellent image quality). It rolled severely from its landscape orientation sides, and so far it was the only film which I developed which did not straighten out by handing weights on the film end when drying. I had to cut the film and press it between a glass plate and several books on top of it to be able to finally scan it. 

 

In general the Paterson reels are easy to load the film at the beginning, but it gets harder to wind it closer to its end. Normally it always jumps out of one track, so I need to get it on the track in darkness just by feeling again which can take a couple of minutes. In the worst case, I have to open the reel and start rolling the film from beginning. Sometimes I just leave the last few negatives unrolled and carefully place the reel with center pole into the tank. 

 

I did not make good experience with the Kalt steel rolls. Thinner film was cut by the spring loader at the beginning. I also find it much harder to control if the film is winded up correctly on these sort of reels because you might easily jump over one reel winding. Tried it a few times and decided now to stick to the Paterson system. 

Edited by Martin B
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Gents first of all thanks for the encouragements and advice you all have come forth with.

 

This past weekend saw me develop my first (3) film in more years than I care think about !!! :-)

 

First a rapidly taken test B&W film, and then a B&W + a Color from this last X-Mas. 

 

I would really like for you to comment on the quality of the 2 photos of my grandkids. 

 

The reason for the last photo is that I'm looking for one of you telling me what the vertical artifact is.

 

Now I did experience a lot of the situations which you gents had warned me about, hard to enter film into the reel

knicks on the film, water drops on the film, despite me having (tried) to dry it with the rubber "thing". I managed

to "post clean" with a little distilled water on the backside of the film.  Well a confession is in place I did try to clean

on the emulsion side of the film, and had a disaster on hand for those few images Ooops.

 

Well needless to say I'm hooked, and think in secret, not letting the wife in on my thought yet, of the real Darkroom activities :-)

More questions later.

 

Thanks again all !!!

 

Preben

 

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The first couple of film I took, I had developed professionally; and the negatives came back flat!

 

I see your point about touching the glass of the scanner, and I must have been lucky with most of my scans, as only 2 had this effect.

 

So after drying the film it came out slightly curved "landscape" wise on the entire length of the film.

 

What do you gents do? Do you have flat negatives, and how do you do that?

 

And if not does the curvature alter the image quality?

 

Thanks again

 

Preben

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To avoid water residues on the film before drying and avoid dust accumulation, I recommend using two drops of LFN wetting agent in your last water wash of the film within the development tank. Rinse well with water until no foam is left, take out the film from the reel and dry afterwards (maybe carefully applying a squeegee). Alternatively you can use a few drops of Palmolive dishwasher instead of LFN wetting agent. From my experience both work well (detergent effect).

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The first couple of film I took, I had developed professionally; and the negatives came back flat!

 

I see your point about touching the glass of the scanner, and I must have been lucky with most of my scans, as only 2 had this effect.

 

So after drying the film it came out slightly curved "landscape" wise on the entire length of the film.

 

What do you gents do? Do you have flat negatives, and how do you do that?

 

And if not does the curvature alter the image quality?

 

Thanks again

 

Preben

 

This sometimes happens especially with thicker Kodak film negatives (never had this problem with thinner Ilford negative films). I use some light weights (wooden cloth clamps) at the end of the hanging film when it is drying. If this is not enough, I cut the film after drying into sections (one section has five frames since my archive foil fits this number of frames in one row). Then I put each section on a clean letter-sized glass plate and add a clean white letter sized paper on top of the film sections. On top of it I put 4-5 heavy books and let it sit there for 2-3 days. The film is fairly flat afterwards and suitable to be used for scanning/digitizing.

As pop pointed out earlier, use a film negative holder to fully flatten the negatives before digitizing.

Edited by Martin B
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I'm using the negative holder that came with the Epson V600.

 

But the slight curvature of the film isn't made straight by this device. I will try the heavy book trick.

 

I still wonder how the Photo Lab got my negatives so flat though. Could it be that they use a heat source?

 

Not too unhappy with my results though, but enjoy your experienced feedbacks.

 

Thanks again

 

Preben

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