Amaloco H10

Anyone experienced with this wetting agent?

In the suggested diluition (2 -5 ml / l) I cannot get a good result... and I see many stains on my film.
I use common water, non distilled.

Thanks a lot

Excuse me

In my opinion, there's some information missing in this equation

My washing method?

Ilford 5 + 10 + 20 with normal water
and then 3 minutes with amaloco H10 just rotating spirals...

It depends on what kind of stains you have...

Is your water extremely hard? If so, no amount of wetting agent is going to stop you from getting deposits on your negatives. I always used distilled water plus wetting agent for the final rinse. This allows the dissolved minerals from your wash water (tap water) to leach out of the emulsion. Distilled is cheap; give it a try for the final rinse.

Doremus

"rotating spirals" : you should do this once and very gently. Your solution of water and wetting agent should not foam (or just a bit). Be slow and careful when you remove a spool from the tank to hang the film : again you want to avoid any foam in the tank.

It seems to me that there is very little in a wetting agent that can cause problems by itself. The only other ingredient is the water so try mixing the wetting agent with distilled water. A minute's immersion of the film should be enough. Shake as much wetting agent off as possible and then draw the film between your middle fingers to push the remaining agent to the bottom of the film. Hang up to dry and seen if this makes a difference.

pentaxuser

A film need be dunked only briefly (a few seconds) in any diluted wetting agent. Letting it soak for several minutes is unnecessary. You also have to be careful not to use too much of the wetting agent. I know that this can cause problems with Photo-Flo like greasy spots. I would assume that other wetting agents would behave the same.

Gerald C Koch said:

A film need be dunked only briefly (a few seconds) in any diluted wetting agent. Letting it soak for several minutes is unnecessary. You also have to be careful not to use too much of the wetting agent. I know that this can cause problems with Photo-Flo like greasy spots. I would assume that other wetting agents would behave the same.

Click to expand...

Gerald,

Of course, you are correct if all that is needed is to break the surface tension of the water. If, however, your negative contains a significant amount of dissolved minerals from hard water or a water softener, then a longer soak is needed to get these down to a level where they won't form crusty deposits on the negative when it dries. Hence my advice for a longer soak in distilled water plus wetting agent after the wash. Killing two birds with one stone as it were. I used to process in an area with lots of calcium carbonate in the water. Without 2-3 minutes in a distilled-water bath, I'd get deposits.

Best,

Doremus

Doremus Scudder said:

Gerald,

Of course, you are correct if all that is needed is to break the surface tension of the water. If, however, your negative contains a significant amount of dissolved minerals from hard water or a water softener, then a longer soak is needed to get these down to a level where they won't form crusty deposits on the negative when it dries. Hence my advice for a longer soak in distilled water plus wetting agent after the wash. Killing two birds with one stone as it were. I used to process in an area with lots of calcium carbonate in the water. Without 2-3 minutes in a distilled-water bath, I'd get deposits.

Best,

Doremus

Click to expand...

I have never experienced hardness spotting on the emulsion side of film. I believe that any ions such as calcium are trapped by electrostatic forces in the emulsion and never make it to the surface. However I have experienced spotting on the base side from using too much surfactant like Photo-Flo. For most of my life I have lived in areas with very hard water. Roughly half the water processing stations in the US are in areas with hard to very hard water (values greater than 120 mg/l).

The hardness of water is easily measured using a standard soap solution. Small amounts of the soap solution are added to a sample until there is some foaming upon shaking. The hardness is easily calculated from the amount of standard soap solution added.

Hard water appears to have a protective action on the heart. However it is a problem in photography and bad for making whisky.