Bad photo chemicals?

[Volvospeed]

Just mixed some P30 up and had trouble right out of the gate. Ran my color card slide through and it came out dark at 10,15,20,30 seconds. Ran another one through and 45 and 60 and still so dark you could barely see the image. Both were run from a 6x7 slide to make a 4x4" print at F5.6. So obviously something is wrong. Paper and chems are both suspect so I took a slice off the cutting room floor which has obviously been exposed to light and ran it through the process. I did not temper anything but the exposed crap came out dark blue. So I figure bad chems. But based on that does anyone have idea if its the bleach or the developer? Both smell normal, well as normal as ciba chems can smell. I buy chems loose so I would rather only mix up a batch of whatever is bad is possible. Obviously I Can figure out which it is with trial and error but was wondering if anyone had any insight. Thanks for any help

 

[Photo Engineer]

If you run a strip through Dektol 1:2 for the normal development time in the light, and then finish the process normally, the strip should be white or nearly white. If it is, then it is probably the developer. If not, it is probably the paper or the bleach, hard to tell. My guess in the latter case, the bleach as paper tends to fog with keeping.

That would be my best guess.

PE

 

[Volvospeed]

Had a chance to play with it a little more today and something is screwy. I do not have any B&W chems here so I batched another set of P30. Checked my notes and everything was mixed correctly on the first batch but whatever. Second batch was out of a different box. Anyways same thing. Way underexposed. So I did a 10 minutes exposure at F5.6 and it was still under exposed. I sliced of a piece of paper and then did the same exposure at 10 seconds, 10 minutes and 5 minutes. These are on a 6x7 slide on an Omega D5 with dichroic II color head. Paper is dated Jan/09.
Here is what I got

At ten seconds it was about 4 stops under meaning at 10 minutes it should have been way over exposed. I assume I have a bad batch of paper and will test with a new batch tonight but what could me a box of paper go uniformly bad like that? If not the paper any other thoughts?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Did you look at the other thread by Dave Travis concerning problems with processing? These look grossly overdeveloped or flashed to white light.

PE

 

[Volvospeed]

I pressed them with glass and hit them with a flash for the picture. Under natural light they are about as dark/light as a negative. IE you cannot make out any image unless you are in very bright light. Basically they look black.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Or dark blue? If as described, they are underdeveloped and we will find nothing out unless you flash and develop with a good black and white developer, or you could try exposing and developing a sheet of normal B&W paper in your Ilfochrome developer.

It cannot be diagnosed with the tests you are doing IMHO.

PE

 

[Volvospeed]

They were probably under developed <durrrr me>

I pre-wet the paper and everything was right again in the world. Out side of Plat/pal prints I have never seen a need for prewet. With the 3 degree latitude of P30 the thought never even crossed my mind. Ran another batch same chems, same paper, and back to my standard 90sec exposure but pre wet this time and everything came out fine. Well a slight magenta cast but I know how to fix that. Thanks for the help and listening to me bang my head against the wall.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I'm surprised that the prewet was the problem.

PE

 

[Volvospeed]

I dunno. I 100 agree but process is controlled and strip and test print came out fine. I did not have high hopes so its a piece of scrap.... poorly focused scrap

Either way I will get out colorstar and resume what I should have been doing all weekend tomorrow. Film........ some times I appreciate the DSRL