Black Stained Presoak Water Normal W/ 120?

[John L]

I just developed my first two rolls of 120 B&W (Ilford HP5+). I do a water pre-soak for a minute. To my surprise, when I poured out the water, it came out stained black. I carried on with developer etc and the negatives came out fine.

Is the black stained water normal? I've never gotten it with 35mm developing.

If it matters, these rolls were old, having been exposed 4+ years ago - I found them when I pulled my MF camera bag out of the closet . . .

Incidentally, I used the full 13 minute development time recommended by Ilford and the Massive Dev Chart for D76 1:1. I've read that Ilford's recommended time is too long, but it seemed to work fine.

 

[wfwhitaker]

Perfectly normal. It's the anti-halation backing coming off.

 

[Nige]

yep, discoloured water is normal, but it can be different colours for different films. I think it's the anti-halation layer being washed away.

 

[John L]

Thanks. I was quite surprised!

 

[Joe Lipka]

The cool part is if you dump the black pre-soak water into the used developer (if you are using a one shot developer) and watch the black disappear.

 

[Black Dog]

Yes, it's fine-some are blue/green (eg Forte, Maco). Others are virtually clear (eg Delta).

 

[mark]

My Delta comes out green. Dark Green.

 

[fhovie]

What confuses me is when the sheet film dumps one color and the same emulsion in 120 dumps another color. I also noticed that the "new" TRI-X has a lot more dye that the original. It is a lot finer grain too. Almost a different film as far as that goes.

 

[Jon Shiu]

Hi, about the development times for HP5+: note that times for d76 1:1 and ID11 1:1 are not the same! On the Ilford chart (EI 400) , d76 1:1 is 11 minutes, ID11 1:1 is 13 minutes. Note that the undiluted times are both 7.5 minutes... Not sure what the difference between these developers is.

Jon

 

[Joe Lipka]

Not all emulsions are the same. Even if the name is the same. Tri-X 35 mm, Tri-X 120 and Tri-X sheet film emulsions were different. Wouldn't surprise me if other films were, too.

Oh, dear. I used Tri-X as my example. My age is showing again.