Chemical temperatures during summer.

hammy · Jul 3, 2006

First off, I'm feeling very discouraged.
I screwed up my first roll of film, and it was very valuable to me. I was really excited about the shots. I guess this just happens sometimes, right? My roll was not ruined due to the temperature, but I noticed my chemical temperatures were pretty high. So...

I'm wondering about what to do regarding chemical temperatures during the summer. It gets pretty hot here in California.

Today I developed a roll and my chemicals sitting at room temperature were around 25C.
What does one do in these situations? Live with it and shorten developing times?
I've heard about using ice in a bucket and such, but that seems really hard to do and seems it would be very difficult to dial in the correct temperature.

Are there any tricks for doing this? Or is it as frustrating and difficult as I imagine it?

Kevin Caulfield · Jul 3, 2006

It's important to maintain an even temperature. I would think an ice/water bath would be better than straight ice. Here in Melbourne, Australia, at the peak of summer our water temperature hits about 26 or 27 C. The usual water temperature for most of the summer is about 24 C, which works fine for me. Most developers can be used at 24 C, but you should be careful about the developing time getting too short (below about 4 minutes).

david b · Jul 3, 2006

Where are you?

Hans Borjes · Jul 3, 2006

This is exactly why I consider every process useless that is designed for 20°C. Just because it is cheaper to thermostatically heat than to cool.

My recommendation would be: choose a high processing temperature, maybe 24°C, maybe higher in your case, and run that in winter time as well.

Roger Hicks · Jul 3, 2006

Dear Hammy,

First of all, commiserations on the screwed-up film. It it's any consolation, the last one I screwed up was 10 days ago, and I've been doing this 40 years. We all make mistakes, though some are better than others at admitting it.

At this time of year I have to run the water for a while to get it down to 24C, but 24C is fine and even in a hot darkroom the dev shouldn't heat up too much across the time taken to develop a film. Especially if you use a water bath with a good mass of water (a bucket is plenty) between inversions. Temper the water first (with ice if need be) but you don't want ice cubes floating in it as the temperature will then drift.

I sometimes use a 'fly by' technique, starting at (say) 23.5 if I think the dev will heat up too much, so it comes out at 24.5. For years I have checked dev temperature AFTER development as well as before; the variations can be illuminating, and I can now do a 'fly by' with more than adequate accuracy on cold days as well as warm.

Cheers,

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com -- where The Photo School is dedicated mostly to 'real' silver halide photography).

nworth · Jul 3, 2006

I am sitting here at 3:00 am with the temperature at about 82F - seasonable. I know the problem. The only really temperature critical step in black and white processing is development. Fortunately, the water is usually cooler than the air, and the basement is cooler than the living room. Most of the time you can compensate for high development temperature simply by shortening the development time. There are lots of charts available to guide you. As an approximation, you need about 30 percent less development at 75F than at 70F. If all else fails, the ice cooled water jacket described above works, but its hard to control and ice melts quickly at these temperatures.

Troy Hamon · Jul 3, 2006

And here in King Salmon, AK, I don't have these problems...68F works great for me...(but in the interests of full disclosure, I did have trouble keeping the temps down in our previous place where I was processing in a 1/2 bath in the main living area).

doughowk · Jul 3, 2006

The problem with cooling thru ice, some part of the development workflow can have inconsistent temperatures; which can make for inconsistent results. During Summer I've used Diafine film developer (avaialble at Freestyle) since it works fine (up to 85 degrees) with no adjustments in processing. Another method is using a higher dilution film developer ( eg, #H for HC-110, see HC-110 Resource for directions ) so that your development times are at least 4-5 minutes after compensating for temperatures.

DBP · Jul 3, 2006

In summer the water here is often as high as 75ºF, and my darkroom regularly gets up to 80ºF. I mostly use Diafine in the summer, and if I need to use something else I mix cool from the fridge with tap water until I get down to 68ºF, then mix Rodinal, or more often R09. Then a tap water stop, and fix at room temp. The film doesn't seem to mind the temperature changes.

Joe Lipka · Jul 3, 2006

Good advice so far. It is more important to be consistent than it is to be accurate. 20 C is recommended, not a requirement.

You are after consistent results so you can manage your negative density.

To cool developer down, I have used ice cubes in plastic sandwich bags. Low tech but effective.

Blighty · Jul 3, 2006

doughowk said:
Another method is using a higher dilution film developer .

This is the route I'd take. Using stock solution at high(er) temperatures can give you unfeasably short development times with the concomitant risk of uneven development. BTW, what actually happened to your first film?

Paul Howell · Jul 3, 2006

Here in Phoenix the summer tap temperature is about 90 F, so for me the problem is both chemistry and wash water temperature. Like others I have used Dinafine, but finding Dinafine in my market has become problematic, and with a hot wash water the emlusion becomes very soft and I have had 4X5 film peel off. I now use a very large tub with ice water at 72 degrees (I use Edwal 12 which I find to work best at 72) and I keep a few cubes of ice in a sealed plastic which I float in the bath to keep the temperature with 72 degrees give or take a degree. I use a 5 gallon bucket with a copper tube wound though it for washing film, water comes in at 90 degrees comes out at 70 degrees. I use Perma Wash and 1 8 pound bag of ice will last about 10 mint, I try and develop 5 or 6 rolls at a time. For 4X5 I float 5X7 trays in the tub, I converted a rubber 4X5 tank for washing 4X5 film.

Mackinaw · Jul 3, 2006

For years, I've been using a water bath to keep temperatures at a constant 20 C whenever I develop film. Out of curiosities sake, the past few rolls of Ekfe 25 (35mm) I've developed in Rodinal, have been at 23 and 25 C using shorter developing times suggested in the time/temp chart found on the Massive Developing Chart webpage. I've been pleasantly surprised at the results, the negs at shorter developing times, look to be about identical to the ones processed a 20 C. May be something to look into.

Jim Bielecki

Travis Nunn · Jul 3, 2006

Water out of the tap is running about 25 C and the way I cool the developer off is to stick it in the refrigerator and check the temp every few minutes (or the freezer if I'm in a hurry).

meltronic · Jul 3, 2006

I may be lambasted for this, but I just cool the developer solution by diluting it with a combination of tap water and ice cubes. I never worry about a water jacket or maintaining the temperature throughout the cycle. If it warms up a bit, no big deal. My film comes out fine.

The only time this wouldn't work is if you needed to use the pure stock solution rather than a dilution.

Ansel Adams would certainly not approve. Works for me.

Matt

Dave Wooten · Jul 3, 2006

Wayne Crider-on this forum is quite knowledgeable about this and I believe is in the cooling business...he has posted some ideas on different solutions on this and other forums,

arigram · Jul 3, 2006

Here in Crete, in the summer, the darkroom reaches temperatures of well above 30 degrees celcious, making the thought of being inside at the least suicidal. Even if chemicals could work at this kind of heat, the human operator would not. So I have to resort to air conditioning which I turn on atleast half an hour before printing and more if I am going to develop film. I also keep bottles of water in the fridge when I need to bring the temp of water bath or chemicals down.

Roger Hicks · Jul 3, 2006

meltronic said:
Works for me. [Matt

Absolutely! Some people do get a bit too precious about these things...

Cheers,

Roger

Matt5791 · Jul 3, 2006

I normally process at 20 deg.

I was processing yesterday and shifted up to 24 deg to make it easier to maintain temp.

hammy · Jul 4, 2006

Thanks for all the replies!
I have (as someone above suggested) considered an AC as well. My darkroom is a room inside my garage, so it gets really hot. I think I may have to cut my darkroom time to strictly night time or early morning during the summer if I can't get an AC. I also have a mini fridge in my darkroom, so I could probably use that to cool my chemicals down beforehand.

I live in central California where it regularly gets to and above 100 degrees F (37C) during the summer.

Blighty said:
. BTW, what actually happened to your first film?

I made a really stupid mistake with that roll. I've developed many rolls before and this never happened. I was in a hurry when i was loading the film tank (someone was knocking on my door) and the film tank I was using has two film reels in it (I was only loading one). I put the film reel on TOP. So a lot of the film only got chemicals to it during agitation.

I'm also wondering about thermometers (I'll do a search after this). The only thermo I have right now is a cheap digital cooking one, and I wonder about it's accuracy. I used to have a non digital Kodak photo thermometer, but it would take so long to register it was nearly impossible to dial in right temperatures. Anyone have any reccommendations for a fast and accurate thermometer?

fschifano · Jul 4, 2006

hammy said:
I'm also wondering about thermometers (I'll do a search after this). The only thermo I have right now is a cheap digital cooking one, and I wonder about it's accuracy. I used to have a non digital Kodak photo thermometer, but it would take so long to register it was nearly impossible to dial in right temperatures. Anyone have any reccommendations for a fast and accurate thermometer?

Actually, I'm using a cheap digital kitchen thermometer myself. I think I paid about $12 for it. It closely matches the Paterson Color Thermometer that I've set as my "standard." It is consistent and reads quickly out to 1/10 degree. When it fails, and it will fail, I'll get another and calibrate it to the Paterson thermometer. Works plenty good enough for B&W work and even well enough for E6.

rmolson · Jul 6, 2006

20°c was chosen by H & D as it was the prevailing temperature of their lab, which was mostly unheated. For many developers containing Metol a slight drop below 20°c can cause large problems.And most photographers thermometers are not laboratory calibrated. DuPont for years recommended 21° as a safer temperature to use.But they said every time one of their instructions sheets using 21° went to a printer, the printer would change it back to 20°!

Tom Hoskinson · Jul 6, 2006

APUG Sponsor RH Designs sell a wonderful thermometer.

http://www.rhdesigns.co.uk/darkroom/html/thermometer.html

I use one and I recommend them highly!

BTW, my darkroom temperature hovers around 21°C

noseoil · Jul 7, 2006

Temperature compensation

I use a small floating thermometer (the $5 variety). It isn't as important to be accurate with respect to an absolutely correct temperature, as it is to do things the same each time. If your system is tailored to an old aquarium thermometer, just be sure not to break it.

After posting a similar thread recently, the best consensus was that 4% per f degree is about right. I use this number here in Tucson and it seems to work well enough for my needs. Agitation is also a part of the mix, so don't get too carried away with this step. Try to do things the same each time, but use a reduction in time. For example, if 20 minutes at 70f is the normal time, at 80 degrees you will need to reduce the time. 10 degrees times 4% is 40%. So reduce time by 8 minutes and you have 12 minutes as the time and all will be well. tim

unregistered · Jul 7, 2006

Ice and hot water.When I had my lab in San Francisco, the water in the summer came out at 75 degrees. We'd use ice to bring down the temp to 68, doing it about 5 gallons at a time. If we missed and went too far, we'd use the hot water on the SS cans just a bit to bring it back to 68.

Chemical temperatures during summer.

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