Developing film myself for the first time

LAG said:

Unless you're talking to everyone but me, I should say that IMHO you are again wrong. It's not your lack of memory (nor being sarcastic with her) what will give you the reason with the opposite Water-argument, not everything it's black or white.

Best

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Perhaps you would argue that Ansel Adams was wrong in his book The Negative, about the contrast reduction of Water Bath?!

keenmaster486 said:

I do want to hear it! I've never done this before and I want to refine my process.

But keep in mind that I can't go much more complicated than this... and as much as I wish I could have a real stop bath it's just not happening

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Commander Keen,

Stop bath can be prepared using common vinegar and it wil work just fine.

Do not complicate so much with the process, just choose your agitation speed and strategy and stick with it until you get the results you want. Stop bath is what most of the manufacturers recommend today; that doesn't mean you MUST use it but i suggest you to first make sure you get great negatives the "orthodox" way, then later you can experiment with different ways to process.

The most crítical factors are always going to be development time, temperature and developer dilution. And slightly behind them, agitation rate.

ILFORD has a great PDF on their website that show you how to process your first B/W film. It is very detailed.

Dear wiltw

When I asked you about the source of your posted information (there was a url link here which no longer exists) , not only you didn't provide it but filled yourself with ideas in your arrogant answer (see (there was a url link here which no longer exists)). After that, your sarcarsm came into play (there was a url link here which no longer exists) maybe to use the water to wash your hands. Do me a favour I do not like to be taken for a fool.

wiltw said:

Perhaps you would argue that Ansel Adams was wrong in his book The Negative, about the contrast reduction of Water Bath?!

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Now, it seems that you want to hide again your reasons in that book (Do you really need a safety shield?), perhaps taking for granted that I have not read it.

Excuse me wiltw, I have no special interest in overriding your arguments, nor your dreams. However if you want to keep on playing with your performance:


Page?

LAG said:

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• Page?

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• I said that attribution of contrast change was mistakenly made by me, and the contrast change effect was NOT due to stopbath vs. water, rather that contrast change was due to use of the Water Bath method of development. My memory was flawed by several decades of lack of use of the technique, but the technique is indeed written up by Ansel Adams, in The Negative, page 229.

You persist at pressing this in the discussion in spite of the fact that it serves zero useful purpose for the OP.

LAG said:

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A great electric guitar player.

Seriously, the arcane discussion of stop bath is going to confuse more the OP. He just needs to have fine results, not experimenting with alternate ways of processing B/W.

I feel that being made aware of alternatives and the ways in which changes to different parts of the process can yield different results is a rather important part to the overall academic side of learning within photography, and is helpful in forming a mental roadmap of where to go on the technical side of things.

However, I personally would strongly encourage starting with a strong, consistent, and proven base line of a traditional "Manufacturer's suggested" workflow, and then sticking with that for a period of time.

If you aren't aware of the factors involved all along the way toward producing a final image, then it becomes far harder to make educated guesses about things when "something doesn't work", or if something seems a bit off from what you were expecting. Sticking firmly to a single start-to-end process with minimal variables allows you to build up to a set baseline to better judge things off of. After you can reliably bring finished photos to this set baseline of 'the standard', then you can start stretching your wings and poking at things to 'experiment' and fine-tune your work.


On the other hand you could always just throw the entire "care and precision" mindset to the wind, and keep throwing the dice to see what comes up. Jump every which way you can and see what happens. Could be trash, could be epic, could be something you never manage to do again in your lifetime. There will be plenty who look down their nose at you for doing it, but in the grand scheme of things there isn't much reason for you to care about other's opinion of how you choose to work. It is art, not a life or death surgery. (Assuming you're playing nice with health and safety and environmental regs. Please don't grab random chemistry and throw it together willynilly to 'see what happens'... That road leads to danger, lost eyebrows, or worse.)

flavio81 said:

Seriously, the arcane discussion of stop bath is going to confuse more the OP. He just needs to have fine results, not experimenting with alternate ways of processing B/W.

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I apologise

Alright, to bring things back on topic...

I gave it another go today. This time I used a much better camera (Voigtlander Bessa I) and Arista.EDU 100 film.

My process this time:

1. Develop 9 minutes
2. Place the tank under flowing water and let it flow for a few minutes, agitating by rotation continuously... the lamest stop bath ever conceived by man
3. Fix for 9 minutes
4. Wash by placing under flowing water, agitating by rotation periodically, and inverting it a lot, for about 5-10 minutes
5. Hang to dry.

Agitation for developer and fixer was: continuous by rotation for first 30 seconds, then by inversion thrice every 30 seconds afterwards.

Also, I took precautions and it was pitch black when I loaded the film, no roommate turning on the light

So this time the negatives look much better. In between frames is crystal clear. Here's a picture, just what I could get before hanging them up to dry:

Dead Link Removed

I'll post scans later

What do y'all think?

Good Afternoon, Keenmaster486,

I don't see anything wrong.

The wash time seems slightly short. A couple of minutes in a washing aid (Orbit, Permawash, etc.) following a quick rinse at the end of the fixing step is worth considering.

Konical

Oh, I almost forgot! The developer had turned green when I dumped it out - is this normal for Arista film? It didn't happen with the T-Max...

Here's one shot.

This was not the effect I was going for (underexposed it a little), but it turned out nicely anyway.

EDIT: This is the sculpture of Robert Frost outside the Old Main building on the University of Colorado campus.

Dead Link Removed

keenmaster486 said:

Oh, I almost forgot! The developer had turned green when I dumped it out - is this normal for Arista film? It didn't happen with the T-Max...

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Some films do this I am used to purple from Tr-X never caused a problem I just give it two quick washes with water instead of the usual one before the fixer goes in.
I like your picture of the Robert Frost statue........... (who was he?).

Much nicer max density and contrast on that latest shot! Yes, exposure should be brighter, but one 'problem' at a time.

Keep the processing consistent, and fix the film exposure; and address the print exposure and print contrast separate from the film exposure and processing until you have mastered both...the basics.

Later (and *if* you want) you can interrelate film vs. print more closely.

keenmaster486 said:

What do y'all think?

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Fixer: (LegacyPro I guess) Dilution? Why 9 minutes?

Congrats! (Let the magic go its way with printing!)

keenmaster486 said:

The developer had turned green when I dumped it out - is this normal for Arista film? It didn't happen with the T-Max...

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Here we enter in another debate (wait and see), but you could avoid that water-tinting if you prewash the film until the colour is gone (with T-max is not so exaggerated)

Tada!

Harry Stevens said:

Some films do this I am used to purple from Tr-X never caused a problem I just give it two quick washes with water instead of the usual one before the fixer goes in.
I like your picture of the Robert Frost statue........... (who was he?).

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+1

--
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet.
https://www.poemhunter.com/robert-frost/

Harry Stevens said:

With color film I care deeply about the image/color quality, but with B&W I care much less and mostly want the composition/subject matter.

obviously not the best quality method but it just has to be good enough for 4x6 prints and digital sharing. Any thoughts on this?

Yes. My thoughts are why are you bothering with film in the first place?

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Years ago a columnist in either Popular or Modern Photography made the point that the subject of a color photograph is THE COLOR whereas with B&W the subject is well the subject. Anyone who thinks differently try mentally removing the color from a favorite photograph and see what is left.

Gerald C Koch said:

Years ago a columnist in either Popular or Modern Photography made the point that the subject of a color photograph is THE COLOR whereas with B&W the subject is well the subject.

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That sounds like a relatively famous article by Walker Evans.

Of course, Walker Evans subsequently went on to shoot a fair bit of colour - particularly colour Polaroids.

Gerald C Koch said:

Years ago a columnist in either Popular or Modern Photography made the point that the subject of a color photograph is THE COLOR whereas with B&W the subject is well the subject. Anyone who thinks differently try mentally removing the color from a favorite photograph and see what is left.

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I have a different philosophy.

Since the subject has color, if you take the color away, then you don't have the subject anymore. You have something less than the subject. Give it its color back, now you have the whole subject.

I do some b&w work occasionally and enjoy it, as some subjects can have an appeal in b&w, but color work is what I love most.

Trouble with colour is that one small bright coloured object can drag your eyes away from what you wanted to capture on film, I took a Autumn shot and in the far background was a blue plastic bag amongst the golden leaves so I moved it......Can't be done with a bright red traffic light unless you use D.

Developing your first roll is magical. Congrats

About using food containers. Do not use ones that have contained oil as it is almost impossible to get the last trace of it out. In general do not use food containers unless you can remove the labels to avoid accidental ingestion. This is particularly true if there are small children in the home. Bottles for developer should be either glass or PET plastics. Other plastics are permeable to oxygen and carbon dioxide. PET bottles have an SPI number of 1. That's the number in the triangle on the bottom. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) bottles are also good. They have an SPI of 3.

Harry Stevens said:

Trouble with colour is that one small bright coloured object can drag your eyes away from what you wanted to capture on film, I took a Autumn shot and in the far background was a blue plastic bag amongst the golden leaves so I moved it......Can't be done with a bright red traffic light unless you use D.

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I have been looking for years for a "wire filter." Many years ago I was trying to take a picture of a historic church in Quebec City. Unfortunately the church was surrounded by very prominent telephone and power lines that spoiled the image The 20th century had certainly intruded here.

Gerald C Koch said:

Developing your first roll is magical. Congrats

About using food containers. Do not use ones that have contained oil as it is almost impossible to get the last trace of it out. In general do not use food containers unless you can remove the labels to avoid accidental ingestion. This is particularly true if there are small children in the home. Bottles for developer should be either glass or PET plastics. Other plastics are permeable to oxygen and carbon dioxide. PET bottles have an SPI number of 1. That's the number in the triangle on the bottom. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) bottles are also good. They have an SPI of 3.

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Hmm, well these bottles have a 2 in the triangle, and they say "HDPE" on them.