DISASTER + why im the biggest idiot here

ricksplace · May 18, 2009

Nice pics. I guess I have to chime in here since there is one mistake I make more often than I care to admit.

In the darkroom: Disengage the dichro filters and open up the lens to compose on the easel. Then forget to stop the lens down, or re-engage the dichro filters when printing. Dark red mud is what the print looks like.

sly · May 18, 2009

I discovered last week that if you try to split grade print with the 00 and 5 filter both in the enlarger at once - you get NOTHING!! That's just my most recent darkroom goof. I won't even tell you how I wasted 2 rolls of 120 yesterday. It's too embarrassing.

sly · May 18, 2009

Pete H said:
I once loaded the backing paper onto the developing reel (it was quite difficult!), put the reel into the tank, then opened the changing bag - thus ruining the exposed film which was loose in the bag. At least I didn't develop the backing paper though.

GASP!! I thought I was the only one to have managed that goof.

jgcull · May 22, 2009

Sperera, the one of the woman in black is gorgeous!

Sirius Glass · May 22, 2009

We need more eye candy at this site!

Steve

lukastrika · May 24, 2009

hi, i used invisible film some time back, but managed to get one clear film like yours and also 2 35 simultaneously lit up by my mom turning the light on in the bathroom while i was putting the second on the reel - all within a week.

tim_walls · May 24, 2009

ricksplace said:
In the darkroom: Disengage the dichro filters and open up the lens to compose on the easel. Then forget to stop the lens down, or re-engage the dichro filters when printing. Dark red mud is what the print looks like.

So far, most of my cockups have been with printing more than developing. I think the worst I've done with development is to blithely presume that the solution keeping times for E6 chemistry are 'probably only advisory' and proceeded to completely ruin a roll of film using past-it chemistry. I could be blocking some particularly egregious abuses from my memory though...

With the enlarger though the mistakes keep coming thick and fast... I've lost count of the number of times I've forgotten to stop down the lens after focussing. I've even realised after I've made a sheet of black test strips, thought 'bloody idiot', and then and gone and made another sheet exactly the same because even though I'm thinking 'you fool' to myself I still forget to stop the thing down a second time... I seem to have some massive blind spot here.

I can also confirm that Ilfochrome doesn't look so great exposed through the back of the paper.

Oh, and on large format - forgetting to close the shutter before taking the photo. That's a particular speciality of mine. Sadly, I haven't yet forgotten to take the darkslide out, otherwise a few more sheets of film might have been saved .

Pete H · May 24, 2009

No one has mentioned pulling the rear darkslide out of the film holder. It's the official way to test the transparency of your ground glass. Honest, that's what I was doing ... Ahem!

Also, fixer without fixer does not fix. I wondered why my film came out of the final wash all milky, then realised that I had measured out the correct volume of water at the correct temperature, but not actually added the fixer. Conclusion: plain water does not fix - another of those controlled experiments ... Ahem! Actually it cleared reasonably well when I did fix it afterwards, and the negatives were printable.

On the other hand, unlike Tim Walls I would never dream of exposing Ilfochrome through the back of the paper. However, I can confirm that various Forte, Foma, Adox, Agfa and Ilford black and white papers all don't look so good in the same circumstances.

erikg · May 24, 2009

Wow, I wasn't even thinking of goof ups I've made in printing as those are rarely fatal. Yikes, I'm sure I've done them all. My favorite is when I expose a few sheets in a row, setting each one aside so I can process them one after the other. This I figure will save time and be more efficient, right? Sounds good until I develop the first one and decide that I want to take a good look at it with the light on. That's when I notice the stack of paper sitting there waiting it's turn. This is the kind of efficiency that Ilford must love.

SchwinnParamount · May 24, 2009

sperera said:
the stories are great keep em coming please.....i feel better already!

I made a trip to Washington DC from my home in the Seattle area to do some sight seeing and picture making. I brought only one camera, my Contax IIa. I wound on a roll of Tri-X and thought I had checked the take-up spool to be sure it had engaged the film sprockets.

I did the whole roll on the Mall and got what I thought were fantastic pictures including one of our new president from a distance. There were pictures of a family member I only see every few years.

At roll changing time (on a trip up to Philadelphia), I discovered that I had not properly wound the film onto the take-up and all of my DC pictures plus the ones I did in Old Philadelphia did not exist as there was no film behind the shutter.

Oh, and the take up spool was old and the sprocket engaging tooth broke off as I was sitting in front of the Liberty bell cursing and trying to get a roll of film actually engaged in the spool.

There I was, 3,000 miles from home and no working camera. I even thought of looking up some APUG member in Phili to borrow a camera for the day. Instead, I wound up buying a Nikon F100 from a camera store in town.

SchwinnParamount · May 24, 2009

Anscojohn said:
[NOW i had better shots than on the DSLR.....I was seeing better pictures...
******
Yup. The fish that got away.......

I hereby claim the award for the dumbest person in the forum....can anyone top this???? c'mon...make me feel better!

*******
Here's mine: I was re-using gallon, brown-glass Clorox bottles (anyone remember them!?) to store my fixer. I had just pencilled over the labels a bit, rather than soaking the labels off and properly relabelling the bottles; my darkroom was in the family laundry room.
I began to empty a fixer tray into a brown-glass Chlorox bottle. "Hmm," I wondered, "Do I have the right bottle'," as I smelled the odd smell.
So, to compound the stupidity, I stopped pouring, put down the tray, and sniffed the Chlorox bottle: which, you guessed it, was now liberating chlorine gas such as that used in the trenches of WWI.
I gasped for breath, got out of the room. The last part of this potentially fatal, consumately stupid drama, was not going immediately to the E.R. I had painful breathing for the next several days.
So, how many dumb acts were combined?[/QUOTE]

I was trying to get rid of some used fix and looking for an empty bottle to pour into. As the wet side of my darkroom is the laundry room, luck provided me with an empty detergent bottle. So far, so good.

The old fix was in the bottle and the bottle was set on the floor. Something disracted me and I walked out of the room without that old fix. My wife came in to do some laundry and grabbed the old fix in the detergent bottle by mistake.

She poured the usual amount of liquid into the washing machine and would have discovered her mistake immediately except she was distracted by me for some inane task.

The fix soaked into the clothes and was eventually washed out. I don't think there was any permanent damage to her expensive work clothes.

David R Williams · Apr 12, 2018

sly said:
I discovered last week that if you try to split grade print with the 00 and 5 filter both in the enlarger at once - you get NOTHING!! That's just my most recent darkroom goof. I won't even tell you how I wasted 2 rolls of 120 yesterday. It's too embarrassing.

First post after lurking for far too long, but saw this and had to add my +1.... been there, did that, got a blank print, and suddenly realized why.

Adrian Bacon · Apr 15, 2018

sperera said:
MORAL OF THE STORY.....pay more attention to what you're doing as i simply fixed before i developed!!!!!!! I'm gutted and sick to the stomach cos i KNOW i had better shots than on the DSLR.....I was seeing better pictures.....

I hereby claim the award for the dumbest person in the forum....can anyone top this???? c'mon...make me feel better!

I once shot my hasselblad 500 on a job and forgot to put the strobe to X-sync on the shutter. I had it all beautifully lit with a 4 light set up and everything.

I got blank negatives. I didn’t shoot a single image digital. Totally gutted.

Sirius Glass · Apr 15, 2018

OR the obvious, put the film in fixer before developing will result in completely blank negatives. Not only that, one can do that without a Hasselblad.

pentaxuser · Apr 15, 2018

Sperera, after almost 9 years do you remain convinced that you are still the biggest idiot here? It's a bold statement that may be difficult to substantiate. Competition for that title must be pretty fierce. This calls for a poll

pentaxuser

naaldvoerder · Apr 19, 2018

Nope. You are not the biggest idiot here..;(

GRHazelton · Apr 19, 2018

Way back in the day I noticed that hypo smelled like pickles and developer had no discernible smell....so I didn't worry about labeling the bottles. One day I had a cold and the hypo was fresh...crystal clear film,, even though I almost instantly recognized my error and drained the hypo, rinsed the film and poured in the developer. Labels forever after that!

Many, many years later I was reveling in the silken advance of my Pentax LX, until I noted that the counter was reading waaay past 36. Sure enough on rewinding the film the counter didn't count down; I'd shot masterpieces with an empty camera!

I imagine that 99.44% of us have similar stories to tell. Stuff happens, and always will.

Arklatexian · Apr 19, 2018

GRHazelton said:
Way back in the day I noticed that hypo smelled like pickles and developer had no discernible smell....so I didn't worry about labeling the bottles. One day I had a cold and the hypo was fresh...crystal clear film,, even though I almost instantly recognized my error and drained the hypo, rinsed the film and poured in the developer. Labels forever after that!

Many, many years later I was reveling in the silken advance of my Pentax LX, until I noted that the counter was reading waaay past 36. Sure enough on rewinding the film the counter didn't count down; I'd shot masterpieces with an empty camera!

I imagine that 99.44% of us have similar stories to tell. Stuff happens, and always will.

How about a combination of any two of the above goofs. Not at one time you understand. Noooo, make that three out of three. This is why experienced darkroom workers say experience is a lousy, expensive, teacher. though effective. Glad you weren't making sauerkraut in your darkroom at the some time ....Regards!

Peter Schrager · Apr 19, 2018

Arklatexian said:
How about a combination of any two of the above goofs. Not at one time you understand. Noooo, make that three out of three. This is why experienced darkroom workers say experience is a lousy, expensive, teacher. though effective. Glad you weren't making sauerkraut in your darkroom at the some time ....Regards!

More like fun...the learning is the Zen part..the mistakes force you to learn...
I still make some mistakes after 50 years but appreciate them for what they are..photographic interventions!

Peter Schrager · Apr 19, 2018

This is the best most honest thread going

David R Williams · Jul 4, 2020

Ok, here’s a new one...

I was developing a roll of D100 in a Paterson tank today, all going really well processing in ID-11 1+1, until it came time to dump the developer and pour in the water stop bath.

....I peel the seal off the top of the tank to pour out the developer, dump the tank on it’s side to pour out the developer, and not only does the developer dump really quickly, but the inner lid slides out together with the film reel and film, which proceed to all dump into the sink. (Yup, the inner lid obviously wasn’t fully snapped closed, and yup, film is really weird & milky looking before fixing).

Thinking that I might be able to save it, I quickly slammed the reel back into the tank (upside down, it turned out), reattached the lid, firmly snapped it closed, pour in the water stop bath, and agitate the heck out of it before dumping the water stop and fixing the film normally.

I did get images that were actually pretty evenly developed, but with some slightly brown fog along one side of the film that lessens across the width of the images, presumably due to re-exposed halides at the end of development being somewhat reduced by developer that was still present in the emulsion. In retrospect it would likely have been better to skip the water stop bath and go directly to fixing the film, but I was slightly amazed that I got anything useful.

Anyway, new lesson learned - always check that the centre tank lid is securely fixed and snapped in position before starting any step of the process...especially before dumping developer!

GRHazelton · Jul 4, 2020

We all have Tales of Woe From the Darkroom. Here's just one of mine. Over 60 years ago, when I was younger and even MORE foolish, I had noticed that fresh hypo smelled much like dill pickles. So, being young and foolish (did I mention that?) I didn't label the fixer or the developer, counting on my wonderful nose to keep things straight.
You can probably see where this is going....... A bit later I had a cold...and since my sense of smell was impaired I poured fresh hypo into my Kodak developing tank, the one an apron like transparent lasagna noodles. I realized what I'd done in an "instant," poured out the hypo, a quick rinse with water and the developer went in. After the proper time I poured out the developer, rinsed with water, and added the hypo, with many quiet prayers. To no avail. Fresh hypo will completely clear film in perhaps a minute! ARRRRGH! Since then I've been careful to label things. But I've still screwed up in wondrous ways....

baachitraka · Jul 4, 2020

One shot developers helps to minimize the problem...

Wish there are colored glass bottles for stop and fix and use brown for developers.

GRHazelton · Jul 4, 2020

Okay, here's another oddity, not my fault and not too consequential. Many years ago I decided to make some prints toward noonday. Mixed up fresh developer, indicator stop, fixer good. Took a nice negative, exposed a test strip. Into the soup and....nothing after my standard two minutes. Huh?? Something inspired me to call the city water department. This was long before the internet. Seems they'd run a little sulfuric acid down the line to clean things out. At my tap it was not at a dangerous level to me, but it sure was a danger to my developer! At least at that time Ilford SW fiber 8 x 10 glossy paper was about TEN CENTS a sheet! Those were the days.....

grat · Jul 4, 2020

baachitraka said:
One shot developers helps to minimize the problem...

Wish there are colored glass bottles for stop and fix and use brown for developers.

I buy these "Avery Removable Stickers" in all kinds of colors. They're just smaller than the cap for each bottle of chemical.

Red for developer, yellow for stop, and blue for fixer. And large capital "D", "S" and "F" written in the middle of each. But I'm new to this-- I'm sure I'll find a way to screw it up.

DISASTER + why im the biggest idiot here

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