First time developing -questions

[Matthew Rusbarsky]

I've gotten tired of my local lab damaging my negatives, so I let the rolls pile up in my freezer till I couldn't ignore them anymore. I have exposed rolls of everything (both 35 and 120) from PanF+ to Delta3200, a bottle of Rodinal and stainless steel tanks and reels. Research tells me that Rodinal should not be used at high temperatures. It's 80F (27C) in my house, with no AC and getting warmer as the day goes on. Do I mix my chems with 68F water and trust my SS tank to hold the temp close enough for the 10 or 15 min I need? I've also thought of filling my tank (reel in place) with 68F water and taking the temp again at the end of the development interval and averaging.

Thanks in advance,
Matthew

 

[mopar_guy]

Hi Mathew,

What I do to keep the tank at the desired temperature is as follows:

1. Set up a 8x10 print tray and put a couple of inches of water at 68 degrees (or whatever your process temperature should be) to use as a tempering bath. In very hot weather, it helps to have some ice cubes handy and put one or two into the tray.

2. Use a stainless film tank and develop as normal, but between inversions/agitation let the film tank rest in the water bath so that it will stay a consistent temperature.

3. If your Developer is too warm, you can put the bottle of chemical into the freezer for a few minutes to cool it to the desired temp.

Regards,
Dave

 

[Silence]

I agree with Dave.

I put the chemicals in the fridge, or freezer if needed, while I'm spooling the film into the spiral and preparing the workspace. It usually is sufficient to even out the temperature.

 

[Rick Jones]

Old Rodinal instructions provided by Agfa provided times for temperatures up to 75F (24C) but I wouldn't hesitate experimenting with higher temperatures unless your personal experience reveals some problem. IMHO there is absolutely nothing sacred about 68F. I agree with mopar guy that a water bath for your developing tank is the way to go. My tanks are 32 oz SS so trays would not be ideal for me. The tub I use lets me submerge the dev tank to about 2" below the cap. I monitor the water bath temp and find 67 1/2 F assures the dev tank goes in at 68F and stays at that temp. My room temp is usually about 76F in the summer. Averaging the in and out temps should work but I believe you'll get more consistent results if you concentrate on maintaining one temp. In the summer I use a bucket of ice water to bring the dev temp in the SS tank to the desired temp then drop the loaded film reels into the tempered developer. The ice bucket lets me adjust dev temp in less than a minute.

 

[tkamiya]

I did some experiment few months back. I used water as liquid and no film but an empty spool, I placed water into a tank and went through the regular agitation schedule in ambient temperature that was about 10 degrees higher. In 10 minutes, the temperature of the water went up about 3 degrees. This is water with no film meaning no chemical reactions. I'd guess, with actual developer and film, the difference will be higher.

As a result of this experiment, I now use water bath with sufficient quantity of water and cooled to desired temperature to temper the temperature change.

I don't know how careful you want to be, but my goal is to keep the temp change to within a degree during dev process. About a gallon of cooled water in water bath seem to do it for me.

 

[mwdake]

My tap water is 26-27C this time of year and ambient inside the house is routinely 24-25C.
Trying to chill to 20C and keep it there seemed like too much messing about.
So, I always process at whatever temperature it is in the house and adjust times accordingly.
It has always worked for me and given me the results I want.

I guess it would be a whole other story if I lived somewhere cold.

 

[CBG]

One easy way to temper is to put all your bottles of working strength solutions in a big bath of water tempered to get your solutions where you want them. I have used a rubbermaid tub or similar container, and left the bottle in there for a few hours or so. All that said, it's a heck of a lot simpler to process at ambient temperature, which is what I do now.

 

[TareqPhoto]

Lucky that we have AC, but the tap water is so warm[hot in some cases], and i have to cool the water, so i feel that it is so tough for me to wait cooling the water tot use it for the developing, and to measure the temp and timing, i feel happy i did develop 2 weeks ago before the tap water turn to hot by the weather, we don't have cooling water system, only heater.

 

[srs5694]

If room temperature is ~68F/20C, you can always just store your water in a jug in the room. That might not be good for rinse water, but it should work for everything else. In fact, if you get a big enough container, you could store water for rinsing/washing that way, too -- just be sure to refill it several hours before you need to use it.

 

[Craig Swensson]

Someone else posted a good idea concerning ice cubes. Those empty 35mm plastic containers, well fill em with water and freeze, there are your ice cubes, ready to use over and over.
regards
Craig

 

[TareqPhoto]

The fridge is cold enough, so i can put a gallon of water inside it to cool it down to around 5-10C, then i can take it out and use it with another water of 30C maybe to balance the temp a bit.