Fun Freakin'-Tastic!

RattyMouse · Dec 28, 2013

Well, after 20 years shooting cameras, today I finally developed my first roll of film. What an absolute BLAST that was! Piece of cake. Just getting that reel loaded was difficult.

I dont have a scanner now, nor can I print so I cant fully evaluate the negatives, but to my inexperienced eye, they sure look decent. I'm quite pleased and ready for roll #2!

Tom1956 · Dec 28, 2013

Well there ya go. Don't need a scanner. Just some paper and a piece of glass.

RattyMouse · Dec 28, 2013

Tom1956 said:
Well there ya go. Don't need a scanner. Just some paper and a piece of glass.

Oh I wish! I just cant make any room in my house dark enough. Only a tiny closet AT NIGHT can get dark enough. Every other room has huge, giant windows. There's enough light pollution in Shanghai to light up the rooms even with the curtains drawn.

JW PHOTO · Dec 28, 2013

Ratty,
They look pretty good from here. If you had a light table you could use one of your digital cameras(Fuji S3 or was it the S5) and micro/macro lenses and take a picture and then invert it with software or in camera. It would give you an idea anyway. Film is fun and it makes you think! Digital has its place too, but not on this forum. Sorry I had to mention the "D" word. JohnW

Tom1956 · Dec 28, 2013

Actually a small closet would be all you need. As an aside--from your point of view, if you had any idea how far in the middle of nowhere I am located, it might seem inconceivable there are such places. My darkroom is the whole house at night, except on full moons. No self-respecting ghost would even come around here after dark.

Photo-gear · Dec 28, 2013

RattyMouse,

Your story reminds my re-discovery of film some 4 years ago. So much thrill and still is. At first look, your film seems well developed. I just wonder which film you used: the base looks purplish. Is this Tri-X? Next time I suggest you get your film soak in water for 30s or 1min before the development, so you will get rid of some of the anti-halation layer.

Congrats again!

Tom1956 · Dec 28, 2013

Photo-gear said:
RattyMouse,

Your story reminds my re-discovery of film some 4 years ago. So much thrill and still is. At first look, your film seems well developed. I just wonder which film you used: the base looks purplish. Is this Tri-X? Next time I suggest you get your film soak in water for 30s or 1min before the development, so you will get rid of some of the anti-halation layer.

Congrats again!

Yeah. I'm a pre-soak guy too. Gets rid of the purple. But what you've got there is gorgeous. It'll print fine.

RattyMouse · Dec 28, 2013

Photo-gear said:
RattyMouse,

Your story reminds my re-discovery of film some 4 years ago. So much thrill and still is. At first look, your film seems well developed. I just wonder which film you used: the base looks purplish. Is this Tri-X? Next time I suggest you get your film soak in water for 30s or 1min before the development, so you will get rid of some of the anti-halation layer.

Congrats again!

Yes, this film is Tri-X. I was wondering about pre-soaking and was not sure what to do about that. My house is a bit on the cool side so I loaded up the developing tank with developer when the temp was 20.5 C. Perhaps a pre soak would have been better.

So, to be clear, a purple look is a sign of temp that is too low?

RattyMouse · Dec 28, 2013

The one HUGE down side to all this fun is now I have an ENORMOUS urge to shoot more film. I only had one roll shot for testing purposes and now that this is gone, I need to shoot more. Last night I shot two rolls of Delta 3200, but I'm not sure it is wise for me to try that yet. It's not clear to me that D-76 is all that great for Delta 3200.

NedL · Dec 28, 2013

Just seeing that puts a big smile on my face... that's a great feeling.
Congratulations!

I make all my prints and contact prints in a tiny closet. Where there's a will there's a way.
There are lots of tricks to make a very small darkroom space work.

scherminator · Dec 28, 2013

Looks like you're shooting 6x7? I've got a roll standing in rodinal as I type ;-)

Sent from my LT30a using Tapatalk

RattyMouse · Dec 28, 2013

OK, now that I have looked at my professionally developed negatives and compared them to my own, I see the difference. Mine definitely has a purple cast to it, and perhaps (i'm not sure), look a bit thin.

Is this a sign of poor temperature control? Should my film tank be in the water bath while waiting for the next round of agitation?

Tom1956 · Dec 28, 2013

RattyMouse said:
OK, now that I have looked at my professionally developed negatives and compared them to my own, I see the difference. Mine definitely has a purple cast to it, and perhaps (i'm not sure), look a bit thin.

Is this a sign of poor temperature control? Should my film tank be in the water bath while waiting for the next round of agitation?

Affirmative on all counts.

RattyMouse · Dec 28, 2013

Tom1956 said:
Affirmative on all counts.

OK....with luck round two will start tonight.....i hope to see some improvements!

Kc2edh · Dec 28, 2013

Congratulations! When I did my first home developing 3 years ago, I think I actually said out loud "I can't believe it worked!" as I was pulling the negatives off the reel. You sound like you're just as hooked as I am. Tri-X in 120 is my favorite, I'm sure you have plenty more great pictures in your future!

RattyMouse · Dec 28, 2013

Kc2edh said:
Congratulations! When I did my first home developing 3 years ago, I think I actually said out loud "I can't believe it worked!" as I was pulling the negatives off the reel. You sound like you're just as hooked as I am. Tri-X in 120 is my favorite, I'm sure you have plenty more great pictures in your future!

Thank you!

Dan Daniel · Dec 28, 2013

If anything, those negs look a bit underexposed to me. The basic rule- expose for shadows, develop for highlights- will start making sense to you now. The shadow areas- lightest on the negatives- aren't affected much by time or temperature when developing. Well, easy to be an armchair quarterback on the internet, yes? Congratuations! After decades and what must be thousands of rolls, I still pull the film off the reel with excitement.

For drying 120 film, I used a printing roll box for years. If you have any digital printing outfits in your area- Kinkos/Fedex, sign companies, blueprint outfits- ask them to save you a box from a 48 inch or 54 inch roll of paper. Stand it on end. Poke a stick through the top edge- a chopstick works well. Spray a fine mist of water inside the box while the film is washing to settle any dust. Hang the film from the stick, close up the top, and wait overnight. Much less dust than open-air drying. When the cardboard starts getting ratty, go pick up another box!

gone · Dec 29, 2013

I don't do a pre soak w/ Tri-X, but I wash it for 30 to 40 minutes to get rid of that color cast.

Congratulations by the way. Yours came out a lot better than mine did the first time.

Tom1956 · Dec 29, 2013

momus said:
I don't do a pre soak w/ Tri-X, but I wash it for 30 to 40 minutes to get rid of that color cast.

My experience has been that the developing process sets the purple. Only the pre-soak ever got it out. And to boot, gets the tank, reel, and film to proper temperature. I temperature-control my pre-soak water as if it were developer.

RattyMouse · Dec 29, 2013

Tom1956 said:
My experience has been that the developing process sets the purple. Only the pre-soak ever got it out. And to boot, gets the tank, reel, and film to proper temperature. I temperature-control my pre-soak water as if it were developer.

How long do you presoak and do you agitate during this time? If so, how much?

Thanks!

Tom1956 · Dec 29, 2013

A couple minutes or so. Maybe even 5. Never clocked it. But I use the freeezer or the stove to get my developer and presoak water to proper temp, and get busy. I use a SS tank with a piece of electrical tape around the seam so that water and developer don't do osmosis, and drop the tank in a bucket of water brought to temperature, between agitations. Maybe a lot of over kill, but that's the only way you can track down density problems. From what I saw, your negs were a hair thin, but probably printable. Remember, Kodak time charts tend to err towards under development, IMO. The moral is to never let your temp drop or cut the time even one second shorter.

MattKing · Dec 29, 2013

RattyMouse said:
How long do you presoak and do you agitate during this time? If so, how much?

Thanks!

I am one of those who pre-soak.

I do it for three minutes with constant rotary agitation.

It probably wouldn't make any difference if I did it for two minutes with inversion agitation - 5 seconds for every 30 seconds - as long as the first 30 seconds see continuous agitation.

Tom1956 · Dec 29, 2013

MattKing said:
I am one of those who pre-soak.

I do it for three minutes with constant rotary agitation.

It probably wouldn't make any difference if I did it for two minutes with inversion agitation - 5 seconds for every 30 seconds - as long as the first 30 seconds see continuous agitation.

I don't agitate. I just pour the water in and go smoke a cigarette. It doesn't need to be agitated. It's only to temperature-condition the tank and reel. Washing the purple out is a side benefit. Agitation never changed that for me.

RattyMouse · Dec 29, 2013

Tom1956 said:
I don't agitate. I just pour the water in and go smoke a cigarette. It doesn't need to be agitated. It's only to temperature-condition the tank and reel. Washing the purple out is a side benefit. Agitation never changed that for me.

Ok, I'll do that, minus the cigarette part. I'll soak the film for 3-4 mins or so before the temp starts to drop. HUGE thanks.

Tom1956 · Dec 29, 2013

The purple didn't used to be a problem. But nowadays all the paper is that damnable variable contrast stuff.. VC filters go from yellow on one end to purple on the other. The purple in your film wreaks havoc on trying to find a repeatable VC filter standard. You can't buy Kodabromide or Ilfobrom any more. It's all that VC crap. Were it not for that, we wouldn't have to have this conversation.

Fun Freakin'-Tastic!

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