Help! Film Development failure.

Davesw · May 8, 2008

I am just getting back in to wet darkroom work.I did my first test roll of black and white. i used a camera with a shutter and meter I know to be working. I loaded film in a S.S. tank ( ilford Delta 100) I used Ilfords table for using D76 and when viewed after fixing I had nothing but film base left.
The chart made it look as if using D75 at stock solution at68 F was an option 9.5 min as I recall ,was this my goof up should I have done it at 1:1?

Kino · May 8, 2008

Not to be insulting, but are you sure you didn't get the developer and fix mixed up? I've done that before and wound up with clear base.

Davesw · May 8, 2008

anythig is possible I am not isulted at all. Dumb mistakes are easy to do (for Me anyway) But if that is what I did it is mislabeled in the gallon jugs I mixed and am not sure I remember the difference by smell or appearance. is there an easy test or do I need to re mix?

Kevin Caulfield · May 8, 2008

You can tell the difference by smell. Fixer tends to be more obnoxious.

jmcd · May 8, 2008

You could pour some of the "fixer" into a vessel and drop in a snipped piece of unprocessed film. If it is fixer, it will clear the film in about 25 seconds or so.

bdial · May 8, 2008

If you have a piece of undeveloped leader, measure out some of one jug or the other, and put the leader in for a few minutes. If it gets black, its developer, otherwise if it gets cleared it's fixer. Aside from this test, and smell, you can rub some between your fingers, developer will feel slick, almost soapy, typical acid fix will not, it will feel more like water.
On the roll you developed, are there any edge markings and frame numbers visible?

Davesw · May 8, 2008

No, nothing remains on the film at al so I suspect kino is correct and I have the fixer in the wrong bottle I will be doing the film leader test tonight.
Thanks to all for the input and any others to come.
I love APUG for how quickly and sincerely you can get constructive help.

Davesw · May 8, 2008

update

I did the undeveloped film test and based on the results I have fixer in the fixer jug and developer in the developer jug. I guess it is not impossible that I poured them in to the daylight tank in the wrong order but i think it unlikely. is there a nother therory or possibility as to what went wrong? film and chemistry was fresh.

MattKing · May 8, 2008

When you did the test, did you both - i.e. test with the fix, and test another piece of film with the developer? In the developer test, did the film turn black? If so, your developer is active.

Did you use a water rinse ("presoak)") before developer? If so, is there any chance that you went from presoak directly to stop/water rinse then to fixer without actually putting the developer into the tank?

As unlikely as that may sound....

Matt

Davesw · May 9, 2008

I did the test with fixer and with developer,I did not pre soak. With regards to the test: all I did was to put an unexposed piece of film in 1) fixer and 2) developer . The film I put in the developer was almost unchaged , the film I put in Fixer dissolved to clear film base in a mater of minutes. I am ready, at this point to assume I placed the chemicals in to the tank in the incorect sequence as no othe explanation makes any sense.
I banged off one more test roll this evening : different camera ,different film stock and I will try agin soon to develop.I will let everyone know the outcome. Thanks to all for the help.

gainer · May 9, 2008

If the snip you put in the developer was unchanged, the developer is no more, assuming you did the test with light on.

singram · May 9, 2008

If you have film numbers on the sprockets, but clear film- you may have never even taken any pictures on the film at all. Sometimes the leader doesn't catch inside the camera, and even though you advanced the camera 24 or 36 exposures, the film never moves out of the can. You rewind it, thinking you shot the roll, but in fact it sat in the same place inside the camera.

Just another angle on the clear film thing. Good luck

steve

p.s. Been there, done that. Don't feel bad

Kino · May 9, 2008

As Gainer says, it looks like your developer is kaput for some reason IF there was no reaction from the film in light; it effectively isn't "there"...

What developer did you mix? What sort of container did it come in, bag or bottle? How old was it? How long ago did you mix it?

Unless the container was heavily contaminated with fix or stop residue, I can't imagine what would totally neutralize the developer.

bdial · May 9, 2008

As stated, it sounds like the developer may be bad.
However, the developer test strip may not look a lot different from it's initial state, especially when it's wet. Just to be sure, make sure you've given it several minutes in the developer, rinse it a bit, then put it into some fix. If it clears at all, your developer is absolutely bad.

Davesw · May 21, 2008

Epilog

Thanks again to all who helped me solve this problem . for any one that wants to know , it was bad developer.I do not know why fresh d76 carefully mixed was copletly dead in one day but I went out and got some FG 7 and every thing is working fine now. so far I like FG 7 I had never used it before, very connivent and ecinomical

Paul Howell · May 21, 2008

Davesw said:
Thanks again to all who helped me solve this problem . for any one that wants to know , it was bad developer.I do not know why fresh d76 carefully mixed was copletly dead in one day but I went out and got some FG 7 and every thing is working fine now. so far I like FG 7 I had never used it before, very connivent and ecinomical

FG 7 is a very good general purpose developer, can be modified with sodium sulfate (or is sulfite) for finer grain and shorter developer times.

FilmIs4Ever · May 21, 2008

There's no need for all of this needless speculation without actually being able to see the problem.

Scan a piece of the blank film for us. . .

Help! Film Development failure.

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