Had an interesting experience recently that I though I would document for my own education and also share with others.
Spousal unit and I were traveling, staying in motels along the way. I had the 4x5 with me and did a lot of photography. Naturally, I had to reload holders. I did the usual thing - go into the bathroom, stuff a bath mat under the door and turn off the light. Since that totally darkened the room, I decided it was safe to reload holders. Emptied the exposed film into the boxes marked N, N-1, N+1, etc, then dusted out the holders and prepared to reload. Had the box of fresh film to the left of the sink and the empty holders to the right. About halfway through the process, the brand new 50sh box of unexposed film slipped into the sink. I was able to retrieve the film, but there were droplets of water in the sink that came in contact with the interleaving paper between sheets of film. #@*$^*&!
I dried everything as best I could at the time (and in total darkness), but also assumed that the film might be damaged along the edge, and sure enough, when I later tried to load it into holders, I found that the interleaving tissue had adhered to the end of the film. After processing a batch this weekend, I concluded that most of the film is usable - at most, there is a band about 1/4" wide along the end of some of the sheets that has been damaged.
Lessons learned:
1. Make sure the sink is dry.
2. Make sure that you move everything not involved in loading film away so that it isn't necessary to work up to the edge of the sink.
3. Watch out for one-piece molded sinks where there is no protective rim above the level of the counter to help keep things from slipping into the sink.
4. This is the question: the interleaving paper contributed to the problem by wicking water between sheets of film. Would I have been better off separating the sheets of film and disposing of the interleaving tissue? Hopefully, I will never have an experience like this, but I wonder if there is something I could have done that would have minimized the apparent consequences.
Spousal unit and I were traveling, staying in motels along the way. I had the 4x5 with me and did a lot of photography. Naturally, I had to reload holders. I did the usual thing - go into the bathroom, stuff a bath mat under the door and turn off the light. Since that totally darkened the room, I decided it was safe to reload holders. Emptied the exposed film into the boxes marked N, N-1, N+1, etc, then dusted out the holders and prepared to reload. Had the box of fresh film to the left of the sink and the empty holders to the right. About halfway through the process, the brand new 50sh box of unexposed film slipped into the sink. I was able to retrieve the film, but there were droplets of water in the sink that came in contact with the interleaving paper between sheets of film. #@*$^*&!
I dried everything as best I could at the time (and in total darkness), but also assumed that the film might be damaged along the edge, and sure enough, when I later tried to load it into holders, I found that the interleaving tissue had adhered to the end of the film. After processing a batch this weekend, I concluded that most of the film is usable - at most, there is a band about 1/4" wide along the end of some of the sheets that has been damaged.
Lessons learned:
1. Make sure the sink is dry.
2. Make sure that you move everything not involved in loading film away so that it isn't necessary to work up to the edge of the sink.
3. Watch out for one-piece molded sinks where there is no protective rim above the level of the counter to help keep things from slipping into the sink.
4. This is the question: the interleaving paper contributed to the problem by wicking water between sheets of film. Would I have been better off separating the sheets of film and disposing of the interleaving tissue? Hopefully, I will never have an experience like this, but I wonder if there is something I could have done that would have minimized the apparent consequences.
