Not so sure of the exact question...it's pretty vague....
"(1) Does anyone know the shelf life of the bleach from a sepia kit?"
I've got a screwtop jar of potassium ferricyanide I've had for years. Still works like a charm.
Shelf life whether in dry form or made up as a concentrate depends on many factors. The OP does not ask about shelf life as a powder or solution, but it can degenerate in either form.
Ferricyanide as a powder or in solution will break down to Ferrocyanide with poor storage, or as weak solution.
Ian
Not so sure of the exact question...it's pretty vague....
"(1) Does anyone know the shelf life of the bleach from a sepia kit?"
I've got a screwtop jar of potassium ferricyanide I've had for years. Still works like a charm.
I have had Ferricyanide solutions that are years old, but I've also had some degenerated, and Ferricyanide crystals breakdown to Ferrocyanide.
But let's get real, the OP has just started printing, this is a question that should be asked after a few years, maybe 5 to 10. I have chemicals made in the 1960s that are as good as new, although not all chemicals keep well.
Ian
Not so sure of the exact question...it's pretty vague....
"(1) Does anyone know the shelf life of the bleach from a sepia kit?"
Read @Doremus Scudder's words of wisdom here, and elsewhere on Photrio.(2) Does anyone know the shelf life of the selenium working solution?
Read @Doremus Scudder's words of wisdom here, and elsewhere on Photrio.
Wow. Thank you for sharing that link! This forum is a treasure trove of information.
Some highlights for me:
"First, if you see no change in the print, i.e., no change in D-max or no change in image color, toning is not occurring. It's that simple. Some papers don't tone at all in selenium or only with a rather strong solution. Some papers change color rapidly in a very weak solution. To repeat, however: no change = no toning happening.
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My most important point: You never have to discard your selenium toner. Just filter and replenish and use it indefinitely... Replenishing and re-using the toner is more economical and more environmentally responsible.
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If you see no change, then there's no toning happening. If you don't want any change in image tone, don't bother toning; you're not protecting your print, just wasting time
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Keep your toning solution and re-use it. When toning times get too long, just add some concentrate."
I mixed selenium at 1:4 dilution and I am very unsatisfied with the toning I got. Even after 8 min, I am not 100% convinced that the increase in Dmax that I think I see isn't just wishful thinking on my part. I'm going to add more concentrate to my solution and I might re-tone one or two prints.
Papers vary in the degree to which they tone.... Ilford typically less than Foma for example. 1:4 is a pretty strong dilution.
dcy, Bruce Barnbaum's book The Art of Photography....would be another good one for you. He describes in detail his darkroom process....including toning, archival washing, selective bleaching. It's a good reference book. Here's a copy for not very much $
Papers vary in the degree to which they tone.... Ilford typically less than Foma for example.
One of the papers I tested was Arista Semi-Matte. I believe Arista papers are made by Foma. It didn't respond much to selenium either. Maybe there's a difference between the Arista-branded and Foma-branded papers. Or maybe I'm expecting too much from RC neutral tone papers.
I'm not going to buy expensive paper just to get a nicer hue with selenium. At least, not until I get a print that truly deserves it. The paper I use is 36% of the price of Ilford MG Cooltone.
Tim Rudman | Selenium/Sepia/Gold Prints
The personal homepage of fine art photographer Tim Rudman. View his galleries and read about his latest darkroom workshops.www.timrudman.com
If you're worried about cost, you're in the wrong sandbox
If you're worried about cost, you're in the wrong sandbox
I don't understand.
I don't understand.
Tim Rudman is a true artist, and the go to source for toning information. In order to achieve maximize the fine control and wonderful tone variability that toning offers, you have to accept that the best materials are expensive!
For example, gold toner is really nice:
View attachment 402379
Well, cost of analog printing is expensive. You're using a half frame camera, I suppose in part to save on the cost of film, that's cool. But to make a nice print, toning etc you should probably start with something like Ilford warmtone RC paper, buy a 100 sheet box of 5x7, take a dozen sheets and cut in half to 3 1/2 × 5 inch, which is still a huge enlargement for half frame and work on your skills.
Otherwise there's nothing wrong with scanning your 24x17mm negatives, tweaking a bit in any old free software and printing using inkjet on real proper glossy inkjet paper.
Thank you for your input. I hope you won't be offended if I ignore it. I consciously choose cheap materials because I value being able to shoot and print more than I value getting a result that people on the internet approve of. Also note that "work on your skills" and "buy the most expensive materials" are contradictory advice.
At the end of the day, my prints are made for an audience of one. Thanks to the help of this forum, I have already produced a couple of prints that I am honestly happy with, and they were printed with my cheap paper, developed with homemade developer, and shot on budget film, with a camera (Olympus PEN) that is vastly inferior to the one I now use.
What's wrong with it is that I don't want to do it.
The one and only thing that this hobby is meant to achieve is to bring enjoyment to my life. So I try to optimize for that.
MGIV RC in selenium:
MGIV RC Cooltone in Selenium:
Polymax RC in Sepia II:
Oriental (I think) in Berg brown toner:Postcard Exchange 12 - Driftwood
November 2007
APUG Postcard Exchange Round 12
Mamiya 645 Pro-45mm lens--f 8 @ 1/125?
Kodak...
View attachment 402385
MGIV RC in selenium (IIRC):
View attachment 402386
MGIV RC in Berg brown toner (IIRC):
View attachment 402387
Subject of course to the usual caveats about how it is difficult to achieve consistency and accuracy when trying to faithfully reproduce on the internet how the toning actually looks in real life.
You don't have to do that. You can mix whatever quantity you like. Most of my darkroom prints are small, and I generally use flat-bottomed trays a lot, which means that I can generally get by with considerably less than 1000ml of working solution. The biggest quantity I typically use is 500ml, but something like a bleach I will generally mix in small amounts of 100-200ml mostly.The instructions in the kit tell you to pour the entire powder contents of the packages of potassium ferricyanide (20 g), potassium bromide (10 g), and sodium carbonate (20 g) into water to make a 1L solution that I am to use as the working solution every time.
MGIV RC in selenium:
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MGIV RC Cooltone in Selenium:
...
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