Milky negative after mixing up chemicals - another reason for strange results

Last night, I was processing some film and I got distracted. Instead of finishing my sequence with diluted photo-flo, I grabbed a wrong bottle and I treated my washed film with full strength HCA.

After it was dried, images were all there but both image area and the gaps and the sprocket hole area looked milky JUST LIKE UNDER FIXED FILM. Of course, dried up concentrated HCA made awful mess of white residue but it could easily be mistaken for under fixed negatives. That's why I fixed it again just in case. It cleared up again in 2 minutes.

I was able to recover my film by refixing, rewashing, and retreating rest of the way with correct chemicals.

I post this not because I have a question. Occasionally we have people asking what happened and why his/her negs are milky in non image areas. Here's another possibility. Using HCA rather than Photo-Flo.

never would have imagined full strength!!!

excellent uptake and refixing-there was an engaged brain!

thanks for the exercise/info.

Michael R 1974 said:

Wow that's a new one. But there's probably somebody out there somewhere who purposely uses HCA concentrate for the final rinse because it gives you sharper negatives with less grain and and extra two stops of speed.

Click to expand...

Drat. My secret has been discovered!

In fact, it works so well you don't even need to focus the lens when you shoot.