My developing set up

Pentode said:

Well done! It looks like you got very good results. It will only get easier from here.



By far the easiest way to deal with unloading Paterson reels.


I used an empty reel for ages until somebody tipped me to this trick. It seems so obvious but it never occurred to me.


Did you use distilled water for the Photo Flo? It makes a big difference, especially if you live in a hard water area.

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That rubber band trick sounds like what I'll do. It's funny you ask about the distilled water/photo Flo...I used distilled water for the other stock solutions and mixed photo Flo last (only had a little distilled water left and cut the rest with tap water). Next time I'll mix with distilled for everything. I think water in Philadelphia, where I live, is quite hard...so what you say makes sense. Thanks.

Thanks Pentode, I'm picking up what you're putting down!

Pentode said:

Well done! It looks like you got very good results. It will only get easier from here.



By far the easiest way to deal with unloading Paterson reels.


I used an empty reel for ages until somebody tipped me to this trick. It seems so obvious but it never occurred to me.


Did you use distilled water for the Photo Flo? It makes a big difference, especially if you live in a hard water area.

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pic

GLS said:

Congrats.

I find the easiest way to get the film out of a Paterson reel is to simply twist the two halves apart. This avoids having to pull the film back out of the tracks, and thereby possibly damaging it.

It looks like you have a lot of drying marks on the film. You may either be using too much wetting agent for the final wash (i.e. the residues are dried wetting agent), or not enough wetting agent (i.e. the residues are mineral deposits from the tap water).

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I mixed about 600mL with about three drops of Kodak photo Flo.

James Thorsen said:

I mixed about 600mL with about three drops of Kodak photo Flo.

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You should have 3 ml of Kodak Photo-flo in 600 ml - 1:200.
If you had soft water, you could use less.
Photo-flo is arguably the most important place to use distilled water.
Followed, in decreasing order of importance, by developer, stop bath, fixer and rinse aid.

Thank you. Yeah, makes sense.

MattKing said:

You should have 3 ml of Kodak Photo-flo in 600 ml - 1:200.

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Matt's right. Kodak came up with that ratio for a reason; It works.
There are a lot of differing opinions about quantities of Photo Flo. Honestly, I'm not sure why it's a touchy subject for some people, but many argue that Kodak's ratio is wrong. I've always followed Kodak's suggested 1:200 and I've never had an issue but hey..... I'm no expert.

In general, using 'drops' for measuring chemicals can lead to all kinds of problems because no dropper - or drop, for that matter - is quite the same as any other. For some of the chemistry we use for film developing close can be close enough but sometimes accuracy is really important. It's especially true when you want to be able to repeat your results exactly. I tend to err on the side of 'more accuracy is better' because I wasted my first few years keeping really lousy notes and getting very inconsistent results.

My storage bottles of choice are 1 Liter seltzer bottles from the supermarket. Yup... free. My routine for Photo Flo is to mix a Liter at a time in a seltzer bottle. I have a little measuring cup that came with a bottle of cough syrup (yup... also free) and I made a mark on the side of it for the quantity of PF that I use for one Liter of working solution. The bottle has another mark at exactly 1 Liter. Little stuff like this will gradually find its way into your work flow as you streamline your process and find ways to make things easier.

Pentode said:

My routine for Photo Flo is to mix a Liter at a time in a seltzer bottle. I have a little measuring cup that came with a bottle of cough syrup (yup... also free) and I made a mark on the side of it for the quantity of PF that I use for one Liter of working solution. The bottle has another mark at exactly 1 Liter. Little stuff like this will gradually find its way into your work flow as you streamline your process and find ways to make things easier.

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Pentode's system works well - if you develop film regularly.
A problem arises, however, if you need to keep that mixed Photo Flo around for a while. The working solution of Photo Flo is an excellent environment for the growth of mould, and you don't want to rinse your film in something full of that.
I use a somewhat more complex approach, but it works well.
Rather than add the description of it in this thread, I've reduced it to a "Resource", and set it out here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/resources/making-and-using-a-kodak-photo-flo-stock-solution.396/

Just went through my second round of developing with dismal failures!

I had completed two 36 exposure black and white T Max 100. One I did on my Pentax and the other on my Vilia camera. I typically work between 50-60 hours a week at a restaurant in Center City Philadelphia. I work fairly early 6am/7am until 4pm+. So for me, I take a few pictures if the sun is out before I get to work or after my shift just to be efficient with my time. I figure I see enough crazy stuff on my way to work and back on the train and streets. Philly's a great place to shoot. Never a lack of inspiration in this concrete jungle.

Well, the first roll (Pentax K1000), I realized I hadn't taken the scissors into the dark bag before I popped the top of the film...went to feed the film into the reel and it wasn't going in and was getting f$%ked up. I knew I had to get the scissors because it was feeding into the reel all messed up. I pulled out my arms from the bag. Knew I risked exposing the film to like but I was being Machiavellian about it at this point. Then went back in carefully with the scissors and cut the film but I don't know, something just didn't feeling right and I tried to cut past the spot that had gotten damaged and load what I could but even that wasn't loading and I decided to abort mission. I opened the bag and saw I had cut the film in two different places. I was just being an idiot. Anyway, I was pissed, but I was okay because I had a second roll.

Then I load the second roll NO PROBLEM...no binding issues...thing goes on the butter. I thought I'd be okay from this point. Get my chemicals and tools ready around my sink. Following the times. Everything seems like it's jiving. Then as I'm fixing, I see on the side of the bottle the TF4 says dilute 1 to 3 with water. I thought the working solution was as it states on the front the bottle makes 1 gallon of working solution. Huh, what? So the gallon that you make is really the STOCK SOLUTION and not the WORKING SOLUTION? Maybe that's why my last development looked all washed out and sh**ty.

Well, as long as I walk away from those two rolls with some tough love, I'm happy. I looked at the negatives from the Vilia shots and some look okay...as the say even a broken clock is right twice a day. I was guessing on some of the exposures on the Vilia because it's such a weird camera. I was much more confident on the shots I had been taking with the Pentax.

James Thorsen said:

Then as I'm fixing, I see on the side of the bottle the TF4 says dilute 1 to 3 with water. I thought the working solution was as it states on the front the bottle makes 1 gallon of working solution. Huh, what? So the gallon that you make is really the STOCK SOLUTION and not the WORKING SOLUTION? Maybe that's why my last development looked all washed out and sh**ty.

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Did you discard the fixer after you used it, or did you pour it back into the bottle after you used it?
In either case, it isn't particularly likely that using too strong (4x) fix will damage your film or change the image. The downsides of doing that are:
1) you may have to increase your wash time, and
2) the cost per roll of the fixer goes up, because the fixing byproducts build up just as fast in the strong solution as they do in a more dilute solution.

As far as the loading difficulties are concerned - practice, practice, practice!
I hope you kept the film you didn't end up developing for the purposes of practicing.

One thing that many people do when they first start loading reels is to hold them too tightly. That often results in the reel sides moving away from being parallel. Once I have the film started, I try to hold the reels gently, with just my finger tips.

I'll repeat my advice to try to load films outside a changing bag. When loading reels, I find that one of the best sets of feedback comes from auditory clues, and those clues are hard to hear when muffled by a changing bag.
Good luck!

Frustrating, but mistakes are to be expected at first. Try not to get discouraged, and keep shooting!

If anyone is interested, here is a group of photos that I thought were at least interesting. https://photos.app.goo.gl/KL985JVSE2yURBbN7

GLS said:

Frustrating, but mistakes are to be expected at first. Try not to get discouraged, and keep shooting!

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My problem is there is little to no community of shooters in Philly. I know a couple people here and there - just wish I could go out and shoot with someone who really knows what they're doing. Thanks to Youtube and this message board...otherwise I'd really be in the dark both literally and figuratively,

MattKing said:

Did you discard the fixer after you used it, or did you pour it back into the bottle after you used it?
In either case, it isn't particularly likely that using too strong (4x) fix will damage your film or change the image. The downsides of doing that are:
1) you may have to increase your wash time, and
2) the cost per roll of the fixer goes up, because the fixing byproducts build up just as fast in the strong solution as they do in a more dilute solution.

As far as the loading difficulties are concerned - practice, practice, practice!
I hope you kept the film you didn't end up developing for the purposes of practicing.

One thing that many people do when they first start loading reels is to hold them too tightly. That often results in the reel sides moving away from being parallel. Once I have the film started, I try to hold the reels gently, with just my finger tips.

I'll repeat my advice to try to load films outside a changing bag. When loading reels, I find that one of the best sets of feedback comes from auditory clues, and those clues are hard to hear when muffled by a changing bag.
Good luck!

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Oh yeah, I worked with the film I gave up on.

I'm actually a little surprised there isn't a larger community of film enthusiasts in Philly. Sure, it's not a big city, but there's a lot going on.

You're doing fine. I develop film all the time and I had to stop and start over on a roll twice this afternoon. It just wouldn't cooperate (meaning I couldn't get it to cooperate!). It happens. It will keep getting easier, though.