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My film survived two big processing mistakes

SchwinnParamount

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Nov 29, 2004
Messages
1,776
Location
Tacoma, WA
Format
4x5 Format
I've been processing my own black and white sheet film for 20+ years. In all previous processing sessions, I've had the room to myself. Distractionless, I've never made any major mistakes and followed my process to the "t". Tonight, I was attempting to school my son on sheet film development. As the darkroom is pitch black during tray development, I was left with a verbal description of the process as I was doing it.

This is the kind of distraction that I don't do well with. The first thing I did was drop one of the sheets into the fix bath right out of the holder. The tray to the right is the water soak tray. I missed by one tray. Recognizing my mistake, I pulled the sheet out, rinsed it in the sink and dropped it into the pre-soak tray. Mistake two was not recognizing that fix bath would be carried through the sink rinse, into the pre-soak bath, and finally... into the developer.

The next mistake relates to the first. As I was filling the trays with chemical and providing appropriate narration, I failed to notice that I pulled the bottle of rapid wash off the shelf instead of fix. So now tray 1 is developer, 2 is stop, 3 is rapid wash, and 4 is pre-soak.

After the pre-soak in 4, I took the stack to tray 1 and started the process. All was well until the buzzer timer went off after the "fix" step. I turned on the light to examine the negatives and saw images but strangely enough, I couldn't see through the negatives.

It took about 10 seconds to realize what I had done. I quickly poured out the rapid wash, failed to rinse the tray, and then poured the fix into the tray. The negatives went in and the light went off.

7 minutes later, I again turned on the light and this time the negatives looked... gasp! normal.

Weird, isn't it?

Tri-X, HC110 developer, Kodak stop bath, Kodak Fix, generic rapid wash.
 
REMEMBER...

FIX before DEVELOP

it's actually what I guessed by reading the headline!

next time arrange trays with chemicals in correct order while you can see what is going on...
 
Denis R said:
FIX before DEVELOP
Click to expand...

Shouldn't it be "The issue was FIXED before the problem could DEVELOP"?

I guess you saved the day by being quick, it is not without reason we need to fix film a few minutes I guess, so you probably only bleached the negs slightly... and rapid wash isn't supposed to clear or fix your negatives, but help in washing out thiosulphate-silver complexes after the fixing stage, so it probably doesn't do a lot with a developed but un-fixed image.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
so the film was not first in the fix but in rapid wash. Film once stopped can be in light if not going back into a developer. I
 
Not much of a mystery. Two wrongs made a right.

Quickness had nothing to do with it. There was no giant effect by putting it in the hypo clearing agent first - and no effect of turning on the lights after the development had stopped.

It would have been a complete disaster if the fixer tray was actually and ammonium based fixer. TOAST - this stuff is so active it is unbelievable.

RB
 

When I first learned darkroom work, we were taught it in a highschool photography class, that four things make the process fool proof.

1) Colour code everything, electrical tape comes in a rainbow of colours, marking bottles and trays with matching colours makes it easy.

2) Use the same order at all times, if you put the developer on the left, and fixer on the right, always do it that same way.

3) Make sure everything is correct before turning the lights off, now check it again, you sure now? Okay, lights off.

4) Unplug the phone before you start.
 

Great ideas! I especially like the color coded electrical tape. I don't have a phone in the darkroom anymore because it kept ringing (before the age of cell phones). My cell phone hangs out with me but I mute it. If it does ring, I don't answer.
 
suggestions

BANISH the Idiot-POD, all non-analog sound reproduction methods for that matter

makes it hard to have short simple conversations, such as nice or whoops - that's all dark - in the bin it goes and the backlight is very bright, even if it's in a pocket

A selection of records and a turntable solves that problem

my darkroom is analog only nothing digital, including timers

this is a work area, not a conversation hall - I need to be able to hear the clock tick while at the trays or if the timer acts up

on double sided sinks with a line on each side, my fix does not equal your developer - so don't reach across and put your print in what you think is my develp, just because it is on your left
 

Turntable? I never had one in the darkroom, to much risk of ruining a record, did use cassette tapes though at one time.
 
wogster said:
1) Colour code everything, electrical tape comes in a rainbow of colours, marking bottles and trays with matching colours makes it easy.
Click to expand...

So does everyone use the same colour code, or do we each make up our own?

If there's a common standard or convention for colouring de/stop/fix etc, what is it?

Regards,

William
 
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Red, white, black for developer, stop and fix is what I learned for printing. At least the white tray for stop makes real sense, as at least the citric acid stop bath I have has a yellow (good) to blue (bad) acidity indicator in it, and only a white tray will allow you to judge that...
 
Thanks.

It seems sensible to use a standard convention - then if you're in a darkroom other than your own, you stand a chance of using the right chemicals in the right order!

Regards,

William
 
saywell said:
Thanks.

It seems sensible to use a standard convention - then if you're in a darkroom other than your own, you stand a chance of using the right chemicals in the right order!

Regards,

William
Click to expand...

Kodak was putting out bottles of HC 110 with a red cap while all of their other bottled chemicals came with black caps. Is that an accident or a nod to the "red as developer" standard?
 
wogster said:
Turntable? I never had one in the darkroom, to much risk of ruining a record, did use cassette tapes though at one time.
Click to expand...

Me, I have an ancient table radio in the darkroom. Used to have a lamp to light up the dial. Removed the bulb. Somewhere around this place I have an old Cathedral style radio, an original with vacuum tubes.
 
Today I took sheet film from the presoak tray to the stop, skipping the developer. Same trays, same order as always. Don't know why I reached over just a little bit too far. I'm on antibiotics for an infection, so I'll blame them for scrambling my brain.
 
I am glad your film survived.

I always fill two trays maximum with chemicals at any one time. I don't even pour the fixer into the tray until my film is in the stop bath, which I keep behind the developer, not to either side. That way, I can never get confused about whether I am going left or going right. I dump the developer tray and rinse it while the film is in the stop bath, then pour the fixer into the same tray I used for development.
 
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