Questions about B&W film reversal

I did not wash the film at any point until after the ammonia bath. Try skipping that first wash.

You can get a gallon of distilled water for $1 at Walmart.

MCB18 said:

Got some fresh ammonia, Kroger brand but hopefully that fixes my problem.

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Oh man, what kind of ventilation do you have? I could never use ammonia, I don’t even like using ammonia based glass cleaner.

It’s funny how different people judge safety or handling dangers. I would rather use dichromates than deal with the irritation of ammonia. @photoengineer wouldn’t have potassium permanganate in his house because it is such a powerful oxidizer. He was worried about fire and accidental combination with other chemicals. Most people run away from dichromates for obvious reasons. I don’t really have a point other than I’m surprised that anyone would willingly use ammonia lol.

isaac7 said:

It’s funny how different people judge safety or handling dangers. I would rather use dichromates than deal with the irritation of ammonia. @photoengineer wouldn’t have potassium permanganate in his house because it is such a powerful oxidizer. He was worried about fire and accidental combination with other chemicals. Most people run away from dichromates for obvious reasons. I don’t really have a point other than I’m surprised that anyone would willingly use ammonia lol.

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It's a popular household cleaner.

Sometimes I'm surprised at the kind of stuff you can buy at the grocery store or home improvement center. Sodium hypochlorite (household bleach) is nasty stuff, and sometimes it's in the same aisle as the ammonia. You can get 12% hydrogen peroxide on Amazon. Most households have vehicles powered by gasoline. I don't, but I do have propane tanks for my grill. Lacquer has some really nasty VOCs, as do many paints.

MCB18 said:

First Developer: Dektol 1+3 for 5 minutes.
View attachment 404902

Bleach 1: Ferric Cloride 1+1 5 minutes.
View attachment 404903

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I just realized something. Your bleach definitely did something, and to me it looks like it did the right thing. The color of the film changed from pitch black to yellow. So the bleach is not the problem. Furthermore, it also changed color after the clearing bath.

I just went through the process with another piece of film. This time I'm using Kentmere 400. I can confirm that after the clearing bath the film is still opaque. I took pictures at every step of the process. Hopefully you can see something that deviates from what you're seeing?

Step 0: How the film looked before I started.


Step 1: After the developer + stop bath --- The film is pitch black.


Step 2: After the ferric chloride bleach. --- The film has distinctly changed color.


Step 3: Inside the clearing bath. --- Ferric chloride being removed from the film.


Step 4: After the clearing bath. --- The film is still essentially opaque.

Step 5: Inside the ammonia bath. --- Visible flakes coming off of the film.


Step 6: After the ammonia bath. --- The film is clear, but visibly stained.


Step 7: After 2nd developer + stop bath + fixer. --- Stain has been replaced by a gray fog.


From the pictures you've posted, it looks like your steps and mine start to give different results right at the ammonia bath.

I wonder if I can reduce that base fog by repeating some of the steps...

Developer --> Stop ---> Bleach ---> Clear ---> Ammonia ---> Wash ---> [Repeat]

SUCCESS!!!

As I speculated in my last post, doing an additional pass through the bleaching steps did reduce the fog. The result was better than I expected!

In the image below:

Bottom-Left: Film went to the fixer without ever being developed. This the base film.

Top-Right: Result after a single pass through the bleaching steps:


Top-Left: Result after a TWO passes through the bleaching steps:


As you can see, the two-pass process gives a fully cleared film, at down to the base fog of the film base as reported by the film that went straight to the fixer.

What I think is happening is that the bleaching step is not reaching 100% of the developed silver. Suppose it "saturates" at (say) 90% capture. If that is more or less what's happening, after you've removed the rehalogenated silver, you have another go at it and capture 90% of what's left.

What do you think?

PS: I do not know whether the middle Dev 2 ↦ Stop steps are necessary or if you can go from the wash straight to the bleach.

dcy said:

SUCCESS!!!

As I speculated in my last post, doing an additional pass through the bleaching steps did reduce the fog. The result was better than I expected!

In the image below:

Bottom-Left: Film went to the fixer without ever being developed. This the base film.

Top-Right: Result after a single pass through the bleaching steps:

Dev 1 ↦ Stop​

↦ Bleach ↦ Clear ↦ Ammonia ↦ Wash​

↦ Dev 2 ↦ Stop ↦ Fix​

Top-Left: Result after a TWO passes through the bleaching steps:

Dev 1 ↦ Stop​

↦ Bleach ↦ Clear ↦ Ammonia ↦ Wash​

↦ Dev 2 ↦ Stop​

↦ Bleach ↦ Clear ↦ Ammonia ↦ Wash​

↦ Dev 3 ↦ Stop ↦ Fix​

As you can see, the two-pass process gives a fully cleared film, at down to the base fog of the film base as reported by the film that went straight to the fixer.

What I think is happening is that the bleaching step is not reaching 100% of the developed silver. Suppose it "saturates" at (say) 90% capture. If that is more or less what's happening, after you've removed the rehalogenated silver, you have another go at it and capture 90% of what's left.

What do you think?

PS: I do not know whether the middle Dev 2 ↦ Stop steps are necessary or if you can go from the wash straight to the bleach.



View attachment 404933

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How would putting it in the developer again affect the image, if there was any?

MCB18 said:

How would putting it in the developer again affect the image, if there was any?

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Your guess is as good as mine, but I would imagine that as long as we haven't exposed the film to room light, we can go back to the developer and bleach as many times as we want.

On an unrelated note:

With the ferric chloride bleach, I notice that the film comes out of the ammonia bath mostly clear but with a visible orange tint. Then, after the second developer, that becomes a gray orange tint.

I guess that means that there must have been left over silver that was re-developed later.

With the copper sulfate + citric acid bleach I don't notice color changes, so it's hard to guess what's happening.

Success with the Two-Rounds-of-Bleach Method

@MCB18 It took a few weeks, but I finally got to test the Rollei film. ---- Holy, that film does have a clear base.

Summary: A single pass through the bleach leaves a very significant fog, but a second pass through the bleach makes a world of a difference. The ferric chloride bleach still leaves a stain, but the copper sulfate + citric acid bleach leaves a film about as clear as the base.


Details: I was only able to cut 3 small pieces of film, but that's enough to do the test. The first image below shows what the film looked like after a single pass through the bleach. At the top you see the result from the ferric chloride bleach, at the bottom is copper sulfate, and in the middle is a piece of film that went straight into the fixer.

I have no idea why the piece that went to the fixer has two colors. I don't understand. The part that is 100% clear corresponds to a bit of film that was inside the canister, and the colored bit is the bit that was sticking out. In any event, the clear part gives us a baseline of what the base film looks like.




The second image shows the same two pieces of film after a second pass through the bleach. Specifically, the process was:

Dev 1 ↦ Stop
↦ Bleach ↦ Clear ↦ Ammonia ↦ Wash
↦ Dev 2 ↦ Stop
↦ Bleach ↦ Clear ↦ Ammonia ↦ Wash
↦ Dev 3 ↦ Stop ↦ Fix

I do not know whether the second development step is necessary or useful. I did mostly because I wanted to assess whether there was left over undeveloped silver; and there was. After the first pass through the bleach, putting it back in the fixer clearly darkened the film.

The result is quite impressive; especially for the copper sulfate bleach. The film basically got all the way down to the film base.

I also added two columns for a couple other films (Kentmere 200 and HP5+). I had heard that Kentmere 200 had a clearer base, but honestly, it's not very clear.

The darker part of the fixer-only chip has printing out from being exposed to light outside the cassette. Expose halides to enough light, and the silver will reduce in sufficient quantity to produce visible fog, instead of just latent image specks.