Stupid mistakes in the darkroom

holmburgers · Jan 3, 2012

Last night I was developing single sheets of panchromatic 8x10" film in trays 1 at a time, total darkness of course, and as I pulled my 2nd sheet out of the developer I discovered that I had developed it with a piece of interleaving paper on top of it!

I cursed myself, but near the end of the fix I popped on the lights and as far as I can tell, there was no ill effect.

cliveh · Jan 3, 2012

A student came running out of the darkroom and said Clive, you need to come and look at my enlarger, as I think the bulb is going because it has gone all dim.

John Austin · Jan 3, 2012

Absolutely knackered at the end of documenting a two week festival in Fremantle - Eartly hours of the morning set up the film cassettes, reels and rods - Shut my eyes tight and loaded 5 rolls of film

lesm · Jan 3, 2012

Recently a friend of mine who's a professional photographer but has never used film came up to me in the street with a box of 16x20 Ilford paper under his arm. He knew I'm building a darkroom and he told me how a client of his had given him this box of unused paper her late husband had. My mate said "Is it any use to you?" and with a flourish he opened the box and riffled through the paper!

Crashbox · Jan 3, 2012

Many years ago I once tried a two-solution developer on some negatives and didn't get a thing, couldn't go back and re-shoot either...

Another time I somehow managed to wind a roll of 35mm on a SS spool backwards, revealed by a light streak running down the center of the film where my finger was resting!

Yet another time- I do not know to this day why it occurred- I made up a fairly stiff glycin paper developer and exposed an image on Kodak RC paper which probably had developer incorporated in the emulsion. Either the developer was rather warm and/or the embedded developing agent was wildly superadditive with glycin, but about five seconds after I slipped the paper in the developer- FWOOF! The image appeared almost instantaneously! And it was actually satisfactory for my purpose... This was about 1981 or so...

David Brown · Jan 4, 2012

lesm said:
Recently a friend of mine who's a professional photographer but has never used film came up to me in the street with a box of 16x20 Ilford paper under his arm. He knew I'm building a darkroom and he told me how a client of his had given him this box of unused paper her late husband had. My mate said "Is it any use to you?" and with a flourish he opened the box and riffled through the paper!

Um, no ...

Vlad Soare · Jan 5, 2012

A few days ago I wanted to develop a roll of 120 film. I was using a stainless steel tank with a stainless steel cap. I had prepared everything and was just about to start pouring the pre-wash water into the tank. But instead of removing the small cap I removed the big one altogether. Ouch!
Luckily there was nothing unique and unrepeatable on that film.

Tronds · Jan 5, 2012

Vlad Soare said:
A few days ago I wanted to develop a roll of 120 film. I was using a stainless steel tank with a stainless steel cap. I had prepared everything and was just about to start pouring the pre-wash water into the tank. But instead of removing the small cap I removed the big one altogether. Ouch!
Luckily there was nothing unique and unrepeatable on that film.

That was two mistakes in one.
Pre-wash was the first one. Prewash was abandoned early in the 1920s.
Not neccessary and may cause uneven development.

The second mistake was much more critical though.

MattKing · Jan 5, 2012

Tronds and I totally disagree about the advisability of a pre-soak.

I use it consistently, and I find it improves the evenness of my development, and repeatability of my results.

Vive le difference!

Vlad Soare · Jan 6, 2012

Tronds, I wouldn't touch the pre-wash thing if I were you. You'll start a war.
On the other hand, that might be fun to watch. I'll get the popcorn and Coke. :munch:

Helinophoto · Jan 6, 2012

The most stupid mistake I've done until now, is that I exposed a print (for Lith) trough the backside of the paper, i exosed it for 5 minutes in 1 minute intervals.

After sitting for 20 minutes, poking the print, agitating the tray and generally staring into the tray, swearing and cursing this useless paper because I wasn't seeing any activity, I took it out to throw it in the bin

Then I saw that I have had the paper upside down in the tray as well, the Lith process had happily turned the whole paper black!

Tronds · Jan 6, 2012

Vlad Soare said:
Tronds, I wouldn't touch the pre-wash thing if I were you. You'll start a war.
On the other hand, that might be fun to watch. I'll get the popcorn and Coke. :munch:

I know that.
Prewashing MAY work well, but many have got problems because of that. Many of them has stopped using prewash and the problems disappeared.
Uneven development is the devil that lurks in the shadows.

Some have even tried prewash with two-bath developers. That is a recipe for catastrophy.

But since this is about darkroom mistakes, I have to supply mine.

I was loading a Tri-X 120 film into a plastic reel. Well, at least I tried. It woldn't go in. It just jammed time after time and I had to pull it out of the reel and try again. After working with it for about half an hour in the fumblebag, I managed to get the now hot and humid film onto the reel.

After development it had a lot of scratch marks and half-moons from bending the film.

I later discovered that this reel had a defective locking ball on one side. It grabbed the film and just locked it in place.

After this incident I check all my film-reels for function before use.

JRieke · Jan 8, 2012

I just learned an expensive lesson.

Today I ran down to the lake to shoot a few 4x5 negatives with my new Toyo monorail. I shot a mix of Arista Ultra 100, Kodak X-Ray and Illford FP4 plus. I got back, mixed up some R09 and started developing the x-ray film under the safe-light. The negatives were looking good so I turned off the safe-light and ran the Illford and Arista through the trays. Sitting in the dark I waited impatiently for my negatives to sit in the fixer for ten minutes so I could turn on the lights and see the negatives for the first time.

Finally the time came and I held up a negative to the red light. to my surprise it looked pretty thin. Figuring I must have made a mistake in exposure I picked up the next negative hoping for better results. It was worse. By the third negative they were all completely clear! I turned on the regular lights in anger and then was when I realized that my developer was bright blue! I'd completely exhausted it with the double sided x-ray negatives! I knew that x-ray negatives are double sided and that you have to double the amount of developer you mix but I just totally spaced it so I ruined half my film. From now on I'll be sure to process x-ray and regular film separately!

Todd Barlow · Jan 8, 2012

I was contact printing about seven rolls of film yesterday. After exposing the first contact print I put in into the developer and the darkest tone I could get was a zone v grey.....hmm. After a few more attempts and failures I started to work backwards to try and figure out what I was doing wrong.... I finally figured out that I had mixed and was using Ilford DD-X film developer 1:9 instead of Ilford Multigrade developer at 1:9, it was nice to see the finished contact prints with real blacks!

All the best

Todd

jackie_like_the_chan · Jan 17, 2012

So far my most utterly dumb mistake has been out of the darkroom. I was taking pictures in this beautiful spot in November and they were all just perfect and the conditions just right when this monarch butterfly landed 2 feet in front of me and I had exactly one frame left. I snagged the picture and i could feel that this was going to be amazing, I could just feel it. Hoping to grab a couple more shots I pulled out another roll of film like I was Rambo and needed another round. I hurredly start rewinding, hoping to get it all done before the butterfly takes off (it's really rare to find a monarch, alive in November in Maine...) All of a sudden I feel a snag. I figure, it must be done rewinding! yay! so i open the back and film flies at me!!! I had forgotten to press the film release!!! The snag i had felt was the film ripped in half! By the time I'd recovered and reloaded the butterfly was long gone and I haven't seen one since.

zsas · Feb 5, 2012

I thought I had a process by which I would put the empty bulk loaded cartridges in one part of the darkroom and the ones that had exposed film in them waiting to be developed in another part.....well, I forgot my own system and opened a exposed roll thinking it was empty ready to be rebulked...nothing like seeing your film in bright lights before you have processed it...sigh...will process it next weekend....heck it will be interesting looking...not alls lost as I have learned a vital lesson about organization (or lack thereof)...

hadeer · Feb 6, 2012

I suppose a lot of people know this one: closing the tank, pouring the developer and in the same moment you realise yourself that you grabbed the bottle with fixer from the shelf. Needless to say that the pictures of my granddaughter didn't come out well.

cliveh · Feb 6, 2012

I had a student who came running out the darkroom and said "Clive come and look at my enlarger, the light has gone very dim and I think the bulb is going."

Sirius Glass · Feb 6, 2012

cliveh said:
I had a student who came running out the darkroom and said "Clive come and look at my enlarger, the light has gone very dim and I think the bulb is going."

So was the bulb dim or was the student the dim bulb?

hadeer · Feb 7, 2012

Outside the darkroom, the worst thing I ever did was loading an already exposed film in the camera. Seventy two exposures down the drain. Since then I always tear off the leader as soon as I take the cartridge out of the camera. Has worked for me ever since.

Sirius Glass · Feb 7, 2012

hadeer said:
Outside the darkroom, the worst thing I ever did was loading an already exposed film in the camera. Seventy two exposures down the drain. Since then I always tear off the leader as soon as I take the cartridge out of the camera. Has worked for me ever since.

OR you can just completely rewind the film into the cartridge.

Newt_on_Swings · Feb 7, 2012

hadeer said:
Outside the darkroom, the worst thing I ever did was loading an already exposed film in the camera. Seventy two exposures down the drain. Since then I always tear off the leader as soon as I take the cartridge out of the camera. Has worked for me ever since.

Man, I like half frame, but getting to 72 is ughhh especially when you shoot some slow films. I should roll shorter lengths but then I would have to seperate them out.

Sucks to hear that happened, but then you never know might be some awesome double exposures or overlaps.

This case is better than finding out that you are winding and it goes over 37-38 frames and you realize the film wasnt loaded correctly. :confused:

dehk · Feb 7, 2012

Me and my buddy was drunk, well he was worst apparently, we both have a roll of film to develop, in 2 tanks. We loaded each separately and we started his roll first while my tank is sitting on the table. I went to the bathroom to mix the chem, i came back to my room, he grabbed the tank off the table and opened it.

Joe: OOPS
Me: WTF?!
Joe: Why is there a roll of film in there?
Me: Its a developing tank Joe.

mark · Feb 8, 2012

Imagine bare feet darkroom, 5x7 film box open, Dark slides pulled out of all the film holders each with exposed film, book on tape playing in the background. Large 1/2 inch thick sheet of glass used for contact printing.

Now imagine me thinking that large piece of glass being in the way of unloading and loading the film holders and picking it up. It slipped out of my hands and shattered on the floor.

I learned a lot that day about my darkroom work flow.

clayne · Feb 9, 2012

Sirius Glass said:
OR you can just completely rewind the film into the cartridge.

Yep. It always ceases to amaze me when people don't do such an easy process to indicate "shot" vs non-shot. That being said, some people do have a need for recycling commercial carts. But if that isn't the issue by all means rewind it all the way.

Stupid mistakes in the darkroom

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