I really hope this works for you. The key is finding out the right number of drops of photo flo. Keep us posted.
I think we are about to find The Ultimate Film Washing Method:
- use small amount of photoflo (no bubbles, foam!) with distilled water
- hang in angle to dry
I've proven that if I use it at recommended dilution, the film looks like it has been in sewage water
I understand the purpose of it but how little is enough to cause surface tension effect? I will try that out.
With distilled water I got only small drop marks on the film - which of course I would like to get rid of.
If you pour your Rinse aid solution on the wall/lip of the tank in the direction and spot shown, you won't get any notable foaming even with very strong/foaming dilutions. I use 2x as strong, agitate with stick every 30s and haven't seen such a blanket of foam in my life, even souping both reels in it for the usual 2 minutes.After the final wash I drained the tank and gently poured the Photoflo solution. I got a load of foaming in the tank which gave me reservations at first about removing the film reel through the bubbles.
I see that you're in Finland. When I lived in Europe, I could get Photo Flo with different formulations (some with ethylene glycol, some without) and to be mixed at different dilutions. The U.S. version of Photo Flo that is readily available should be diluted 1:200, but in Europe I had a batch that was to be diluted 1:600 (i.e., the concentrate was three times as strong). Maybe you've got the 1:600 product and are diluting it 1:200? Just a wild guess.
If your water is hard, mixing the Photo Flo with distilled water is important. Then, you need to give your film a longer soak in the final Photo Flo bath to allow the minerals in the emulsion to leach out into the Photo Flo solution. I like 3-5 minutes (longer won't hurt). If you just need the surfactant action, then 30 seconds will do the trick, but if you need to get rid of minerals from hard water, longer is needed.
Distilled water alone can still leave "drying marks," if there are droplets on the film when it is drying. The marks are caused by the different drying rates of the emulsion and the tensions resulting from that. If you could squeegee all the droplets off (without damaging the film) then drying would be even and likely there would be no marks. That's difficult enough to do consistently that a wetting agent like Photo Flo is almost universally used.
FWIW, I never put my reels into Photo-flo.
I guess it depends on your process and chems you use. I soup my reels regularly, but they're white AF - just as fresh as in the first day I used it 6 years ago. Then again, reversal sees bleach and clearing agent that the regular process won't.
I wash film this way, and I get *no* drying spots. Negatives look perfect.BTW: has anyone experiences from final wash on distilled water with/without wetting agent?
I wash film this way, and I get *no* drying spots. Negatives look perfect.
But after pulling the reel of 35mm film out of the water, I fling it by hand to remove as much water as possible. Then when I remove the film from the reel, there are no large water-drops on it.
Well, that was an interesting test with using Photoflo 1+200.
First of all I tried to calculate number of drops per ml. I drew up 2.5 ml Photoflo into a syringe and tried to dispense it drop by drop into a spoon. I lost count around the 60 drop mark. The drop size may also not be the same as my normal usage; i.e. dip my thermometer into neat Photoflo and allow a few drops to fall into tank with final wash water.
I then mixed up a beaker of Photoflo 1+200 and allowed it to stand for about 20 mins before I started development. There were a few bubbles which had disappeared before I came to use it.
After the final wash I drained the tank and gently poured the Photoflo solution. I got a load of foaming in the tank which gave me reservations at first about removing the film reel through the bubbles.
View attachment 295520
I followed my normal hanging procedure which is to attach film to clips and give the film 4 or 5 whips to shake off surface drops.
Normally at this stage I would see sheeting of water across the emulsion side and just pin head sized drops on the non emulsion side. In this case the water was sheeting fully across both sides of the film. The Photoflo was doing its job fully. I also noticed a large number of tiny oblects in the sheeted water which I now realise were little air bubbles, smaller than pin head size.
The film dried perfectly without any water marks or chalk deposits of any kind. It's as good as I have ever seen. There may be dust particles but I haven't scanned it yet but as I said previously, dust is like death and taxes.
Will I change my usage of Photoflo? I don't know. The only downsides for me are the extra prep work in preparing yet another solution in addition to dev / stop / fix and my Photoflo consumption will rocket from less than 3 bottles in 40 years to maybe one bottle every 2 years or so.
Apparently Nicholas and I are of like minds - although my recipe (see my post earlier in the thread) uses Photo-flo 200 in a 250 ml bottle.I make up a stock solution of PhotoFlo and alcohol: 13ml PhotoFlo 600 + 1l 70% isopropanol. I dilute this 1:7 for a working solution. 40ml of PhotoFlo 200 would also work, but I bought a gallon of 600 when it was going out of production - several lifetime's worth.
The PhotoFlo ends up at 1:600 and the alcohol at ~10%. That's enough alcohol to give a 'tearing' effect (like the tears on the inside of a wine glass) that helps the water sheet off the film.
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