Washing Film - Best Environmentally Friendly Way to Do It?

[CatLABS]

In the days of hardening hypo fixers and before HCA Kodak literature for its Brownie and other rollfilms stated that if running water is not available, five changes of water five minutes each with agitation is sufficient. A 1930 Ilford manual stated 7 to 8 changes, 5 mimutes each with agitation, if water is short. Leica manual 1930s suggested 8 changes, 2 minutes each, vigorous agitation, if water is short. ( if you own Niagara Falls, all give the usual 20-30 minute running water spiel). Water is always short these days, and if not don't try to make it that way. Anyway, do these archaic methods hold true today if hardening fix is used? With nonhardening fixers would these be more surefire than the surprisingly fast Ilford method of today of only three changes?

And i totally forgot to respond to the OP - 10 water changes are all you need if you use a hypoclearing agent. In a nut shell.

 

[37th Exposure]

And i totally forgot to respond to the OP - 10 water changes are all you need if you use a hypoclearing agent. In a nut shell.

Thanks. May I ask how to proceed? Like how many minutes, etc.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Threads merged.

 

[fotch]

Threads merged.

thank you

 

[CatLABS]

Thanks. May I ask how to proceed? Like how many minutes, etc.

You just need to fill, and dump.
If you are doing roll film, you can flip the reels over so the top goes to the bottom half way through.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I repeat! Use a retained Silver and retained Hypo test kit to test your wash conditions.

PE

 

[ozphoto]

I repeat! Use a retained Silver and retained Hypo test kit to test your wash conditions.

PE

PE,

Maybe I'm a bit slow but who sells these kits? I tried a Google search and it didn't bring up anything I could match as being even remotely close to what you're suggesting. I've been meaning to actually invest in a Retained Silver Kit, but so far, drawn a blank. (Although TH does have it's drawbacks and nuances - so that could explain a lot!!)

 

[Philippe-Georges]

I repeat! Use a retained Silver and retained Hypo test kit to test your wash conditions.

PE

Dear PE,

Just to be sure we are talking about the same:

- retained silver test = Kodak Silver Residual Test => 1+9 KRST in plain water: a drop on the clear end of a B&W film, when the colour turns out yellowish then fix again…

- retained hypo test = 1/1000 Potassium manganate (KMnO4) in plain water: a few drops in the last bit of washing water dripping out of the emulsion, when the colour turns out brownish then wash again…

Thanks for commenting.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The retained Silver test is Sodium Sulfide in water, and the retained Hypo test is Acetic Acid + Silver Nitrate. The first forms a black color on the paper or film and the second forms a yellow color.

I think that Freestyle, the Formulary and Fotoimpex all have these as standard stock items. Kodak and others have published the formulas for both along with color charts to give the user a hint as to his "quality".

PE

 

[pdeeh]

theformulae for both tests are given here http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Archival/archival.html

 

[Photo Engineer]

Thanks. I had lost my hard copy of that Kodak chart.

PE

 

[37th Exposure]

Thanks all. I learned quite a lot following this thread.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Just FYI, Bill Troop and I are working on a new type of fixer which should allow a shorter wash cycle for film and paper than any other fixer now on the market for B&W products.

PE

oh do tell.is it alkali?:confused:

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Forgive me but I need to digress to answer your query.

Since washing photographic materials works by diffusion of the "bad" stuff outward from and area of high concentration, the film or print, to an area of low concentration, the wash water, and since the speed of the migration of the fixation products is determined by the relative concentrations of byproducts in the emulsion and the wash water, I've been convinced that the strongest washing is accomplished by total changes of water. In other words, the most effective wash method is by fill and dump since you reduce the concentration of fixation byproducts in the washing environment radically every time you dump and refill.

C

Yes, that's the processbut for me,the easiest way to keepthe concentration from getting into equilibriumis a constant low flowof fresh water;not the least amount of waterbutthe fastest wash.

 

[Photo Engineer]

oh do tell.is it alkali?:confused:

That is so old Ralph, it has a beard!

It is acidic and is called TF-5. It can be had from the Formulary. We are also working on another one.

TF-5 is odorless.

PE

 

[John51]

Sorry for not reading past more than your thread PE but it's late and I'm off to bed now. Just to say that history is a strange medium. Mid 70's (1976 iirc?) we had a severe drought in the UK. Hosepipe bans etc. The water shortage was bad enough to be of interest in the photo mags. RC paper best thing since sliced bread and all that.

Anyway, up comes an a letter from Ilford about how to conserve water by using the ever increasing number of inversions then dump routine. This was imo, and I'm pretty sure to everyone else at the time, a purely stop gap measure to use during a water shortage.

Lo and behold, in the fullness of time it becomes an archival method. Where did that come from? I was buying loads of photography mags at the time, trying to soak up knowledge like a sponge and I had never heard of it before that drought.

 

[Photo Engineer]

John, this method has caused quite a bit of controversy. Mason (of Ilford) in his textbook more or less says that it is not archival and others have agreed. A lot of math was used in his proof which I posted here and there on APUG.

I have run tests and find that there is nothing better than running water, but you must judge by water conditions (salt content) and drought conditions.

PE

 

[Ming Rider]

John, this method has caused quite a bit of controversy. Mason (of Ilford) in his textbook more or less says that it is not archival and others have agreed. A lot of math was used in his proof which I posted here and there on APUG.

I have run tests and find that there is nothing better than running water, but you must judge by water conditions (salt content) and drought conditions.

PE

Speaking purely from my own experience, I've only ever used the Ilford Method and occasionally check my neg's. Even the earliest ones from 10 years ago still look as good as the day they were done. Contrasty, no fading and plenty of edge detail.


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[fotch]

Speaking purely from my own experience, I've only ever used the Ilford Method and occasionally check my neg's. Even the earliest ones from 10 years ago still look as good as the day they were done. Contrasty, no fading and plenty of edge detail.


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Not to disagree with you, however, I would be more concern with much longer times, like 50 or 100 years.

 

[Ming Rider]

Not to disagree with you, however, I would be more concern with much longer times, like 50 or 100 years.

Oh I hadn't thought of that.

Mind you, in a 100 years I don't think I'll be concerned with anything.


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[Photo Engineer]

You often need comparison prints that were kept cool, dry and in the dark. I have seen changes in as little as 5 years and as great as 40+ in color. In B&W it takes a little longer.

I have done wash and fixer tests from 5" wash and 15" fix up to 1 hour wash and 1/2 hour fix. This was a complex factorial involving Kodak rapid fix and several others. The bottom one is that there is no easy answer!!!!!

PE

 

[bvy]

I plan to start working with fiber paper. Currently, I process everything larger than 5x7 in print drums. I use the Unicolor drums with the Unicolor reversing motor base. Is there any reason I can't also wash/rinse the paper in these drums? I'm thinking five to ten changes of water, and a few minutes agitation on the motor base with each cycle. The only potential concern I have with this is that the paper is not being rinsed flat, and it might make for more stubborn curling. Thoughts?

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Have just processed 5 rolls of 120 film this morning and as I was washing them I started to think about the amount of water I use when printing and processing my B&W work.

Water restrictions are coming into effect yet again in South Australia this summer (and also over this past winter!!) and I want to reduce the amount of H2O I use as much as possible. I do use a print washer, but even then it seems to use copious amounts or am I imagining things??

How do you wash your prints and films to use the least amount of water possible?

'washing' is actually a bit of a misnomer when it comes to film and prints. it's as much a diffusion process as it is washing and for thatall you need is to keep the chemical concentration in the emulsionand the water as far from an equilibriumas posible.So, a minute but constant flo of fresh water is ideal.print and film washers are designed to do just that.altrnatively,you might want to look into reeiminssuch as the Ilford archival washing technique.However, I find them to be more laborious and less convinient than archival washers who need little or no attention during washing.Other than that,cut out a shower or a car wash for every darkroom session and you've done your bitfor sensible water consumtion. I never understood how we would explain to peeople deprived of fresh watr resources that we flush our toilets with prfectly fine drinking water

 

[timparkin]

John, this method has caused quite a bit of controversy. Mason (of Ilford) in his textbook more or less says that it is not archival and others have agreed. A lot of math was used in his proof which I posted here and there on APUG.

I have run tests and find that there is nothing better than running water, but you must judge by water conditions (salt content) and drought conditions.

PE

Sorry for restarting this thread (I won't be the last I'm sure).

Don't both of these methods reduce the concentration continually (i.e. it's impossible to reduce the concentration to zero, as long as their is a gradient the concentration in the film will go down).

Hence both of these techniques can target any desired concentration - they may do so at different rates but the only variable we are concerned about is the amount of water used to get there.

Hence both are as archival as each other (for some length of process).

I've not done the math but I find it difficult to believe that the flowing water method would use 'less' water (to target the desired concentration) as the water cycling method.

The only way this can be wrong is if the water exchange method and the flow method are asymptotic to different values - I don't understand how this could be.

Tim

 

[Photo Engineer]

From the math, it seems that the water change method reaches a different value than the running water method unless you extend the change method to near infinity. This is due to the equillibration of salts in the tray during individual changes.

Just my feeling from the math.

PE