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Washing film - cold running water

Ralph, you raise another issue, soft water can itself cause a problem with washing, Mason (Ilford) recommends hardening soft water before washing at warmer temperatures by adding Calcium or Magnesium Chloride for film processing.

Soft water increases emulsion swelling, as does pH so it may be that a film fixed in an alkaline fixer or treated with an alkali wash-aid could become more prone to micro-reticulation particularly if washed in soft water.

It's interesting that for commercial B&W D&P processing (in the 70's) the recommended temperature control was +/- ½° F which is +/- 0.3° C, which about the same as with C41 & E6.

I try to keep all steps +/- 1° C.

Ian
 
Shoot, I am very fortunate because the water that comes out our tap is from our own well and it is always 68F, just the same temp that I mix the chemicals at
 
Flow-rate can be quite low

One further thing to keep in mind - the flow-rate required for washing is quite low. In at least one of Kodak's publications, it is specified as being rapid enough to completely replace the contents of your washing container once every 5 minutes. So if you are using hypo clearing agent and a five minute wash thereafter, and you wash your film in a container that is 1 liter or smaller, with the low flow-rate suggested, you need at most 1 liters of tempered water.

EDIT: The Kodak publication I'm referring to is publication aj3 - their "How to Process and Print Black-and-White Film" - here is a link (it's in the table):

http://wwwtr.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/aj3/aj3.pdf
 
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At one time the recommended wash times for films was 30-40 minutes so that kind of flow rate would be about right, but that wouldn't be ideal for a 10 minute wash.

Ian
 

Ian

This caught me by surprise, but your explanation makes sense. I found out about it through Martin Reed of Silverprint in London. He published his results in a terrific two-part magazine article, which is well worth reading.

Martin Reed, ‘Mystery of the Vortex’, Photo Techniques magazine, Jul/Aug & Nov/Dec 1996
 
I wash with tap water that goes as cool at 5C during the winter months.

Did a HT2 test to check the wash efficiency and I was OK at 45 mins @ 5C water temp

Never bothered checking how much shorter I could make it as 45 mins fits my film processing cycle.

The first wash water is in a jug at 20C along side my other processing chemicals.

I then hook the Dev Tank up to the tap and trickle in the cool tap water for about 10 mins - after that I turn up the flow rate and head off to process the next batch of film.

Martin
 

I don't mean to answer for Ian, but that is exactly what I do. After a few rinses in processing temperature water (tempered in the same tempering bath as the rest of the chemistry), I fill the tank one final time with the tempered water, then introduce a hose from the tap. Since I can't count on the hot/cold mix to remain stable, I just go with the cold tap at barely more than a trickle. The temperature of the wash slowly drifts down, and it seems to cause no problems even with small format negatives. To be fair, I do not use a hardening fixer and I do not use soft emulsion films like EFKE and ADOX either. Tri-X, and indeed all the films I've used from Kodak, Ilford, Fuji, and FOMA, are fine with this treatment. Do note though that washing efficiency is significantly decreased with colder temperature washing.
 
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I've read the article Ralph, I I have them somewhere, possibly the UK, in PDF format. But I read Mason's Ilford work in the 70's it & dovetails with Kodak's definite work which Haist uses & quotes which was carried out at Harrow by G.I.P. Levenson slightly earlier.

Perhaps what I'm more interested in is how little published work there is about development (as an entire process) and apparent film grain, particularly with regard to temperature control.

I know that when I first switched to Agfa B&W films i was stunned by AP100's quality, it matched Tmax100 in many ways (which had just been released) but was a true 100 ISO film, you needed to use Tmax @ 50 ISO for tonality (which was also Kodak's recommendation well). I noticed that sometimes I got much finer grain than others, all using Rodinal, same Leica camera, meter, developer etc, and it turned out to be down to needing very tight temperature control.

Later when I did a workshop at Peter Goldfield's - Duckpool, with Peter Cattrell as well, we discussed this issue, both were firm believers that temperatures must be tightly controlled . Goldfied had worked alongside Paul Caponigro and others and really knew his stuff, his 35mm Agfa AP100 negatives processed in Rodinal were stunning, even as large prints.

Peter Goldfield had closed Goldfinger two or three years earlier after Agfa pulled the plug on him (he'd been sole UK importer after Agfa pulled out of the UK B&W film/paper/chemistry market mid 70's), so after Peter built sales up again they decided to do it themselves again 10 years later . Martin Reed worked for him and after Peter closed the doors took over what remained moving premises and trading as Silverprint.

Looking back now Agfa pulled out of B&W in the UK (1974?) at around the time they took over Ilford's Graphics and X-ray business.

Ian
 
Commercial film washers I have seen advertised introduce water into the bottom of the tanks and force it out the top. Would it work to punch a few holes in a coffee can and let the water run in the top and out the bottom? Barry
 
Yeah, that actually works pretty well, but I'd rather use a plastic container rather than a metal coffee can. Made a film washer myself from a 1 qt yogurt container. Any plastic container wide and tall enough to hold a few reels will do. Punched a few small holes in the bottom with a hot piece of wire. You need to be careful about making the holes too big or using too many of them or you'll drive the flow rate necessary to keep the thing full too high. Having the water flow in at the bottom and over the top solves the flow rate problem more elegantly, but makes no difference in the results.
 
Rather ambiguous because that flow rate seems to be for the longer wash time. Definitely not enough for a 5 minute continuous wash.

Then for rapid washing the 10 fill & dump wash cycle, which is more efficient.

A 5 min continuous wash at that rate is only equivalent to one fill & dump in terms of dilution effect

Ian

 

Ian:

Not necessarily.

The rinse before the Hypo Clearing agent (HCA) step plus the HCA step also add to the dilution effect.

More importantly, 5 minutes of continually moving water, no matter how slow the flow, has a lot more of a dilution effect then one fill and one dump.

I think the chart isn't ambiguous. I think it is clearly stating that you can use the same flow rate for both the short, 5 minute wash (after HCA) or the longer 20 to 30 minute wash (when no HCA is used).

I haven't been able to locate any other documents that specify the flow rate, although I believe I have seen some others. Does anybody else have anything that specifies the rate?

EDIT: The Kodak information sheet for T-Max developers (J-86 - see page 12 of 14) specifies the same flow rate and washing time (5 minutes), but only after use of HCA:

http://wwwcaen.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j86/j86.pdf

EDIT2: The Kodak Technical publication for T-Max Developers also specifies the same flow rate and 5 minute total wash time when used with HCA:

http://wwwcaen.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j109/j109.pdf
 
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The low flow rate comes originally from Levenson's 1957 paper on washing B&W cine film, 10 litres of water per 1000 feet of film.

I agree that 5 mins in running water has more dilution/time to diffuse, just that it's not a fast enough flow rate to agitate the water and ensure good washing of a film in a spiral over such a short time. It's why both Ilford & Kodak suggest inversion and dumping for smaller tanks "For rapid
washing in a small tank, fill the tank to overflowing with fresh water and then dump it all out. Repeat this cycle 10 times."

In practice most people would be using a much higher flow rate anyway so the issue's less important, and if you buy even a cheap film washing unit the specified flow rate is very considerably higher.

At Kodak's rate washing a single 35mm film in a small tank would be washing with a dripping tap

Ian
 

Ian:

If I read the Kodak "fill and dump" recommendation correctly, it is intended to be an alternate method, which provides quicker washing. I infer from the wording used that the increase in speed comes at the expense of an increased use of water.

I just did a test on this. I took a 1 liter graduated container and put it under the kitchen tap. With the flow turned down to the smallest continuous flow that I could set (about 1/8 inch), it took 6.5 minutes to fill the liter.

So yes, it is a very gentle flow, and most people will be using a considerable amount more.

You will recall, however, that the original question raised was how best to deal with cold wash water. I think this flow information makes it clear that if you want to use a wash water reservoir of some sort to provide room temperature water for washing, something relatively small like a 4, 3 or even 2 liter reservoir should work fine, provided one can limit the flow sufficiently.
 
My darkroom only has cold running water. I have a kettle for adding a little hot to the cold to get good temps for developing. It's tap water for washing for me, and I've not noticed reticulation. I shoot mostly medium and large format. The water is quite hard, and I wash for 30-60 minutes. (Depending how long it takes to eat dinner, water the garden, hang up laundry or whatever other chore I've assigned myself.)
I might try a test to see if there's a difference, but I'm not particularly fussed about it.
 
sly said:
I've not noticed reticulation.
Click to expand...

I wonder if that's just it, that you haven't noticed? Mine is not terrible, doesn't jump off the film under the loop, but, when compared right next to some others I have developed with more consistent temps the grain is definitely increased.

I think the suggestion of immersing the developing tank in a container of the colder tap water so that is slowly cools to temp is a good one.

Any suggestions for slowly lowering the temp of 6 4x5 sheets in a slosher tray?

Shawn
 
The use of HCA has been mentioned here, is that a recommended step? I get very confused about this subject as I'm pretty sure I've seen many posts stating that it's not necessary for film. Is this one of these things which people just disagree on, or am I confusing HCA with another product entirely?
 

HCA isn't really needed with films & resin coated papers, but some like to use it. It's major benefits are with Fibre based papers, where it helps with archival washing, and cuts times.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Shawn, I think what fools people is that people assume micro reticulation is like conventional reticulation, when most of the time it's just grain clumping sometimes going unnoticed because the photographer has never had finer grain with the film/developer combination.

I'd place the tray and slosher in a larger ray, and use running water to cool the outer tray which will slowly bring the slosher/tray down in temperature.

Our just add cooler water slowly over a 5 minute or so period, longer if it's very much colder, until the tray is at wash water temperature.

In practice though I just wash with tempered water, a couple of 5 litre jug's with a kettle to adjust the very cold water, it's very quick, simple and reliable.

As I usually have at least 2 dev tanks on the go or a few 10x8 negs to wash I use the first rinse water for the second tank or tray to save water, and so on, usually the first gets about 8 wash cycles the rest 2 extra.

Ian
 
Ian Grant said:
I'd place the tray and slosher in a larger ray, and use running water to cool the outer tray which will slowly bring the slosher/tray down in temperature.


Ian
Click to expand...


great idea ...
i did something like that to make a water jacket years ago
but i took an 8x10 tray and drilled 3 holes in each of the long sides
and 2 in the short sides. i have water at a constant temp flowing in the tray
and i had my dev and water baths in the jacket so they were the same temp.
it would be easy to do to a 16x20 tray if you wanted to control the temp
of all the trays in the developing process ...

thanks for the info on micro reticulation
i had never heard of that before.
 
RalphLambrecht said:
.............Test show that washing efficiency is increased by water hardness. Soft water is not ideal for film washing...............
Click to expand...

Ralph, where can I find out more about this? I have hard water and have never used it, or rather, always ran it through the softener first.

I think my hard water might be to cold (I think around 58F) but I can rig a water tank that would let it get to room temperature first. I also would add a filter of some kind. Note! Hot water can only be soft water so would not use it.

How about hard water vs. soft water for prints?

Thanks for any info you can share.
 
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