Washing Your Film - A collection of how different people wash & save water

[Nicole]

Hi all I thought it would be interesting to see how people fix and wash their film I shoot primarily with 35 and 120 and since I brought this up I'll go first.

Please keep your descriptions quite detailed so we can all learn.
Thanks and kind regards, Nicole

STOP - 30 seconds

FIX - 6 minutes minimum

WASH
fill adequate amount of tap water into small dev tank
agitate 10 x and tip water out
fill adequate amount of tap water into small dev tank
agitate 10 x and tip water out
fill adequate amount of tap water into small dev tank
agitate 10 x and tip water out
fill adequate amount of tap water into small dev tank
agitate 20 x and tip water out
fill adequate amount of tap water into small dev tank
agitate 40 x and tip water out

(This method saves water and washes clean.)

WETTING AGENT

 

[kaiyen]

Nicole,

You use rinse aid after you wash? I've always used it after fixing.

I use a 2 bath fix, as well. so it's like:

Fix A - 4:00
Rinse - 1:00
Fix B - 3:00
Rinse - 1:00
HCA/Permawash - 3:00
Fill/pour out
Fill 10x inversion
Fill 30x inversion
Fill 40x inversion with distilled

then wetting agent in distilled for 1 minute.

allan

 

[Andy K]

Fix 4 minutes

Fill tank with clean water at 20 degrees, invert fully five times whilst agitating, empty.

Fill tank with clean water at 20 degrees, invert fully ten times whilst agitating, empty.

Fill tank with clean water at 20 degrees, invert fully twenty times whilst agitating, empty.

Rinse with photo flo, squeegee, hang to dry.

 

[Nicole]

Allan, I'm sorry, I meant Wetting Agent, thanks for that. Cheers, Nicole

 

[titrisol]

I use a Pterson-like tank for 35mm/120

- Fix
- Quick Rinse [cocktail shaker agitation]
- Open tank lid - Second quick rinse (Any fixer left in the tank should be gone by now)
- Water to cover film, agitate for 30 seconds
- Water to cover film, agitate for 30 seconds
- Water to cover film, agitate for 1 minute
- Water to cover film, agitate for 1 minute
- Fill tank, stand for 1-2 minutes, agitate for 1 minute
- Photo flo
- Hang to dry

** I generally swirl the spirals and move them up-down to increase the flow of fresh water between the "flights" of film

 

[VoidoidRamone]

Fix 3-4 min. (TF-4)

Fill tank 5 times, agitate for a while each time

Photo-Flo (highly dilute, about half or less of what Kodak recommends) for about 1 min.

Hang from ceiling in bathtub with film clips for about an hour and a half
-Grant

 

[ooze]

Fix (Ilford Hypam 1+4):

3-4 minutes for Ilford films,
6-7 minutes for Kodak Tri-X and TMAX films (in my experience Kodak films retain the pink dye if fixed less).

Washing:
Fill tank with tap water at around 20C, invert 5 times, let it sit for 5 minutes, then dump water;
Refill, invert 10 times, let it sit for 5 minutes, then dump water,
Refill, invert 20 times, let it sit for 5 minutes, then dump water.
(For Kodak films, I refill another time and let it soak for a further 5 minutes; this again is to completely remove the pink dye).

Then I remove the lid, fill the tank with distilled water, add a few drops of photo flu and agitate very gently for about 30 seconds. Finally I shake the water off the reels and hang them to dry.

 

[eagleowl]

Wash 1-tap water,5 inversions then empty
Wash 2-tap water,10 inversions then empty
Wash 3-tap water+wetting agent,20 inversions then empty and squeegee.

 

[Paul Howell]

I don't use this method myself, but in my old Kodak How to Make Good Pictures 1943 edition it calls for 6 changes of water with a 5 mint soak between changes. If you use a clearing bath I assume you can cut the number of changes down. I use orbit bath and only a 5mint wash, so may be 3 changes of water?

Paul

 

[david b]

fix for 5 minutes,
30 second rinse in filtered water,
60 seconds in hypo clear,
5 tanks of filtered water inverted 25 times each,
5 minute soak in filtered water with no agitation,
20 seconds in photo flo

 

[Les McLean]

Prepare container of tap water at 20c ready for washing.

Fix 4 minutes

Cover film with tap water, invert 5 times, pour away water.
Cover film with tap water, invert 10 times, pour away water.
Cover film with tap water, invert 20 times, pour away water.
Cover film with tap water, invert 30 times, pour away water.
cover film with tap water, invert 20 times, pour away water.

Rinse in very dilute Photoflow with 25ml Isopropyl Alcohol added

Do not remove excess moisture

Hang to dry in home made drying cabinet

 

[Jose A Martinez]

Fix 3-4 minutes, 6 for TMY
1 minute rinse with tap water, cocktail shaking
2 minutes Hypo Clearing Agent
20 minutes slow running water in a custom made syphon tank
30 sec. Photo Flo 1:100

As far as I can see, only David uses Hypo Clearing Agent. There is a reason to don't use it? It is included in all the descriptions in how to develop film.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I use running water at a very slow speed for washing, I have a device which maintains running water at precisely 68*F (or whatever I want it to be), regardless of cold/hot water temp. I run that water into jars that will fill up my tank with enough water.

I fix for double the time it takes my fixer to clear a strip of scrap film.

One quick rinse with water. Dump water.
Fill tank, invert tank 5 times. Dump water.

Hypo clearing agent for 4 minutes with agitation.

One quick rinse with water. Dump water.
Fill tank, invert tank 5 times. Dump water.
Fill tank, invert tank 10 times. Dump water.
Fill tank, invert tank 20 times. Dump water.
Fill tank, invert tank 40 times. Dump water.
Under running water for about 10 minutes.

Rinse in PhotoFlo.

Hang to dry with a humidifier blowing from underneath to keep film flat.

- Thom

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

As far as I can see, only David uses Hypo Clearing Agent. There is a reason to don't use it? It is included in all the descriptions in how to develop film.

Yes, HCA is really not needed when washing film - this can be easily demonstrated with residual hypo testing.

HCA can help if you have antihalation dye that is hard to remove with fixing alone.

 

[kaiyen]

As far as I can see, only David uses Hypo Clearing Agent. There is a reason to don't use it? It is included in all the descriptions in how to develop film.

what am I, chopped liver? or film leader discards??

I find it easier to just use it all the time. It does help with the film dye, and it's only an extra 2 minutes or so total, with rinse time. It's pretty cheap, too.

allan

 

[Paul Howell]

I use Orbit Bath rather than HCA, 2 mints and a five mint wash rather than 20 without.
There are several very good clearing agents on the market. Has anyone tested to see if you need to let the film soak between water changes?

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

Has anyone tested to see if you need to let the film soak between water changes?

Yes, including Ilford, Kodak, Agfa and several others. Fixer removal from film is a chemical diffusion process (once the layer of fixer on the surface of the film is rinsed off). As a consequence, the maximum fixer removal occurs when the film is allowed to soak long enough for the fixer levels to reach equilibrium in both the emulsion and the soak water. At temperatures around 20 C, equilibrium is reached fairly quickly (minutes).

 

[Paul Howell]

So the old Kodak guide from 1943 is still the recommended approach, soak 5 mints then change the water. I don't see a need to agitate the film as soaking is the key. Thanks Tom.

Paul

 

[Jose A Martinez]

what am I, chopped liver? or film leader discards??

allan

sorry, I didn't pay attention enough to your post, my apologies.

 

[Steve Weston]

Reading through this tread it seems most people have adopted to using the
fill and dump method rather than using the running water option. I adopted this years ago after an article in the old 'Darkroom User' or was it 'Camera and Darkroom' magazine (can't remember now).
Anyway another addition that I made to my washing procedure was agitation followed by the stand. This, I think, was something Barry thornton recommended with his Dixactol developer to help increase the stain. Although I don't use Dixactol any more prefering PMK Pyro I still use the stand after some agitation. While its standing I can clean up the graduates etc and prep my wetting agent. Then I soak the film in Photo flo for about ten mins before hanging up to dry.

Steve.

 

[arigram]

I take the tank filled with the films at the port of the city (which is about two hundred meters down the road) and dunk them in the water.
The negatives come out a bit salty and might be accompanied by underwater fauna and the occasional fish but it saves water!

 

[RAP]

YUM fresh seafood for dinner

 

[Ole]

I would like to try the "Aristotelic" way, but the seawater here is far too cold most of the year. Seawater would replace HCA and most of the washing, and a few minutes in fresh water should remove the salt.

I use the Ilford method (most of the time, and slightly modified):

Fill tank, dump at once (remove adhering fixer).
Fill tank, 5 slow agitations, dump.
Fill tank, 10 slow agitations, dump.
Fill tank, 20 slow agitations, dump.
Hang to dry.

This is for convenience, not with any thought to saving water. I pay per year, not per volume

 

[arigram]

Hey Ole, I was joking, but can you -really- use seawater for washing films?
Apart from salt, how one can be sure that the water is "pure" enough for film washing? Mix some chemical, drop it in the water and wait for the sea to turn yellow or something?

 

[Ole]

I wasn't joking! Kodak "Hypo Clear" was made as a result of research following the discovery that washing film in seawater removed the thiosulfate ("hypo") mush faster than freshwater. After some experimentation it was found that sulfite was even faster than sea salt, and HCA was born

"Pure"? You'll still need a final rinse in really clean water to get the salt out, no matter how well you filter the seawater. But it really does work, and it really does save water compared to just freshwater!