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I had an unusual -- for me -- experience while developing film recently, and thought I'd share what happened just to add to the general knowledge.
I was developing a roll of Ilford Delta 100 in 510-Pyro using Regular Rod's scheme which includes a three minute pre-rinse, and had completed the developing and the water stop bath, and poured in the fresh fixer I'd just mixed a few minutes earlier. Six minutes later, I poured out the fixer, ran in some water, and pulled out the reel to have an initial look at the negatives. To my surprise, the entire film was white, with the negative images clearly visible against the white background. I rubbed the film somewhat with my fingers and it was unmarked, so I concluded that my fixer had been incorrectly mixed to be too weak, so made a new batch, fixed the film a few more minutes, and then started to pour the fixer into its bottle when I suddenly realized -- my fixer bottle was actually the bottle I use for Tetenal hypo clearing agent. Because I'd once used Tetenal Superfix which came in the same bottle, my mental image of "fixer" matched the Tetenal HCA bottle, and there you go. At that point I mixed some real fixer, refixed the film, and all was well.
What I found interesting was that five or six minutes in HCA was enough to fix the film to the point that direct light would not fog it. And that the white background was readily removed by the fixer, though it would not budge when rubbed with a finger. I have to wonder what would have happened if, rather than going ahead and finally fixing the film, I had returned it to the developer. Could it have been fixed just enough not to fog, but no so much that I could not continue to develop it? Because it occurs to me that the white background, with the negative image visible upon it, could offer a means to determine if the negative were properly developed -- something usually only possible using a week green safelight in total darkness.
And speaking of doing things differently -- I vaguely recall a reference to putting sodium sulphite IIRC in the pre-rinse to accelerate removal of the anti-halation layer. Does anyone do this successfully?
I was developing a roll of Ilford Delta 100 in 510-Pyro using Regular Rod's scheme which includes a three minute pre-rinse, and had completed the developing and the water stop bath, and poured in the fresh fixer I'd just mixed a few minutes earlier. Six minutes later, I poured out the fixer, ran in some water, and pulled out the reel to have an initial look at the negatives. To my surprise, the entire film was white, with the negative images clearly visible against the white background. I rubbed the film somewhat with my fingers and it was unmarked, so I concluded that my fixer had been incorrectly mixed to be too weak, so made a new batch, fixed the film a few more minutes, and then started to pour the fixer into its bottle when I suddenly realized -- my fixer bottle was actually the bottle I use for Tetenal hypo clearing agent. Because I'd once used Tetenal Superfix which came in the same bottle, my mental image of "fixer" matched the Tetenal HCA bottle, and there you go. At that point I mixed some real fixer, refixed the film, and all was well.
What I found interesting was that five or six minutes in HCA was enough to fix the film to the point that direct light would not fog it. And that the white background was readily removed by the fixer, though it would not budge when rubbed with a finger. I have to wonder what would have happened if, rather than going ahead and finally fixing the film, I had returned it to the developer. Could it have been fixed just enough not to fog, but no so much that I could not continue to develop it? Because it occurs to me that the white background, with the negative image visible upon it, could offer a means to determine if the negative were properly developed -- something usually only possible using a week green safelight in total darkness.
And speaking of doing things differently -- I vaguely recall a reference to putting sodium sulphite IIRC in the pre-rinse to accelerate removal of the anti-halation layer. Does anyone do this successfully?