What has happened to my negatives?

Thomas Bertilsson said:

I still can't see any difference between negatives that had a pre-soaking bath and those that didn't. Quality, evenness of development, and tonality is the same.

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This is what engineers call a very very flat optimum in a process: you get similar results whatever you do. While we all like fool proof processes for their ease of use, the biggest risk with flat optimum is random fluctuations which appear to shift the optimum in one or the other direction. As a result, and since these fluctuations are indeed random, you end up with different camps strongly advocating one specific set of process parameters because all other sets yield inferior results. And since uneven development is about as uncorrectable as light leaks or dead developer, advocacy is at an all time high.

Scientific research is only part of the cure, since not all effects are fully understood (see Kodak Xtol sudden death). The safest bet is sticking with one set of process parameters which works for many other folks as long as it yields good results and changing only if the results warrant improvement and if there is reason to believe that the particular change will have a positive effect. Another safe bet is introducing redundancy to your process: if not having a shot of some subject matter kills your family and your dog, bring a second camera and shoot another roll.

clayne said:

I think I've figured this thread out: Tronds is actually Muffy.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Shithead!

Tronds said:

Thanks, Shithead!

Click to expand...

I think Tronds lost this discussion even without resorting to Godwin's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law)

In all seriousness, I thank you all for your advice and trolling, but this thread went insane there for a while.

Oscar Carlsson said:

I think Tronds lost this discussion even

Click to expand...

And millions rejoice becausesomeone has been established as the loser of the discussion in this thread. While PE has returned the discussion to a civilised mood, we can always rely on some cheer leaders chiming in with praise for the winner, ridicule for the loser and witty remarks for the rest of us.

Tronds may have been wrong, and he may have brought up his position with excessive vigour, but remember one thing: he tried to help you.

clayne

muffy was a 75+ year old retired hair salon owner with a blue rinse
and a love for baking ( with eggs and flour .. no the other kind )
it is highly unlikely tronds has anything to do with her, unless she is using his body as
a vessel / medium to communicate with us from the spirit world ...
she was soft spoken and religious, and wouldn't use the kind of language
displayed in this thread (and she knew nothing of photography) ... so i think you are incorrect.

rudeofus -

i agree with matt ...
i am willing to listen to reasons and see evidence why pre wet is bad, and maybe i will change my ways
i don't use pre-wet, not for any proven scientific reasons but out of habit, and because i never had problems using it ...
tronds has suggested scientific reasons why pre-wet is bad, i would love to see rather than hear of these problems
so i can ID them in my own film. maybe my negatives are riddled with problems i never knew ?
arguments like this are never over ... there are always going to be people who process their film
or prints in different ways and suggest their way is better than someone elses.

in the end no one is right, and no one is wrong ...
if you have a system to convert your film to negatives,
and then your negatives to positive images, and it works, then don't change what you are doing ..
it is obvious that the OP has problems with his film not being the way he wants it ..
so he is willing to change his system ...
photography are flawed, it is just a matter of using a system that is less flawed ( for you )
than the rest, and gives you results that you can live with ...

john

Oscar Carlsson said:

I think Tronds lost this discussion even without resorting to Godwin's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law)

In all seriousness, I thank you all for your advice and trolling, but this thread went insane there for a while.

Click to expand...

It seems that a lot of people thinks that this is a forum for WINNING discussions, not helping each other.
Looking at this from teh outside, it is like looking at a small group of people patting each others shoulder and saying, "Great work, we took him down too. Now let's prepare for the next newcomer on this group. We will kill him too".

Nice behaviour folks.
You make APUG a rather nasty place to be.

Instead of trying to solve a problem, you keep banging at the newcomer until he quits.
Then you ridicule the newcomer and pat each others shoulder and think you have doen a great job.
Please continue to do so. You won't get many newcomers here when you behave like this.

To be honest, many of you look like morons in the way you behave.
Respect isn't anything you automatically get. You have to earn it, and many of you are deep on the minus side on that account right now.

Well, please continue your celebration. I will keep laughing of you.

Tronds said:

...
Nice behaviour folks.
You make APUG a rather nasty place to be.

Instead of trying to solve a problem, you keep banging at the newcomer until he quits.
Then you ridicule the newcomer and pat each others shoulder and think you have doen a great job.
Please continue to do so. You won't get many newcomers here when you behave like this.

To be honest, many of you look like morons in the way you behave.
Respect isn't anything you automatically get. You have to earn it, and many of you are deep on the minus side on that account right now.

Well, please continue your celebration. I will keep laughing of you.

Click to expand...

Pot, Kettle? Which are you?

jnanian said:

clayne

muffy was a 75+ year old retired hair salon owner with a blue rinse
and a love for baking ( with eggs and flour .. no the other kind )
it is highly unlikely tronds has anything to do with her, unless she is using his body as
a vessel / medium to communicate with us from the spirit world ...
she was soft spoken and religious, and wouldn't use the kind of language
displayed in this thread (and she knew nothing of photography) ... so i think you are incorrect.

rudeofus -

i agree with matt ...
i am willing to listen to reasons and see evidence why pre wet is bad, and maybe i will change my ways
i don't use pre-wet, not for any proven scientific reasons but out of habit, and because i never had problems using it ...
tronds has suggested scientific reasons why pre-wet is bad, i would love to see rather than hear of these problems
so i can ID them in my own film. maybe my negatives are riddled with problems i never knew ?
arguments like this are never over ... there are always going to be people who process their film
or prints in different ways and suggest their way is better than someone elses.

in the end no one is right, and no one is wrong ...
if you have a system to convert your film to negatives,
and then your negatives to positive images, and it works, then don't change what you are doing ..
it is obvious that the OP has problems with his film not being the way he wants it ..
so he is willing to change his system ...
photography are flawed, it is just a matter of using a system that is less flawed ( for you )
than the rest, and gives you results that you can live with ...

john

Click to expand...

I agree with your last part John.

When trying to solve a problem, the best way is to eliminate unneccessary procedures that MAY cause problems, and work from there.
Pre-wetting isn't neccessary, so I tried to suggest that the OP dropped that to start with.
But since I am a newbie here, there seems to be kosher procedure to beat me to the ground.
Well, APUG is a nasty place to be.

I may continue reading, but I WILL NOT CONTRIBUTE IN ANY WAY from now on.
Even if it a question I know the answer to, and nobody else bothers to answer.
I think it this way a lot of people here wants this to work.

In my opininon, anyone can continue to use pre-wetting or whatever routine he/she likes, but as I said, when trying to solve a problem, eliminate unneccessary routines and work from there.

Hexavalent said:

Pot, Kettle? Which are you?

Click to expand...

You are on it again?
Thsi is something I don't understand, so I take it you are ridiculing me again.

Rudeofus said:

And millions rejoice becausesomeone has been established as the loser of the discussion in this thread. While PE has returned the discussion to a civilised mood, we can always rely on some cheer leaders chiming in with praise for the winner, ridicule for the loser and witty remarks for the rest of us.

Tronds may have been wrong, and he may have brought up his position with excessive vigour, but remember one thing: he tried to help you.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Rudeofus.
I am just trying to explain that when you are trying to solve a problem, get rid of the unneccessary routines first, then continue to solve the problem.

By saying something that is appearantly so wrong as pre-wetting MAY cause problems, many of the club-members here joined to beat me to the ground. I do know I did swear in the church, but I tried to help solving a problem, NOT establish that pre-wetting WILL cause problems, but is seems that the hardened gang managed to read that somewhere.

This isn't a forum where the point is to win, but to help each other. Many of the hardened core seems to have forgotten that.
I have ceirtainly lost respect for a lot of the people in here.

There is an old saying that "You can always win an internet discussion, but you will still be a moron."

So, well, they won.

Internet forums are over-populated with individuals who need a platform to spread their beliefs as indisputable gospel. Pre-wet, no pre-wet, Rodinal gives too much grain, XTOL is boring, Saint Ansel used HC110 so that's gold, etc. Usually, (not always but the overwhelming majority), the most vociferous ones are the ones who have nothing to show for it. That is: until you have learned how to properly expose, process film AND most of all how to make a good print (and then you can break all the rules to fit your vision), one should simply be a bit more humble and quit the senseless yapping. I never pre-wet and that has NEVER precluded me from making a good print from a good negative. Does that mean pre-wetting is BS? No, but I don't really care. Do what works for you and spend time perfecting the craft instead of sitting here arguing about nothing.

Tronds said:

Wonder why the rest of the world of photographers stopped pre-wetting the film in the 1930-ies?
As they describe, it was because of intermittent problems with uneven developement, but please go on to reccomend a long forgotten and not needed procedure that is known to introduce problems.

Why the H... use pre-wetting when it isn't needed and is known to cause problems?

Click to expand...

Funny. I prewet religiously. It never causes problems. It improves the evenness for me, I even prewet sheetfilm, in which case it prevents the film sticking together. In which universe do you develop your film?

E. von Hoegh said:

Funny. I prewet religiously. It never causes problems. It improves the evenness for me, I even prewet sheetfilm, in which case it prevents the film sticking together. In which universe do you develop your film?

Click to expand...

Have a look at earlier posts about ridiculing others.
Have a nice day.

Tronds said:

Have a look at earlier posts about ridiculing others.
Have a nice day.

Click to expand...

Thanks; page two was far enough.

Rudeofus said:

This is what engineers call a very very flat optimum in a process: you get similar results whatever you do. While we all like fool proof processes for their ease of use, the biggest risk with flat optimum is random fluctuations which appear to shift the optimum in one or the other direction. As a result, and since these fluctuations are indeed random, you end up with different camps strongly advocating one specific set of process parameters because all other sets yield inferior results. And since uneven development is about as uncorrectable as light leaks or dead developer, advocacy is at an all time high.

Scientific research is only part of the cure, since not all effects are fully understood (see Kodak Xtol sudden death). The safest bet is sticking with one set of process parameters which works for many other folks as long as it yields good results and changing only if the results warrant improvement and if there is reason to believe that the particular change will have a positive effect. Another safe bet is introducing redundancy to your process: if not having a shot of some subject matter kills your family and your dog, bring a second camera and shoot another roll.

Click to expand...

I simply believe that the difference between pre-wetting and abstaining from it is so little that it's difficult to quantify in anything but scientific work.

I stand by my original assessment that agitation and making sure that the tank is loaded correctly, (insuring the spools stay fully submerged in liquid), and working on agitation, simply based on my own experience that I simply cannot tell a difference in my prints whether I pre-wet or not, even 16x20" prints from cropped 35mm negatives. I've only done a few hundred rolls either way, so perhaps my sample isn't big enough, but there have been quite a few films, and quite a few developers involved.

Advice from an expert is great, but I think even PE would recommend testing it for our own process and make sure it works for us. I have read a hundred accounts of why people use pre-wetting in their process, but I cannot discern a single one of the benefits they claim. I just don't see it. Make of it what you will.

Hmmmm. In the 4 months I've been here I have found APUG to be about the friendliest forum on the web. I've also learned to trust what PE says because he has established a stirling reputation and always has solid scientific backing to his statements.

Mr Tronds, I would be interested to see a document citation regarding pre-wetting causing problems and what those problems are. Unfortunately I don't find that guy's website quite trustworthy.

i think people reading this thread need to take a step back and read what tronds actually wrote.

he said that in some cases, pre-wetting causes problems similar to what the OP is having.
he suggested to drop the pre-wet and see what happens.
this suggestion makes perfect sense.

we'll only know what is actually going on with the OPs film if he burns more film and processes it ...
one without the pre wet, one without a 2nd reel, one with a change in agitation ... and then a variety of different combinations
of the 3 probable causes, and then posts his results so we can further dissect his technique.

hopefully the OP has the time and money to spend on this, because i would love to know exactly what caused his trouble ...

Not worth the trouble with Tronds.

To the OP, pre wet or not isn't the problem. It's just one of consistent agitation.

Tronds said:

Have a look at earlier posts about ridiculing others.
Have a nice day.

Click to expand...

Tronds,

With all due respect, (you sound like a really smart guy), I think you would have been met with more enthusiasm if you had started out in a more humble fashion yourself. You get out of it what you put into it, and you did come on pretty strongly. With the type of confidence you displayed, it's probably best to produce some sort of evidence of your claims, to be taken seriously, or people will get defensive.

Hopefully you didn't sense any disrespect from any of my postings, as I didn't intend that to either you or anybody else.

Regards,

- Thomas

Many of you have made excellent suggestions here and made excellent comments. I would agree with Thomas that adding or omitting a prewet (depending on current workflow) would be advised to see what it does for your workflow. I agree that we should strive to become excellent photographers and printers and not worry so much about the workflow as long as it works.

I have been thinking a lot about this problem. I cannot find the prewet test thread. I found the fix/wash thread, but not the other one. Sorry guys. It was quite interesting IIRC.

Anyhow, one thing I remember was that many water supplies have a lot of entrained bubbles so that as it comes out of your darkroom tap, the bubbles froth up and appear as cloudy water. If you dip in a piece of film, you see the bubbles aggregate and grow on the surface of the dry film. Tapping the film dislodges the bubbles. If they remain, they cause pinholes and streaks (in the pattern formed by the groups of bubbles). Prewetting while tapping seems to eliminate the bubbles before development can start.

Interestingly enough, this indicated a lot of dissolved or entrained air. This affected the keeping of the developer and fix, and also allowed bubble formation in a fresh mixed developer as described above. It was made worse by diluting either fresh or older mixed developer with cloudy tap water.

You can test this simply by sticking a small snip of film into the prepared developer and looking at the surface of the film. If you see bubbles, you may have a problem. If you don't, they you are clear.

This may be a key to this discussion, a clue that may solve the ongoing problem. It may explain why some see a prewet as useful and some do not.

PE

Thomas Bertilsson said:

Tronds,

With all due respect, (you sound like a really smart guy), I think you would have been met with more enthusiasm if you had started out in a more humble fashion yourself. You get out of it what you put into it, and you did come on pretty strongly. With the type of confidence you displayed, it's probably best to produce some sort of evidence of your claims, to be taken seriously, or people will get defensive.

Hopefully you didn't sense any disrespect from any of my postings, as I didn't intend that to either you or anybody else.

Regards,

- Thomas

Click to expand...

I am NOT going to crawl on my knees for anyone.

Tronds said:

I am NOT going to crawl on my knees for anyone.

Click to expand...

I'm not asking you to either. As far as I'm concerned you were trying to help, and that's commendable.
Now I am trying to help you, and I expect to receive absolutely no favor in return. For all I know you might have perfectly viable scientific evidence of what you say, and would like to give you the same benefit of a doubt as everyone else, hoping that you can continue to make valuable contributions to the forum. All I'm saying is that the way you entered the thread, you had to expect some comment in return of similar nature.

With that said, I thought the knee jerk reactions and attacks on you were mean and uncalled for, and no different than school yard bullying.

Perhaps everybody could meet in the middle and settle the dust.

Photo Engineer said:

Anyhow, one thing I remember was that many water supplies have a lot of entrained bubbles so that as it comes out of your darkroom tap, the bubbles froth up and appear as cloudy water.

Click to expand...

What's the "best" way to remove them? Vacuum pump? For instance, I have a vacuum pump for sealing bags, and it has a jar attachment. I could fill a jar, and then apply a vacuum to it. (The Google search results are coming up with membrane devices, not solutions.)

pbromaghin said:

Hmmmm. In the 4 months I've been here I have found APUG to be about the friendliest forum on the web. I've also learned to trust what PE says because he has established a stirling reputation and always has solid scientific backing to his statements.

Mr Tronds, I would be interested to see a document citation regarding pre-wetting causing problems and what those problems are. Unfortunately I don't find that guy's website quite trustworthy.

Click to expand...

You can buy some books about developing and developers and start reading.
Besides that, introducing and keeping a possible source of problems, a step that isn't neccessary, when trying to solve a problem makes things much worse to solve. Eliminate all unneccessary routines and work from there. The problem may be complex. It can be a combination of pre-wetting and insufficient agitaiton. Eliminating the element that isn't neccessary costs nothing and even makes it less work. Why this is such a big problem for many in here is something I don't understand.
Attacking me and demanding a proof for problems caused by pre-wetting leads to nothing. I don't use pre-wetting, have never used it in the more than 30 years I have been developing my own films, both b&w and color. Because of that I can't have any images to present in that matter.
The only problems I hva had with uneven development is with a two-bath developer. Insufficient agitation of the second bath gave almost identical streaks and uneven development as the OP. Continous agitiation was required to get even development.
As this sceneario in a way resembles a pre-wetted film I suppose this film-developer combo requires more agitiation than what is used and recommended without pre-wetting. It is quite simple to check if this is the problem. Just drop the pre-wetting.
Ok I am swearing in the church again, but I don't care.
What website you find thrustworthy or not is your problem, not mine. There are several reports on several places on the web that pre-wetting MAY cause problems with uneven development and streaks. That is more than enough for me to just avoid this extra and unneccessary step.