what is the last thing you developed or printed

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kevs

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I've been printing a few of my older negatives for to use as Xmas gifts; the prints are 6x6" on 10x8" paper. I had a few sheets of decade-old Multigrade IV FB and Galerie, so thought I should use that up. Also I've been using my first pack of the new-ish Multigrade Classic FB; a beautiful paper and much different from MGIV, which in selenium toner takes a cold, blue-grey tone that is perfect for some of my images. The Classic takes a warm purple-ish tone in selenium; I want to test it further to see if I can control that.

Then there's that 40-odd sheet box of 16x20" Galerie in my darkroom...
 
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Inspired by @David Lyga 's success in getting good b&w negatives from C41 film, I tried the following with expired Fuji Superia Xtra 400 film:

0. Gave one stop of extra exposure.
1. Developed for 10 minutes in Adox MQ Borax at 20C. Agitated for 30 seconds initially and three gentle inversions every minute thereafter.
2. Stop bath (water) and fix as I would any regular B&W film.
3. Mixed 100ml of C41 Blix (I used one that came with Tetenal Press Kit) in 400ml of water at room temperature (25C).
4. Blixed the (developed and fixed) film by inspection - poured the diluted Blix solution into a glass beaker, dipped the reel loaded with the fixed film into the Blix solution, rotated the central column continuously, watched for the film rebate and inter-frame gap to turn pale from dark, removed the reel from the Blix solution, checked the image in the frame and if it was still too dense, repeated the previous steps. Blix by inspection took 5-10 minutes. I reused the diluted Blix for the next roll by replenishing it with 50ml of stock C41 Blix.
5. Washed the film in tap water for a couple of minutes.
6. Dipped the film in fixer for a couple of minutes.
7. Washed the film for longer.
8. Rinsed in C41 stabiliser for 60 seconds.
9. Dried the film.

The negatives thus obtained are a visual delight unlike those dark uncharacteristic negatives obtained by straight development of C41 film in B&W developer. The image in the negative dazzles under a light source like a C41 negative has never done.

The change in color in the rebate area happens rather suddenly and one needs to be watchful else the negative might loose more density than ideal.

The method worked with expired Superia 100 and fresh Kodak Ektar as well.
 

David Lyga

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I could not have expressed the 'visual revelation' better, although I use potassium ferricyanide and fixer, rather than kit blix.

The necessity for the blix to allow a full five to ten minutes for this revelation is mandatory, because once it starts, all hell breaks loose and, if blixed for too long, you might end up with either a very faint image or no image at all.

Now, this is to be considered; you have a negative that is basically orange, and that tint will work to lower the contrast when using variable contrast B&W paper. (If you use graded paper there is no lowering of contrast.) So, if planning to use VC paper, keep this in mind and you might want to give a bit more development time to the negative in order to mitigate that contrast reduction when printing. - David Lyga
 
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So, if planning to use VC paper, keep this in mind and you might want to give a bit more development time to the negative in order to mitigate that contrast reduction when printing. - David Lyga

Will certainly keep this in mind. Thanks.

Have you tried printing such negatives in RA4?
 

Black Dog

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You should try the Cooltone FB-sounds like you'd love it!
 

David Lyga

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[QUOTE="Raghu Kuvempunagar, post: 2138077,

Have you tried printing such negatives in RA4?[/QUOTE]

No, I do not see the sense of printing B&W negs in RA4. I am not THAT creative. - David Lyga
 

Sirius Glass

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[QUOTE="Raghu Kuvempunagar, post: 2138077],

Have you tried printing such negatives in RA4?

No, I do not see the sense of printing B&W negs in RA4. I am not THAT creative. - David Lyga[/QUOTE]

Unless you wanted the print on metallic paper, which I did and had I done for me with two 30"x30" prints several years ago.
 

kevs

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You should try the Cooltone FB-sounds like you'd love it!

Thanks; I'd love to try that, I don't do much printmaking these days but I may try it next time I need a new pack of FB paper. Cheers.
 
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No, I do not see the sense of printing B&W negs in RA4. I am not THAT creative. - David Lyga

Unless you wanted the print on metallic paper, which I did and had I done for me with two 30"x30" prints several years ago.[/QUOTE]

@David Lyga has an interesting technique for producing B&W negatives from C41 film using B&W developer and blix-by-inspection. It removes Carey-Lea silver completely and hence produces much better looking negatives than what one would get by a straight forward use of B&W developer on C41 film. Blix won't remove the orange mask however and the negatives have an orange colour. As the purpose of orange mask in C41 film is to balance the colours when printing on RA4 paper, I was wondering if David's negatives would come out as B&W prints without colour cast when printed on RA4 paper. Wasn't really thinking would such an approach make a lot of sense when I asked David the question, but thanks @Sirius Glass for pointing out an interesting use case.
 
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David Lyga

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I would imagine that with proper filtering a B&W image could be made on RA4 paper. But, I do not see the point. To me, B&W on color paper is not as good as B&W on B&W paper.

That orange mask is inherent, it is not going to go away, and that needs to be neutralized if printing upon color paper. And that same orange mask works to obviate about a grade of contrast with VC B&W paper, so be forewarned. But the negatives from my method will truly be beautiful and can be used to obtain great results if you heed what I have said here. - David Lyga
 

MattKing

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If you have a colour printing machine with built in roll paper transport, and the corresponding roll paper processor, or even a combination of the two, you can create very satisfying monochrome prints from black and white negatives, while still printing volumes of colour prints from colour negatives.
Those machines were the rationale for the orange mask in the Kodak C41 based black and white film - the mask made the colour printing filter choice simpler and quicker.
If you are going to do this, aim for a warm black and white, not a neutral black and white. The warmth will tend to hide any (or in some cases benefit from) any slight errors in tint.
 

Black Dog

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Interesting, thanks for that.
 

Pentode

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Sorry to get back on topic, but:
1 roll Orwo UN54+ at EI100 in D-76 1:1, 8:15 at 68F
1 roll Ilford P4 Surveillance Film at EI1600 in D-76 1:1, 18:00 at 68F
2 rolls Eastman 5222 Double-X at EI250 in D-76 1:1, 9:30 at 68F
 

pentaxpete

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Last thing I developed was a cut length of old Kodak Tri-X ( original emulsion) found in fridge stash from someone as gift. I tried home-made Crawley Formula FX-4 made up to his 1961 recipe as I found there are several 'Variations' -- one even includes 'Boric Acid' + the Borax ! Well-- negatives were mostly 'thin' a bit underexposed as I rated film at 400 ASA instead of 250 ASA in previous developers because Crawley said FX-4 gives 60% speed increase ( but must be only for FRESH film). I used FX4 1+1 for 10 mins @ 20oC -- needs a little longer.
'Fog Level' looked the same as IDII 1+1 and DK50 1+1 results. Before that i had found ONE Cassette of the Tri-X which was wound into cassette so i was 'Suspicious'--- I cut a short length and processed in DK50 1+1 and there were IMAGES on it so I processed the rest and it was all beach scenes with waves breaking over rocks and stuff !!!
 

jeffreyg

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I went out Thursday with one roll of Delta 400 120, my 250mm and a 2x for a quickie shoot. On the tenth frame I discovered the lens was not stopping down. It's on route to Hasselblad for repair as I type this. I just developed the film curious to see what I could get with 4-6 stops over exposed. I just picked a time of 9 and one/half minutes at 68F in ID11 1:1 (it seemed like a plan). Oddly enough the negatives look pretty good and should certainly work scanning and analog with a little work as well. I don't plan on making a habit of this but never underestimate the versatility of film.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/
 

Pentode

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I had a similar experience this past fall when my trusty Rokkor 58mm f1.4 became less-than-trusty and got stuck at 1.4. Tri-X in D-76 1:1. I took a wild guess for 6 stops overexposed and overcooked it a little (I think I tried 5 minutes? I’d have to go back to my notes.) but the results were scannable. With a little effort I could probably wet print them, too. It’s pretty amazing what you can get away with!
 

Helios 1984

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- 1 roll of Eastman 5302 at 1.2 ASA in Agfa Rodinal 1:50, 11:30 minutes at 18.5C.

This one happens to be the first roll I hand rolled with this bulk, and I just found out that the beginning was perforated heh
The frame before these two says "START", at least now I know that it was an unused N.O.S bulk.

 
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15 rolls ( 12 rolls of 120, 3 rolls of 135 ) of assorted b/w film
souped in magma a130 mixed with water+sumatranol 130 )
9 mins .. does the trick !
 

jeffreyg

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Just a follow up to my Dec 22 post. I scanned some of the negatives and made enlarged negatives and made four platinum/palladium prints. All worked well. My lens is currently being repaired so all was not lost (except the costly repair) especially since I found out about it at home instead of being away with it and having the problem on a trip.
negative for pt/pd and print

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/
 

Agulliver

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My elderly mother has recently acquired an equally elderly "boyfriend". Nice chap, he gave me a few old cameras for Christmas. One Voigtlander Brilliant had an exposed, undeveloped roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan inside. He had no idea what might be on it, as the camera had belonged to his dad and his brother. I guestimated the age of the film to be at least 40 years old, went ahead and developed in ID-11 stock for 8 minutes. What I got was a film with several mistake shoots but two truly decent pictures. One of his late father, and one of his late wife. The photo of his wife was taken with her posing in front of a van which he used to transport motorbikes to race tracks in the 60s (he was a racer) and he reckons was taken about 50 years ago.

I've rescued old B&W films before but this Verichrome Pan had virtually no age fog and the pictures that were properly taken turned out great. I've had worse results from 10 year old expired TMAX to be honest.

So that was the last I developed.
 

Pentode

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Since this morning:
1 roll Tri-X, box speed, D-76 1:1, 10:40 @68F
1 roll Orwo UN54+, EI 100, D-76 1:1, 7:45 @68F
2 rolls Eastman 5222 Double-X, EI 250, D-76 1:1, 9:30 @68F
1 roll Eastman 5222 Double-X, EI approximately 100, HC-110 1:140, 45min semi-stand @68F
All 35mm.

This was my first attempt at semi stand developing. That roll was over exposed (I wasn't paying attention and forgot to change meter settings after switching film) so I figured it would be a good candidate for an experiment.
Results weren't bad. A little bit of streaking (only two frames affected) and a lot of density, but it looks as though the compensating effect actually worked. I might try again with a weaker dilution or try Rodinal. It looks like it's worth delving into a bit.
 
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