What's wrong with my fixer?

kevs said:

No, that's not aimed at the OP; it's a reply to NB23's comment about twenty-year-old negs that are now deteriorating; .

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Thanks for the reply. I should have paid more attention to the quote in your post which makes it clear.

pentaxuser

David Allen said:

You will often hear that the 'go to' test for fixer is to do the 'clearing test'. This is a totally flawed old chestnut piece of advice. Sure it works (sort of) if you want to save money and do not care about the longevity of your negatives. However, you need to be aware that a knackered fixer bath can still deliver the 'clearing test' way longer than it is actually an effective fixer.

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This test is only flawed, if you forget to implement the important second part of the drill "if clearing time doubles, throw out the fixer". In combination these two pieces of advice aged quite well IMHO.

I use inexpensive plastic bottles, and have found that when making new fixer, it is generally better to just use a new bottle. I am a fairly low volume user, so I only mix new fixer every few months. With higher volumes, this could be an issue

I usually use Ilford Rapid Fix, and it develops black material that tends to precipitate at the bottom and stick to the sides. The bottle can be cleaned but it is difficult, and since I use brown bottles, I can't really determine cleanliness at the end.

Rudeofus said:

This test is only flawed, if you forget to implement the important second part of the drill "if clearing time doubles, throw out the fixer". In combination these two pieces of advice aged quite well IMHO.

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It is true that David Allen doesn't mention the second part of your test directly but I am not sure if this means that in his opinion even the second part of the test doesn't deliver reliability or it improves matters but only marginally

Nor does he say if there is still a reliable test available to the home darkroom user.

I hope he comes back to give us answers and equally hopefully we reach a consensus on relative risks etc Otherwise the newcomer to processing can be left wondering who to believe which no-one wants

I presume that the sulphur smell means that there is no disagreement from either party that the fixer need to be dumped. It may be that long before the sulphur smell arrives that by then or before then the fixer would anyway no longer meet the second part of the test you mention?

pentaxuser

Rudeofus said:

This test is only flawed, if you forget to implement the important second part of the drill "if clearing time doubles, throw out the fixer". In combination these two pieces of advice aged quite well IMHO.

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I agree that the second part of the drill is important but it is frequently not mentioned. It also requires people to make notes of the clearing time when the fixer was fresh. However, the key point is that it only gives you an approximate fix time and no indication of how saturated with silver the fixer is.

If you consider the amount of time you invest in finding and photographing your subjects, the time you invest in developing your film and the fact that you can always make a new print but you can't make a new negative, why would you risk using dodgy fixer?

Bests,

David.

Just to answer pentaxuser, there are two strategies that workers of all levels can employ. You can text your fixer using dedicated testing strips made by Tetenal and others where you dip them in the fix for a specified period, then remove them and wait for a further specified period and then compare the resulting colour with those on the packaging.

The second possibility is to use the manufacturers' suggested capacity limit. This will be that for a sufficient quantity of fixer you can fix a specific area of film (for example a 36 exposure roll of 35mm film has an approximate surface area of 328 square centimetres). However, this needs some interpretation. For general quality standards the manufacturers' guidelines are based on an average. If your film has many frames with lots of highlights there will be less silver for the fixer to dissolve. If you have pushed your film much of the silver will not have been used and the fixer will need to work much harder because there is a lot of silver to dissolve.

When I worked in the photographic department of British Rail in the early 1980s, we received regular visits from an Ilford Technician (the department purchased all of its supplies from Ilford). His advice about fixer capacity was 'if its for the company follow the published capacity guidelines, if its for a private customer reduce Ilford's published capacity by one third and if you think that you are a budding David Bailey reduce it by two thirds'.

To use and interpret the manufacturers' capacity guidelines involves a lot of record taking but only costs time not money. However, my personal preference is to use Tetenal Ag-Fix strips.

Bests,

David.

David Allen said:

and if you think that you are a budding David Bailey reduce it by two thirds'.

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Does 1960s Vanessa Redgrave come with this as well?
I'm somewhere in the middle, in that I'm generally working with Kodak Rapid Fixer without the hardener added, and about half the capacity recommended by Kodak.
However, I am fastidious about tracking use - painter's tape on the bottle and a mark/slash for every roll processed. I do re-use my bottles of working solution, but they are largish bottles, with heavy plastic walls and wide mouths that permit scrubbing.
For prints, as I work in borrowed or temporary darkrooms with RC papers mostly, I depend on throughput tracking and toning to check.

Thanks David for your reply and thanks Matt for the comments. I have two bottles for film fixer. One for 135 film and one for 120 and in both cases mark a label on the bottle with films done and keep the numbers below what Ilford says is the capacity but I had forgotten that Tetenal do test strips until being reminded.

What I find more difficult to keep track of is the number of paper sheets fixed when some are 6x4 test strips, most are 5x7 but occasionally 8x10. I'd lose track too easily so the test strips might then be useful

pentaxuser

David Allen said:

I agree that the second part of the drill is important but it is frequently not mentioned. It also requires people to make notes of the clearing time when the fixer was fresh. However, the key point is that it only gives you an approximate fix time and no indication of how saturated with silver the fixer is.

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The idea of the complete rule set is, that the initial clearing time corresponds to fixer activity, and that the relative increase in clearing time gives you an estimate for silver and halide load. Note: silver load alone is not the whole story, there is a huge difference between Silver Bromide, Silver Bromoiodide and Silver Iodide.

David Allen said:

If you consider the amount of time you invest in finding and photographing your subjects, the time you invest in developing your film and the fact that you can always make a new print but you can't make a new negative, why would you risk using dodgy fixer?

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There are countries outside the EU and North America, in which a single Dollar/Euro can make or break an artistic project. Even within this rather affluent range of countries there are gifted artists who can barely make ends meet. You may have not yet seen the amount of sheer persistence and determination of those people in getting affordable (to them) materials and to get their stuff processed. You probably have not seen the processes these people use to get their expired color film processed for way below 1 €/$.

Of course we all could recommend people to use TF-5 1:4 single shot and be done with it, but let's face it: this approach would cut many people out of an art form, and this art form could greatly benefit from these people pursuing it.

kevs said:

Leave the film in the fixer for twice or thrice the time it takes for it to clear; that will make sure any remaining silver salts are fixed out. Once the clearing time doubles from its original value, dump the old fixer and make some fresh. Exhausted fixer may never completely remove undeveloped silver salts from the film. Remember, T-Grain-style films like Kodak's T-Max range and Ilford's Delta range take twice as long to clear as conventional films, so you double the fixing time for those films.

The other way to ensure proper fixation is to use the two-bath method as you would with prints. The first bath removes most of the silver and the second fresher fixer completes the job. When the first fixer is exhausted, chuck it out and replace it with the second fixer, which you then replace with a fresh batch. Repeat this cycle x5 then start again with two fresh batches of fixer.

You're paying the price for taking shortcuts. C'est la vie.

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Extending the fixing time will not help as much as adding an additional fixing bath especially with fresh fixer.