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; .
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.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.
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 marginallyThis 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.
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.
Does 1960s Vanessa Redgrave come with this as well?and if you think that you are a budding David Bailey reduce it by two thirds'.
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.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.
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 €/$.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?
Extending the fixing time will not help as much as adding an additional fixing bath especially with fresh fixer.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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