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My first B&W processing for 15 years

C

cliffpatte

Speed camera anarchist
OK, so I got the Rodinal, the stop bath and the fixer. First attempt to load a roll into the Paterson reel was a disaster (kept on getting stuck and bent) so I took that one out of the changing bag as a throw away roll for testing my loading skills in the daylight. Eventually it worked after retrimming the end of the film, then I loaded reel 2 in the bag again.

OK, so at 25:1 it is 6 minutes at 20 degrees for Acros (actually 26 degrees when it started). One minute of agitation followed by an inversion every 30 seconds (ish). Then I drained the developer and stuck in the Stop and flished with water - result still some grey on the outside of the film but looking like images on the other side - aha, so need to put the fixer in methinks - did that for 3 minutes ish and then flushed with water again - voila, now it looks like this:

4585893677_a83a6aabbc_b.jpg


Still not entirely convinced that I did everything correctly - hey ho when its dry I'll scan it.

Cliff
 
lifted the lid and looked at the trailing end of the film. I was assuming it isn't light sensitive after developing and stopping.
 
Well we shall see how it comes out with interest, but at least you are getting some nice shots of the process...but...you are doing this in the kitchen? Is that wise?
 
Flossie said:
Well we shall see how it comes out with interest, but at least you are getting some nice shots of the process...but...you are doing this in the kitchen? Is that wise?
Click to expand...

Hobson's choice really - it's either the kitchen or the bathroom if I need to use water.
 
The film is very much still light sensitive after stopping.
Developer changes the exposed silver-halide to silver.
Stop kills the developer solution (water is just as effective as a chemical stop).
Fixer removes un-exposed halide from the film surface. It isn't until the end of fixing that the film can be exposed to light again.
The negs and image above look a bit hot to me, which may be due to opening the tank. I like the picture though, the hotness adds something to it.
 
When I used a Paterson reel (particularly with 120 film) I put 2 inches of scrap film in the reel and used that as a guide for loading.
 
Nice one Cliff. I do like that wide angle. Glad to see you back at it. I'd suggest getting a tub (the kind used for doing the dishes) and put the tank in there in a water bath. Use ice if you have to, to get it to 20C. Also, don't forget to give it a tap after the inversions to get rid of any bubbles. What are you using for a final rinse? A few drops of fotoflo in the rinse does wonders for removing spots.
 
Thanks guys. I haven't discovered the joys of rinse aid yet and I live in a hard water area so I'll have to get some distilled water and some photoflo for the next roll to reduce the limescale problem. There's a lot of guesswork in using the 12mm lens on a film body - no quick peep at the image unlike the m9. still, it is more "exciting" not knowing what you're going to get ;-)
 
I think that's a good thing - I turned the auto review feature off on my pentax dslr since I don't like being lit up after every exposure, and generally the urge to chimp is distracting.
 
Our water is very hard but I just use the filtered water we use for the kettle to mix chemicals, as stop, and for the final rinse (with photo-flo). For the main wash I use warm tap water. The Ilford technique is something like, rinse 1 - agitate 20 times and discard, rinse 2 - agitate 10 times and discard, rinse 3 - agitate 5 times and discard, and it seems to work OK for me.

I mix the chemicals up at 20C using hot or cold water as appropriate - you don't lose/gain much temp during processing at 20C anyway, and it's only the developer that really matters.

I don't think you should use photo-flo in the tank or with the film on the reel - just use a plastic tub of water to dunk the film in before hanging to dry.
 
No - I just rinse and hang mine up in the shower cubicle. The emulsion is quite soft until it dries, so it's easy to scratch if you mess about with it.
 
Cliff

suggest you practice threading the reel with a developed old film. that way you can check what's going on. back in the day I used patterson reels and a tank as well.

I used to use an old bottle opener (one of the pressed steel ones) for opening the film canister.

Your inversion sounds good; it's important to distribute the chems and agitate. temperature is important.

the good thing is that your scanning process can address and restore much of the damage evident in your neg.

persevere!
 
Cliff,

I'm not sure if you're using centre load or self loading spirals. But if you're using self loaders, one thing I picked up a long time ago, is to play a warm hairdryer over the spiral for about 1 minute before loading. This banishes any residual dampness which can cause the film to slip, and also makes the plastic expand slightly, which increases the grip on the film as it loads.

Try it, you've got nothing to lose!

Ian.
 
Thanks Ian,

I have just done my first ever MF process and it looks OK. Getting the film off the reel was a lot less hassle than 35mm (no scissors and no bottle opener and it loaded smoothly). The film is currently hanging up to dry (in the bathroom note Flossie ;-)

4588328113_321cf54e90_o.jpg


there is a bit less light in the bathroom and I wasn't that worried about getting a totally blur free image, but anyway these negs look a lot more like what I would expect.

4.5 minutes in Rodinal (1 minute agitation then every 30 secs), then flush then stop then flush then fixer then flush then rinse with photospeed rinse aid then hanging on clips on the shower curtain rail over the bath. It took about 20 minutes end to end which is not too bad I think.
 
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