It's getting hot these days ...

steamer

steamer

Well-known
Local time
9:35 AM
Joined
Jan 20, 2006
Messages
963
The chemicals (D76) are about 26 degrees centigrade today, how do you deal with this? Put em in the fridge? an ice water bath? Crank up the aircon, wait for Winter? I've only been developing film for a short time, haven't done it in warm weather yet.
 
I mix D-76 1+1, so I use water that is colder than my D-76 to arrive at a temperature I can use. If you use D-76 undiluted, then yes, I'd suggest the fridge for awhile.
 
Thanks Bill, another stupid question--what about the fixer and wash, am I looking at disaster if they are 26C?
 
Place some ice cubes in a plastic baggy and let them cool down the developer or place the developer in the freezer for a short time...
 
I like Sam's suggestion, too.

As to the fixer and so on - it is important that all the liquids that touch the film be as close to the same temperature as possible, because a nasty bugger called 'reticulation' can cause problems when something appreciably colder or hotter than the film's gelatin touches it while it is wet and soft.

With that being said, in my opinion, a few degrees difference are not that big of a problem. I think to have reticulation the difference must be fairly large. However, I could be mistaken on that.
 
I take 1 gallon drinking water bottles and fill them then freeze them. I have a homemade sink that I fill with water and place these frozen bottles in and place the processing chemical bottles in it to cool them off.
 
Or do it at 26C and use the Ilford graphs to convert development time (also available on the Massive Dev site)
 
Wintoid
That was my first idea, but I'm always wrong about developing so I thought that couldn't possibly work.
 
The problem with converting the time using the graphs is when dev time gets around or less than five minutes. Small timing errors with short dev times cause big problems. Longer dev times absorb small timing errors better. That is one reason I usually dev D-76 at 1+1. Besides being slightly more economical (well, if you use D-76 as a one-shot anyway), and giving slightly higher accutance at the expense of grain, it also gives me around 8 to 10 minutes dev time, depending on the film. Straight D-76 is already too close to five minutes dev time to my liking - adjust for warmer water and you're looking at 3 or 4 minutes with some films. Way too fast. Make a 30 second mistake there and you've got problems.

Normally, adjusting time for temperature is fine, but I try to avoid short dev times, and that's what you'd get with D-76 straight. Just my 2 cents.
 
I do it simple :)
Mix water form fridge at 12 degree with drinking water at 26 degree up to 20 C.
Now I dilute my developer and fixer and put the liquids in big dish full with 20 C water (I live in dessert area with 38 - 40 C at this season). Thermometer is in the dish and I hold bag with ice cubes in standby. I work in clean area. The water in the dish will be used for stop and finaly for rinsing using Ilford Rapid Fixer (short procedure. See how this is done from the Ilford fixer pdf file).
I like the action. I am in between 20.2 and 19.8 C.
 
I finally souped a roll of Fuji Across 100 in 1:1 D 76 for nine minutes at 22 degress. Cooled the developer with the diluting water as Bill suggested, and put the fixer, etc., in the freezer for a bit. The negs look good, I will see when I scan them after they dry.
 
Last edited:
I've been struggling with the same problem here --- not helped by the fact that my darkroom, such that it is, is in the Attic -- turns into a hot torture chamber by the first of July. I recently started developing film down in the basement (helps a bit). I also use *frozen* plastic bottles of water to equilibrate my water bath-- it's important to circulate the water when you do this, I have used a relatively large picnic cooler + aquarium pump with styrofoam floats/cutouts to hold the chems.

My husband recently took pity on me a found a used Jobo TBE to help maintain the temp. Looking forward to trying that out.

JT
 
Turned out OK, looks like a roll I took with the OM2 (an honorary rangefinder) hope no one minds if I post one shot.
 

Attachments

  • img327.jpg
    img327.jpg
    169.4 KB · Views: 0
JCT said:
I've been struggling with the same problem here --- not helped by the fact that my darkroom, such that it is, is in the Attic -- turns into a hot torture chamber by the first of July. I recently started developing film down in the basement (helps a bit). I also use *frozen* plastic bottles of water to equilibrate my water bath-- it's important to circulate the water when you do this, I have used a relatively large picnic cooler + aquarium pump with styrofoam floats/cutouts to hold the chems.

My husband recently took pity on me a found a used Jobo TBE to help maintain the temp. Looking forward to trying that out.

JT
Click to expand...

If you're interested, you can also look at the so-called "Panthermic" developers, in which development continues to completion and stops, so time/temp are less relevant. There are trade-offs, there always are, but google for panthermic developers and you might find something you like.
 
steamer said:
Turned out OK, looks like a roll I took with the OM2 (an honorary rangefinder) hope no one minds if I post one shot.
Click to expand...

Could just be my monitor, but that image looks very contrasty to me. I see a lot of white and a lot of black and not a lot of in-between. I am wondering about your dev time - is it possible you overdeveloped it?
 
Steamer: The occasional OM shot is always welcome. I've posted (gulp) one or two. :D

I agree with Bill, they look contrasty, but that could be totally unrelated to temps ... could be time, as Bill said, or the scan/curves.
 
Probably a combination of my adjustments and should have pulled a little because the sunlight was blazing. Here is one without any adjusting.
 

Attachments

  • img324.jpg
    img324.jpg
    229.7 KB · Views: 0
Better, but it looks like a very contrasty scene to begin with. Asian black hair is often as black as black gets - and you're lost some detail here. However, it looks like this is what, a beach? On a bright sunny day? If the sand is very white, the range of possible values here appears so large that no film could contain it. A tough photo to pull off.
 
Diafine developer may be an option here. It is, as Sr.Guapo sugested "Panthermic", and has works well in contrasty, mixed lighting scenes.

Robin
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom