A good day turned bad...

[shyoon]

Saturday started out so well:

- Went for a nice early morning run
- Spent the day in the park with my two nephews and a roll of Kodachrome
- Worked for a couple of hours with some great friends

Only to get home at 12.30am and deciding to develop some rolls of Neopan 1600 that I took in Melbourne the week before in preparation for a long day in the darkroom on Sunday:

- First, I spent a good half an hour trying to get my film onto my reels. I've never had a problem before, but for some reason the film kept ripping as I attempted to put it on the clip.
- Then when I finally got my tanks loaded up, I proceeded to develop the film with fixer and then fix with some XTOL.

Needless to say, the film is now ruined and the vast majority of the photographs that I took down in Melbourne are no longer.

Incredibly frustrated with myself and I can't even bring myself to develop my remaining rolls and get into the darkroom. A very bad day indeed.

 

[coelacanth]

Awwww. So sorry to hear that. I actually said "awwww" when I read the part "developed with fixer" 🙁 I tend to do midnight developing after a long day myself. Sometimes it's a good idea, sometimes it's not so much.

One time, I developed rolls from Paris trip with awfully exhausted D-76 and ruined more than a couple rolls, hated myself. :bang: I switched to one-time dev use after that.

Keep your chin up, and hope you'll have some good time in darkroom in no time.

 

[semilog]

Experience is how you avoid mistakes. Mistakes are how you get experience. 🙁

 

[gb hill]

Needless to say, the film is now ruined and the vast majority of the photographs that I took down in Melbourne are no longer.

Incredibly frustrated with myself and I can't even bring myself to develop my remaining rolls and get into the darkroom. A very bad day indeed.

Just shows ourselves we are mere humans we all fail, we make mistakes! I know how you feel because I've been there myself, more than once! but don't waller in defeat! Shake it off & determine you are going to do excellence by developing the remaining rolls of film!🙂

 

[35mmdelux]

When I started shooting Leica RF I made clumsy mistakes. I kept at it; eventually I improved. There is a learning curve.

 

[jpa66]

Many similar things have happened to me throughout the years. It's always a bummer, but there's really nothing you can do about except take comfort in the fact that you're not alone in your darkroom mishaps.

 

[agricola]

Seok - sincere condolences from another M4 user 😎

I feel your pain. And now you have made me very apprehensive. My turn is coming!

Dan

 

[btgc]

I were going to start new thread, but probably will take care about RFF's and shortly describe that OP isn't alone in universe.

Today, when normal people eat watermelon and stare at thermometer above 30C mark, I decided to develop roll of LegacyPro 400.

First, I spooled film on reels and didn't check few outer threads are stuck together at upper side (my spool has grooves on lower plate but not on upper).

Second, because of hot weather I decided to cool one tank, load film into another, fill cooled with developer and then swap reels from empty tank into full. Nah! They stood closely each to other, lid of full didn't set fully but I had started counter on cell phone (light on display, that is). Happily, that didn't hurt. Then my wife called and I broke my timing, but proceeded with estimated figures (need dedicated timer or watch).

Third, my fixer were becoming vintage (11 months and 12 rolls behind), though previous roll came out fine and I hoped it should work for this roll too. Nada, negative were milky, but I realized what happened and mixed fresh fixer, on the way wasted 15ml of concentrate as I didn't looked up chart but divided figures in mind. Then I poured those 15ml into another bottle, happily with water only. Well, finally I scraped together remains of reasoning and refixed film, which came out fine. Now it's drying. I shouldn't believe fixer is eternal chemical.

Moral - changing time when I develop, and unusual conditions like very hot weather make me acting weird. I think professionals are those who can not only repeat sequence, but are not dependant on outer conditions to complete task. That said, I'm amateur developing film for one year.

Thanks all people at RFF who help to start and continue film based photography journey!

 

[MikeL]

I've gone to a check list of sorts, mostly about where each chemical is. If the fixer bottle is where the developer should be, I'll end up developing with fixer. I cant help it, it is like a fixed action pattern for me. I've learned to 'measure twice' (where stuff is) before I start dumping stuff in, or it's a crap shoot.

I feel your pain shyoon!

 

[ferider]

Sorry, Shyoon. Everyone has days like this though.

WRT dev/fixer sequence, I remember like this: the stinky part comes last.

 

[SolaresLarrave]

I've read so many mistake-horror stories here that I decided to do my best to prevent them.

BEFORE beginning any developing session, I take my chemicals, mix my batches, pour them into bottles labeled with HUGE lettering, and then I place the bottles in the order they'll be used: Developer, Stop, Fixer, HS bath, and in the end the soapy solution from Kodak. Since I like pre-soaking my film, that also allows me to get my chronograph ready, along with other little things.

Sorry about your day... I'm sure you learned how NOT to do things after this. Take care! 🙂

 

[Thardy]

Sorry, Shyoon. Everyone has days like this though.

WRT dev/fixer sequence, I remember like this: the stinky part comes last.

Even labs mess up. Had a roll of 120 film come back completely clear. Most likely fixed first or completely exhausted dev then fixed. They tried to say I loaded the film wrong.

 

[_goodtimez]

Shyoon have you tried Stainless Steel reels ?

 

[shadowfox]

Shyoon, it's painful now, most things in life that is worthy of your pursuit, will bring some pain along with it. But if you persevere, the end result would be that much sweeter.

I use vastly different bottle shape for developer and fixer in the hope that I'd realize before too late if I grab the fixer first.

 

[coelacanth]

Mighty Rodinal fixes dev/fixer problem and the exhausted dev problem I mentioned earlier. 🙂

 

[Johnmcd]

Ouch! Fix then dev.

My own OCD in that regard 'forces' me to smell the chemical just before I pour. I don't trust myself that I have the right chemical in the labeled bottle after doing exactly what you have done.

I'm in training and we call it 'error based learning'. Embrace it, it's good 🙂

And get back on that horse...

John

 

[Rob-F]

Alfred Eisenstadt was sent to photograph Marilyn Monroe. He was so excited and nervous, he forgot to put film in his M3.

Morale: we all screw up.

 

[hipsterdufus]

Alfred Eisenstadt was sent to photograph Marilyn Monroe. He was so excited and nervous, he forgot to put film in his M3.

If I were in his position, I'd imagine I'd do the same... Of course, my palms would probably be so sweaty from being nervous that I wouldn't even be able to hold/operate the camera...

To the OP, I feel your pain. I shot with a new model over the weekend. Luckily, this was a trade shoot. But, I lost about 6 frames to a shoddy steel reel that had gotten bent and cause me to misload the film. And, on top of that, my normal Rodinal stand development turned out some of the ugliest negatives I have seen: super contrasty and grainy. I still have no idea why they turned out that way. It was very discouraging once I started scanning the negatives.

 

[shyoon]

Thanks to everyone that contributed to this thread. Hearing other people's horror stories made me feel a bit better for myself; so I got back on the horse last night. Double, triple and quadruple-checked that I got all the chemicals in the correct order and my 2 rolls of Neopan 400 came out (much to great relief!) with exposed negatives. Thank God!

Here are a couple of them:

 

[Neare]

beautiful shots, always feels great to get back on the horse and succeed.

Like the one with the trains especially.