Andy K
Well-known
Mostly dust gets onto negatives after they have been removed from the reels and after they have been rinsed. The dust settles onto the negatives from the air while they are drying, this is why hanging them in a relatively dust-free environment like a bathroom is a good idea. Anywhere else is likely to have a lot of dust in the air for example look at a beam of sunlight in a lounge or bedroom and you will see the dust in the air. This also why it is a good idea to do your developing in the bathroom or kitchen, then you don't have to carry a wet strip of negs through the house.
just keep your equipment clean and give it a quick rinse before each use (do not rinse the tank or reels just before use as you will not be able to get the film into wet reels).
just keep your equipment clean and give it a quick rinse before each use (do not rinse the tank or reels just before use as you will not be able to get the film into wet reels).
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Andy K
Well-known
Ps, here's a couple of images of my film developing kit. As you can see you don't need much and it packs away quite small.
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jimbobuk
Established
Hi folks.. well part II of my quest is in the process of being done.. my first Medium format black and white developed film.. The first set of negatives are drying in the garage right now. At a glance they look like they've come up well.. again i'll scan what i can and put them on my flickr site and post another link up here when i have done.
Sadly this time it didn't go as painless as it could have.
I now have storage bottles so i was able to make up my stop and fixer and then pour them back into these bottles ready to reuse again.
Doing medium format requires more chemicals.. 500ml in my patterson super system 4 universal developing tank, the storage bottles above thankfully hold ~500ml so i'm all set for 1 reel at a time developing
Actual development went pretty well.. again i decided to not bother inverting the tank rather just vigorously used the agitator spindle as I am too concerned of the flimsy lid leaking and didn't want to make a mess. The first cheapy tank that i did my first roll of 35mm with actually recommended to just use the agitator and had no mention of turning it upside down, infact it said whereever instructed to do so use the agitator instead.
The pain was in the reel loading.. and boy did it hurt. I butchered a fuji superia ISO 400 film this afternoon and started practicing with the reel and tank, also getting the opportunity to see how the paper and negative were seperated. In daylight it all looked fairly ok, I was testing on an unexposed roll and didn't really take in that the tape everyone was talking about was conveniently found at the start of the unexposed roll as i fed it onto the reel, absolutely convenient. Later on with film that mattered this situation is sadly not replicated.
I didn't end up practicing with my eyes closed or in the changing tent.. a mistake i think.. but having found it relatively easy with my first 35mm effort i was filled with false confidence in my ability to reel up the film onto the developing reel. In everything went into the bag... in went my arms, and what i hoped to be a few minutes as it was with the 35mm turned into nearly 40mins of frustrated attempts.
I'd read the posts here advising about using the sticky tape to reinforce the end as you thread it, I decided to have a go at this, of course this required that i took the film off its own reel along with seperating the paper from it. Having done so I met with real problems trying to thread the thing onto the reel.
I should mention that i've brought and used with 35mm the Nova Spiral EasyLoader, as shown on this page
http://www.novadarkroom.com/acatalog/Darkroom_Accessories.html
Its a little piece of plastic with 2 cylinders attached.. your reel threads onto one and the film entry point on the reel is moved to line up with a notch in the base that you can feel with your fingers once you are in the dark. Your film drops inside the other cylinder which has a small slit which you can feed the film out of and it naturally heads perfectly square to the entry point of the reel. With the 35mm it really is trivial, once the film is threaded past that initial point you can literally just hold onto the reel only and the contraption holds everything else in perfect places to just load the reel with the usual action.
Having lost the film off the spool to try and use the sticky taped end to thread with I was in a difficult situation to try and use the easyloader to help me with this medium format film. Stupidly i tried just putting the film in the cylinder without it being on the film spool, all this did was let the film expand inside the cylinder and get quite stuck inside it, I had to horribly scrape it as i pulled it out of there.
Getting desperate (and hot and sticky on the arms through the changing bags sleeves I decided this was my only hope.. the patterson reel was so hard that I think i'd spent at least 10 minutes trying to thread the film onto the reel the wrong way!!!!!!
I decided to try and thread the film back onto the reel leaving the taped end out last, to do this i had to fumble and find the paper and re-thread it onto the film spool roll it on some and then force the film and paper back together and wrap it all up.. wasn't easy but eventually had success and had it all back together, not exactly tightly or neatly but small enough to fit inside the easyloaders cylinder..
Thinking this would be it now i trudged on with the aid of the easyloader and tried to load the thing.
I just couldn't do it!
By this point i had put my hands all over the negatives, left them all over the changing bag as i'd manipulated different things trying to suss it out. I think i'd made the reel and the film a little damp, it certainly started to feel more tacky.
40 minutes had gone, i was considering admitting defeat, but then i had one last brain wave. The reel that i'd had so little problems with was outside in the garage.. the tank itself was not suitable for medium format but i just hoped and hoped that perhaps the reel itself would adjust to suit MF. (I think i'd actually confirmed this when i was told earlier how the reels come apart with a clockwise twist, but in desperation and weeks later I'd forgotten whether it would do or not) I pulled my hands out, with icky feelings to how hot they'd gotten in the sleeves of the bag and went and got the developing tank. Thankfully it did adjust and i did so into MF mode.
The last stretch and with the help of family I covered myself and my changing bag with a blanket in a dark room and slowly opened the bag slightly to take out the patterson reel, and put in this other one. All sealed up i had another go.
Welcomed by the familiar and easy to feel enlarged tabs of this reel I felt confident it would work.. you are guaranteed that the film is going to be perfectly flat and square for the first couple of inches thanks to this larger tab, crucially its trivial to feel where the entrance is and you can also put your fingers underneath it to support the film as it comes off the tabs and through the bearings in a way that you simply cannot do with the patterson reel. With all these lovely features i had a go with the stubborn -and by this time as tired as i was- film.. sadly my fears were confirmed, it wasn't working as it should... i tried and tried... and thankfully what felt like an eternity but what was probably only 3-4 serious attempts in 2-3 minutes, the reel was feeding itself and we were in. I wasn't sure it was 100% cleanly threading but it was going on.
A couple of minutes later it was fully on and light tight inside the developing tank.
Dammit i've written far too much on this.. I think i just wanted to vent the wrath that went on in my head for those 40 minutes of struggling.
The short version for me at least is. I'm never going to develop any film using patterson reels ever again!!!!!!!!! sure the tanks look good, the reels seem fine but NOT having the oversized tab is just a killer in my book. Why struggle as i blatantly did feeling for the tiniest thing and even then once threading began getting kinked straight away and coming off the rails. I really hope they improve their reels up to this standard as everything else about them is great.
For now i guess i'm on the look out for more of the better reels so I'll know what to buy next.
As i said developing went well and though i was expecting to pull out the washed/rinsed negs and see a bundle of scratches and marks where i'd had to man handle the whole film for such a long time I was absolutely blown away to see that with the naked eye the negatives all looked in pretty decent condition. There is a bit of scratching at the business end of the film where i'd concentrated most grippings and pushings as attempting to just start the reel threading but other than that the rest looks ok!!!!!
I've saved the stop and fixer, I've noticed a few floating pieces of black inside them.. is this normal.. I'm guessing its the film stuff where the big scrapes are, as the pieces look too big for normal variations of tone in an actual picture.. is it normal to see these things floating in there? is it crucial that I drain and seperate these out from these solutions before reusing them on the next film, or wont they hurt any future stopping and fixing that i do? Finally just for convenience whats the rough lifetime of made up stop and fixer, 120 and 35mm is roughly the same area of film so roughly how many rolls of film can i expect to be able to put through before they're exhausted. The stop has an indicator in it i think so it should be fairly obvious?? Also regardless of number of films put through i'm guessing they're exhausted after say 3 months or so of just being mixed?
Other than that its all good.. negs should be dry soon and i'll cut them and put them into sleeves, and bring them up for a good scanning
Sorry to rant, hopefully the details can be helpful to someone like myself as i was 2 hours ago before the pain began. I'll be more succint in the future.. well I'll try
If you've not tried that easyloader i reference I encourage you to give it a go... its really helped me so far and i dont think i'd like to try and do it without it.. it really is like having 3 hands... I think in the future i'll try to avoid the advise of threading the sticky ended part.. I may even put some of my own tape in there ready to stick onto the end as it first comes off the spool.. its just with the easyloader i'd rather not have to try and rethread the film back onto the reel in the future.. of course the alernative if to fire the film back through the camera without exposing (lens cap on in a dark room) to reverse the film neatly on the spools... but i've heard of RF645s breaking with the film winder so I think i'll give that a miss just to give the camera as long a life as i can
Cheers guys.. its fun now.. it wasn't 20 minutes into 40minutes of changing bag hell!!!!
Sadly this time it didn't go as painless as it could have.
I now have storage bottles so i was able to make up my stop and fixer and then pour them back into these bottles ready to reuse again.
Doing medium format requires more chemicals.. 500ml in my patterson super system 4 universal developing tank, the storage bottles above thankfully hold ~500ml so i'm all set for 1 reel at a time developing
Actual development went pretty well.. again i decided to not bother inverting the tank rather just vigorously used the agitator spindle as I am too concerned of the flimsy lid leaking and didn't want to make a mess. The first cheapy tank that i did my first roll of 35mm with actually recommended to just use the agitator and had no mention of turning it upside down, infact it said whereever instructed to do so use the agitator instead.
The pain was in the reel loading.. and boy did it hurt. I butchered a fuji superia ISO 400 film this afternoon and started practicing with the reel and tank, also getting the opportunity to see how the paper and negative were seperated. In daylight it all looked fairly ok, I was testing on an unexposed roll and didn't really take in that the tape everyone was talking about was conveniently found at the start of the unexposed roll as i fed it onto the reel, absolutely convenient. Later on with film that mattered this situation is sadly not replicated.
I didn't end up practicing with my eyes closed or in the changing tent.. a mistake i think.. but having found it relatively easy with my first 35mm effort i was filled with false confidence in my ability to reel up the film onto the developing reel. In everything went into the bag... in went my arms, and what i hoped to be a few minutes as it was with the 35mm turned into nearly 40mins of frustrated attempts.
I'd read the posts here advising about using the sticky tape to reinforce the end as you thread it, I decided to have a go at this, of course this required that i took the film off its own reel along with seperating the paper from it. Having done so I met with real problems trying to thread the thing onto the reel.
I should mention that i've brought and used with 35mm the Nova Spiral EasyLoader, as shown on this page
http://www.novadarkroom.com/acatalog/Darkroom_Accessories.html
Its a little piece of plastic with 2 cylinders attached.. your reel threads onto one and the film entry point on the reel is moved to line up with a notch in the base that you can feel with your fingers once you are in the dark. Your film drops inside the other cylinder which has a small slit which you can feed the film out of and it naturally heads perfectly square to the entry point of the reel. With the 35mm it really is trivial, once the film is threaded past that initial point you can literally just hold onto the reel only and the contraption holds everything else in perfect places to just load the reel with the usual action.
Having lost the film off the spool to try and use the sticky taped end to thread with I was in a difficult situation to try and use the easyloader to help me with this medium format film. Stupidly i tried just putting the film in the cylinder without it being on the film spool, all this did was let the film expand inside the cylinder and get quite stuck inside it, I had to horribly scrape it as i pulled it out of there.
Getting desperate (and hot and sticky on the arms through the changing bags sleeves I decided this was my only hope.. the patterson reel was so hard that I think i'd spent at least 10 minutes trying to thread the film onto the reel the wrong way!!!!!!
I decided to try and thread the film back onto the reel leaving the taped end out last, to do this i had to fumble and find the paper and re-thread it onto the film spool roll it on some and then force the film and paper back together and wrap it all up.. wasn't easy but eventually had success and had it all back together, not exactly tightly or neatly but small enough to fit inside the easyloaders cylinder..
Thinking this would be it now i trudged on with the aid of the easyloader and tried to load the thing.
I just couldn't do it!
By this point i had put my hands all over the negatives, left them all over the changing bag as i'd manipulated different things trying to suss it out. I think i'd made the reel and the film a little damp, it certainly started to feel more tacky.
40 minutes had gone, i was considering admitting defeat, but then i had one last brain wave. The reel that i'd had so little problems with was outside in the garage.. the tank itself was not suitable for medium format but i just hoped and hoped that perhaps the reel itself would adjust to suit MF. (I think i'd actually confirmed this when i was told earlier how the reels come apart with a clockwise twist, but in desperation and weeks later I'd forgotten whether it would do or not) I pulled my hands out, with icky feelings to how hot they'd gotten in the sleeves of the bag and went and got the developing tank. Thankfully it did adjust and i did so into MF mode.
The last stretch and with the help of family I covered myself and my changing bag with a blanket in a dark room and slowly opened the bag slightly to take out the patterson reel, and put in this other one. All sealed up i had another go.
Welcomed by the familiar and easy to feel enlarged tabs of this reel I felt confident it would work.. you are guaranteed that the film is going to be perfectly flat and square for the first couple of inches thanks to this larger tab, crucially its trivial to feel where the entrance is and you can also put your fingers underneath it to support the film as it comes off the tabs and through the bearings in a way that you simply cannot do with the patterson reel. With all these lovely features i had a go with the stubborn -and by this time as tired as i was- film.. sadly my fears were confirmed, it wasn't working as it should... i tried and tried... and thankfully what felt like an eternity but what was probably only 3-4 serious attempts in 2-3 minutes, the reel was feeding itself and we were in. I wasn't sure it was 100% cleanly threading but it was going on.
A couple of minutes later it was fully on and light tight inside the developing tank.
Dammit i've written far too much on this.. I think i just wanted to vent the wrath that went on in my head for those 40 minutes of struggling.
The short version for me at least is. I'm never going to develop any film using patterson reels ever again!!!!!!!!! sure the tanks look good, the reels seem fine but NOT having the oversized tab is just a killer in my book. Why struggle as i blatantly did feeling for the tiniest thing and even then once threading began getting kinked straight away and coming off the rails. I really hope they improve their reels up to this standard as everything else about them is great.
For now i guess i'm on the look out for more of the better reels so I'll know what to buy next.
As i said developing went well and though i was expecting to pull out the washed/rinsed negs and see a bundle of scratches and marks where i'd had to man handle the whole film for such a long time I was absolutely blown away to see that with the naked eye the negatives all looked in pretty decent condition. There is a bit of scratching at the business end of the film where i'd concentrated most grippings and pushings as attempting to just start the reel threading but other than that the rest looks ok!!!!!
I've saved the stop and fixer, I've noticed a few floating pieces of black inside them.. is this normal.. I'm guessing its the film stuff where the big scrapes are, as the pieces look too big for normal variations of tone in an actual picture.. is it normal to see these things floating in there? is it crucial that I drain and seperate these out from these solutions before reusing them on the next film, or wont they hurt any future stopping and fixing that i do? Finally just for convenience whats the rough lifetime of made up stop and fixer, 120 and 35mm is roughly the same area of film so roughly how many rolls of film can i expect to be able to put through before they're exhausted. The stop has an indicator in it i think so it should be fairly obvious?? Also regardless of number of films put through i'm guessing they're exhausted after say 3 months or so of just being mixed?
Other than that its all good.. negs should be dry soon and i'll cut them and put them into sleeves, and bring them up for a good scanning
Sorry to rant, hopefully the details can be helpful to someone like myself as i was 2 hours ago before the pain began. I'll be more succint in the future.. well I'll try
If you've not tried that easyloader i reference I encourage you to give it a go... its really helped me so far and i dont think i'd like to try and do it without it.. it really is like having 3 hands... I think in the future i'll try to avoid the advise of threading the sticky ended part.. I may even put some of my own tape in there ready to stick onto the end as it first comes off the spool.. its just with the easyloader i'd rather not have to try and rethread the film back onto the reel in the future.. of course the alernative if to fire the film back through the camera without exposing (lens cap on in a dark room) to reverse the film neatly on the spools... but i've heard of RF645s breaking with the film winder so I think i'll give that a miss just to give the camera as long a life as i can
Cheers guys.. its fun now.. it wasn't 20 minutes into 40minutes of changing bag hell!!!!
markinlondon
Elmar user
Hi, Jim.
What a trial. Glad it all turned out OK (eventually). I don't like to gloat but I'm one of those folks who have no trouble whatsoever with loading Paterson reels, 35mm or 120. Don't worry about the floaters in your stop and fix, it all comes out in the wash. My stock ID-11 is now looking very grubby after 8 rolls but the negs are coming out clean.
Mark
What a trial. Glad it all turned out OK (eventually). I don't like to gloat but I'm one of those folks who have no trouble whatsoever with loading Paterson reels, 35mm or 120. Don't worry about the floaters in your stop and fix, it all comes out in the wash. My stock ID-11 is now looking very grubby after 8 rolls but the negs are coming out clean.
Mark
jimbobuk
Established
Thanks for that markinlondon..
Indeed it was an ordeal.. I'm doing the whole non-squeegying thing, the negs still arent dried enough for me yet.. I also think i had too much rinse aid in the final rinse.. can't hurt surely? or will it leave them a bit too greasy afterwards? who knows
On closer inspection it appears that a few frames are actually a bit damaged with my wrestlings.. will see when i scan but there is clear damage at the end i was trying to thread onto the reel all that time.. thankfully most seems to be at the edges outside of the actual image, but there are some marks in the frames themselves.. we'll see how bad they turn out.
As for how you are able to thread the paterson reels.. after such a bad experience i doubt i'll try again... but very impressive that you can do that Just think what you could do with all these other aids in place, you could probably do it with your eyes closed.. ohh wait a minute
I sit and i wait, links will follow.. if not tonight (v late now) it'll be tomorrow.
Cheers. Time for a beer or two whilst i wait.
Indeed it was an ordeal.. I'm doing the whole non-squeegying thing, the negs still arent dried enough for me yet.. I also think i had too much rinse aid in the final rinse.. can't hurt surely? or will it leave them a bit too greasy afterwards? who knows
On closer inspection it appears that a few frames are actually a bit damaged with my wrestlings.. will see when i scan but there is clear damage at the end i was trying to thread onto the reel all that time.. thankfully most seems to be at the edges outside of the actual image, but there are some marks in the frames themselves.. we'll see how bad they turn out.
As for how you are able to thread the paterson reels.. after such a bad experience i doubt i'll try again... but very impressive that you can do that
Just think what you could do with all these other aids in place, you could probably do it with your eyes closed.. ohh wait a minute I sit and i wait, links will follow.. if not tonight (v late now) it'll be tomorrow.
Cheers. Time for a beer or two whilst i wait.
Andy K
Well-known
Jim, another thing which eases the use of paterson reels is to cut two small 45degree corners off the leading edge of the film into the reels. This works with both 35mm and 120. See attachment.
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T_om
Well-known
You are trying too hard. All the 'aids' to spooling a roll of film onto a developing reel are add-ons that are both unnecessary and WAY too cumbersome.
And you are correct. The longer you wrestle with the film and reel in a changing bag, the wetter it gets from perspiration and the more problems you have getting it onto the reel. Clammy hands fondling film whilst trying to get it to feed into a plastic reel that HATES the least bit of stickiness is a recipe for disaster.
Try steel reels and see the vast difference. There is a reason you never saw a plastic reel in a pro lab... ever.
Tom
And you are correct. The longer you wrestle with the film and reel in a changing bag, the wetter it gets from perspiration and the more problems you have getting it onto the reel. Clammy hands fondling film whilst trying to get it to feed into a plastic reel that HATES the least bit of stickiness is a recipe for disaster.
Try steel reels and see the vast difference. There is a reason you never saw a plastic reel in a pro lab... ever.
Tom
Andy K
Well-known
A few sachets of silica gel in the changing bag help too. I found them most useful during the summer months.
amateriat
We're all light!
I tuned into this thread rather late: I hope things are working out on the reel-loading front and such (I prefer steel reels, BTW; once you get the hang of loading them, the process almost becomes automatic).
As for drying the film in as dust-free an environment as possible, it's best to do it in the shortest span of time. In my case, that means an electric film dryer. I was lucky to find a used Prinz dryer via the 'Bay, which uses a collapsible vinyl "cabinet" for hanging the film and helping keep dust at bay, while gently-warmed air is forced through from the top.
However, these dryers are relatively hard to come by. You can always build your own, and quite cheaply, as this article explains.
- Barrett
As for drying the film in as dust-free an environment as possible, it's best to do it in the shortest span of time. In my case, that means an electric film dryer. I was lucky to find a used Prinz dryer via the 'Bay, which uses a collapsible vinyl "cabinet" for hanging the film and helping keep dust at bay, while gently-warmed air is forced through from the top.
However, these dryers are relatively hard to come by. You can always build your own, and quite cheaply, as this article explains.
- Barrett
jimbobuk
Established
Thanks guys.. your wisdom as ever is appreciated.
Negs are in and about to be scanned, i'll see what they'll like in a few minutes.
T_om thanks for the suggestions.. perhaps i'll go for a steel reel eventually.. I will master this first though.
To be honest this particular problem was caused by not trying hard enough, i didn't dress rehearse in real conditions.. fair enough you dont think the easyloader is helpful but aside from getting in the way of the sticky end of the film threaded onto to the reel first I find it VERY VERY useful to me. I'm sure there is a better way in there somewhere but i'll try again tomorrow perhaps.. and this time if the loader works as it should then i'll not touch the film at all, this is its best feature, along with taking away the holding of the film about to be loaded.
But obviously a lot of you guys are doing well without it, so I appreciate how practiced developers like yourselves could imagine it getting in the way.
I can imagine how the diagonal corners on the film would help I'll bear it in mind for next time and "pack" my scissors as it were.
On to scanning.
Cheers guys.
Negs are in and about to be scanned, i'll see what they'll like in a few minutes.
T_om thanks for the suggestions.. perhaps i'll go for a steel reel eventually.. I will master this first though.
To be honest this particular problem was caused by not trying hard enough, i didn't dress rehearse in real conditions.. fair enough you dont think the easyloader is helpful but aside from getting in the way of the sticky end of the film threaded onto to the reel first I find it VERY VERY useful to me. I'm sure there is a better way in there somewhere but i'll try again tomorrow perhaps.. and this time if the loader works as it should then i'll not touch the film at all, this is its best feature, along with taking away the holding of the film about to be loaded.
But obviously a lot of you guys are doing well without it, so I appreciate how practiced developers like yourselves could imagine it getting in the way.
I can imagine how the diagonal corners on the film would help I'll bear it in mind for next time and "pack" my scissors as it were.
On to scanning.
Cheers guys.
jimbobuk
Established
well finally got the film scanned and online.. you can see it here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimbobuk/sets/72157594148942366/
I think i need to move back to home mode instead of pro.. it seemed to be taking a long time to complete each scan. You can see some of the damage on a few of them, most are ok though.
There are the flecks throughout, not sure if thats due to water quality or contamination of the tank and everything else or because i dried it in the same place again. Next time i'll try to do the bathroom drying everyone's been recommending.
Anyone got any pointers on roughly how long the stop and fixer will last, both in number of films or in maximum shelf life since mixed?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimbobuk/sets/72157594148942366/
I think i need to move back to home mode instead of pro.. it seemed to be taking a long time to complete each scan. You can see some of the damage on a few of them, most are ok though.
There are the flecks throughout, not sure if thats due to water quality or contamination of the tank and everything else or because i dried it in the same place again. Next time i'll try to do the bathroom drying everyone's been recommending.
Anyone got any pointers on roughly how long the stop and fixer will last, both in number of films or in maximum shelf life since mixed?