Developing, scanning, printing with limited resources

[kipkeston]

Hi everyone. I'm moving to a region of Turkey called Cappadocia for a year to do cancer research in villages with high incidence of mesothelioma. I'll be living in a small hospital in one of the villages. Currently I am 100% analog and I am wondering if you have any tips for maintaining an analog process in a place with limited photographic resources. I'm not sure how/where to obtain a supply of tri-x, xtol and other chems for a year. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing.

 

[hans voralberg]

Well bring enough with you ? Use bulk roll to save up on space, Xtol is in pack so I dont think they're too cumbersome. Fixer is tough though. I imagine with a few jugs and water you can dev almost anywhere light tight.

 

[kaiyen]

printing is harder. Are there long shelf life print dev's out there?

Get a long life developer for film, fixer will exhaust but if you use some techniques you don't even have to take it to a proper disposal place, and use water for stop. Go concentrate, heavy concentrate, for both developer and fixer. I would not go powder devs because once mixed to stock they don't last as long. Unless you get like 500ml bottles or something, but you need a lot of bags. Buy like 10 bottles of rodinal instead, for instance. Diafine is an option (yes, you heard me say Diafine).

does that help?

 

[Ronald_H]

Look up Diafine. It works great with Tri-X and is very uncritical of temperature and time. Drawback is that you cannot control contrast as with a regular developer. But easy it is.

 

[FPjohn]

Hello:

Rodinol,PhotoFlo,Kodak powder fixer packs,bulk film (HP5 or Trix) and loader. Any Epson flatbed from the 3200 on will do an adequat job of scanning and an Epson C88 will give you (BO or MIS inks) excellent prints. Load up on cartridges and Durabrite ( or compatible) paper. The hospital probably has a darkroom.

Good light on your interesting year
yours
Frank

*Tetenal makes a powder kit for C41 chemistry if you wish to do colour. The C88 is the Clark Kent printer here too.
*Where are you?

 

[kmack]

Dante Stella's The Guerilla Darkroom (sic) is an interesting read for this kind of thing.

As mentioned Diafine could be a real plus in this situation. Fixer may be your only concern. You can go with the packaged Kodak powders but you may also want to look up some 'home brew' fixers like TF-3.

 

[kipkeston]

hmm, I've never loaded bulk but I could learn. They get about 18 rolls right? I could pack that much I think. Diafine, I'm reluctant to switch dev but I've heard good things. thanks

 

[rgripp]

mesothelioma - chest x-rays?
Small hospitals, so basic radiographic setups, not digitalised yet?
Get chummy with a radiographer, no-one will spot an enlarger in a dark room, much less a couple of developing tanks; or be more dishonest, and claim that you MUST be able to make analogue copies of screened x-rays for your research.
I imagine European suppliers would be able to send you film and chemicals to Turkey; might be worthwhile staying simple and using one shot film developers such as Ilfotec HC or HC-110 that will keep forever undiluted.

 

[thomasw_]

Kip, If you use Rodinal already, then I would stick with it. As many have stated, fixer is the main hassle. But I would try some of the powdered fixers before you go. If they work, then that would seem to be the best stuff to bring to Nyssa, etc..

 

[iamzip]

I must also recommend Diafine. Comes powdered, so it's easy to pack. Once mixed, it lasts about a year - you reuse it, pour it out of the tank back into the bottle. Time and temp aren't critical, and you simply use water for a stop bath. I'm sorry but I don't have any recommendations as to fixer, I just started souping it myself again.
I don't know what your resources are, but a good cheap scanner is the Epson 4490, you can sometimes buy it refurbished directly from Epson's website for around $100.
the only requirement, of course, is that you must find internet acess to keep us updated!

 

[vieri]

Hi everyone. I'm moving to a region of Turkey called Cappadocia for a year to do cancer research in villages with high incidence of mesothelioma. I'll be living in a small hospital in one of the villages. Currently I am 100% analog and I am wondering if you have any tips for maintaining an analog process in a place with limited photographic resources. I'm not sure how/where to obtain a supply of tri-x, xtol and other chems for a year. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing.

Hey there, I am based in Istanbul, Turkey since 2000 - you can easily find all Ilford products and almost all Kodak here, including fixers, stop baths, developers, wetting agents, you name it - as well, you can find here all Ilford BW films and Kodak too (not as easy). I would be glad to help you by sending you supplies from Istanbul to Cappadocia if this would be of any help to you. No Rodinal here that I know of, and probably very tough to have it shipped internationally to Cappadocia, but again you could use me as a collecting point for international shipments and I would be glad to ship it to you wherever you are using internal couriers and such. PM if you are interested, all the best for your work there - Cappadocia is a fantastic region, I hope you will also have some time to get around a bit.

 

[kipkeston]

wow! Thanks for the info I won't be moving until October but I'll keep all of that in mind.

 

[Joao]

For developer you can consider paRodinal: Sodium sufite, Sodium Hydroxide (the same as used for cleaning pipes) , paracetamol (easy to find in a hospital) and water. Very cheap and lasts forever.
Regards
Joao