Development error - b&w film turned completely transparant

[Alexander Pylyser]

Hey,

First of I'm new to this forum, so hello all!
I recentley developed 2 kodak T-max 100 iso films. As developer i used Kodak T-max, stop was amaloco S10 and fix agefix.
Now i kinda messed up during development and basically, in my rush to do everything right I poured in my fix before my stop...Although I knew this was bad, I did expect some form of image to come out, but they are completely transparant...Is this because i 'out-developped' the film or...?
Can some explain if this is the reason for them turning blank or was there something else i did do wrong ?
I ask this so i can prevent this from happening the next time.

Thanks in advance,

Alexander

 

[dll927]

Are you sure there WERE images on the film? Transparent sounds like lack of exposure. Overexposure/overdevelopment would cause a totally black strip, not transparent.

 

[nrb]

Any numbers on your films? If no numbers show it should be development error. If numbers can be seen but no images it should be exposure. It happened to me once with an old (2 months) bottle of Ilfosol S... Shelf life of some developers can be very short.

 

[Pherdinand]

sounds to me that there was no development or no exposure happening!
Stop bath should not be this critical. But if you fix without developing this could very well happen.
So the usual question follows:
Do you see the film edge markings? numbers, film name, that stuff?
If you do, exposure was the problem. If you don't, development was not enough...

 

[Alexander Pylyser]

Hm yes im 100% sure the films have been exposed.
Other things i expect that might have been wrong are some of the dillutions, i used a 20ml bottle to measure, so they might have been a little inaccurate, but still this shouldnt really be the problem.
Another things is my films now kinda 'crackles up' whilst drying, has this something to do with the spool or the environment i put them in ?

Thanks for your quick reply !

 

[Alexander Pylyser]

Right i totally forgot about that, no film numbers visible...
I have my developer for over a 6months(and even longer) but have never opened it, it might have been in the store for a while aswell, would it be that the developer is outdated ?
I developed it for the right amount of time and did the right amount of aggitation aswell. when I poured it out of the tank it did colour pink, but I read that was just the anti-halo layer coming off ?

 

[aad]

Sounds like the film was fixed, then developed. Or the developer/times were way off.

 

[Alexander Pylyser]

No I first developed, then fixed.
The dillution I used with T-Max was 80ml of product + 560 ml of water(24 °C) for two T-max 100 films. I developed for 9 mins...
I'm really in the dark here to what went wrong...

 

[Chuck Albertson]

Right i totally forgot about that, no film numbers visible...
I have my developer for over a 6months(and even longer) but have never opened it, it might have been in the store for a while aswell, would it be that the developer is outdated ?
I developed it for the right amount of time and did the right amount of aggitation aswell. when I poured it out of the tank it did colour pink, but I read that was just the anti-halo layer coming off ?

You got the fix and the developer mixed up (it happens). The pink or purple dyes in TMax films comes out in the fix, not the developer, and the absence of edge numbers indicate that they were never developed before they were removed by the fix.

 

[MartinP]

Now i kinda messed up during development and basically, in my rush to do everything right I poured in my fix before my stop...Although I knew this was bad, I did expect some form of image to come out, but they are completely transparant...

Hallo Alexander,

From your description above, the results are exactly what would be expected when the dev and fix are swapped. The fixer removes undeveloped silver so there were also no edge numbers left either.

To try again, get rid of the chemicals you have mixed for the first try, above, as the fix and stop will no longer be reliable after the mix-up (you cannot really be 100% certain what is contaminated with what).

Note that for confidence-building purposes you can develop just a foot or so of the test roll then, assuming everything goes according to plan, thoroughly wash and dry the reel etc. before using the same mixed chemicals to develop the rest of the roll. This assumes that you can complete both processes within a few hours, otherwise the developer may deteriorate, but it is one way of saving a few pennies.

Good luck and we are all remembering our own "oops" moments I'm sure 😉

EDIT: Seems like we agree on the likely cause !

 

[Alexander Pylyser]

Hey,

I went back to my location and shot another couple of films, developed them and they came out great, so thanks to all !

 

[topoxforddoc]

Once you've smelt fixer, you'll never mistake it for dev!

Charlie