Do you Pre-wash your film?

Do you Pre-wash your film?

  • Yes

    Votes: 233 42.5%

  • No

    Votes: 261 47.6%

  • What's a pre-wash?

    Votes: 54 9.9%
  • Total voters
    548
I do for every developer except Diafine and Xtol. I use a 1 min prewash and use a Jobo processor. In my experience the i minute wash doesn't change times, but might bring temperatures to a consistent temp and also might provide a washing to dyes from the film.

Lco
 
I have not used pre-wash before, but I'm interested to try it.

My current problem with developing is uneven development, aligned with sprocket holes. (Bromide drag?)

It's really bad with stainless steel reels. I tried a Patterson tank and it was gone. Then on the next Patterson tank roll, I only did about 2 or 3 inversions instead of the 5 I had been doing, and it was back. I guess I need more inversions.

All along I had struggled with whether bromide drag was caused by too much or too vigorous agitation, or by too little. Lately I'm thinking too little.
 
I do, and have for many years. Started was I was doing a lot of LF & MF shooting in dusty conditions and pre-wetting (just fill tank, bang, jiggle and dump) seemed to stop my spotting problems.

Old habits die hard.

Oh yeah, now it's all Tri X & HC 110.
 
Ilford Party Line: theoretically a bad idea but probably does no harm in the real world. Certainly confers no advantages. May involve development tome adjustments.

As William points out, it's a REALLY bad idea with two-bath devs.

I've never done it, and never seen the point.

Good books: Haist, Glafkides (Google them, separately)

Cheers,

R.
 
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One advantage of prewashing (if the water temp is the same as the developer) is that it tempers the film to the right processing temperature. Here in the tropics, the film and tank would be several degrees higher than the developer temp. Pouring 20 degree C developer in a 29 C film and tank would alter the process temp.

Just because Ilford says it's a waste of time doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Prewetting is time-tested, and most of Ilford's recent recs aren't, and not too universal.
 
There is no reason to do so except for sheet film that gets hand inleaved agitation.

Imerse the film in such a way as the wet/dry edge starts on an edge and moves to cover the film rapidly without backtracking.

Patterson tanks that fill bottom up work. So does a rotary processor. So does a stainless tank if you drop the reels into the developer in the dark. Pouring thru the top breaks the rules and can get you into trouble, the bigger the tank the bigger the trouble. Single reel tanks are normally ok, but I still do the dark routine. It never causes trouble.


agitate vigorously and in a random manner so as not to set up a pattern which 9 of 10 will try to correct with even less agitation making things worse. I can tell you how do do it, but do not want to hijack the thread.
 
vicmortelmans said:
What I would really love to learn, when reading this kind of discussions, is the hydraulic and chemical detail of the development process.



The same goes for concentration and agitation of the developer. Higher concentrate will bring more developer into the emulsion to react with the silver halides. And agitation will allow for quicker refresh of the developer that's in the emulsion.

And then on a smaller level, what's the role of grain? What is a grain actually? A clob of silver halides? Is it the grain itself that is activated by exposure? Is a grain something binary: activated yes/no - developed yes/no, or is it capable of storing gradations? And about sharpness: Some developers retain the structure of the grain (e.g. Rodinal), others seem to break it down or soften it.

Can someone recommend a good book that covers this process??

Groeten,
Vic
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Long ago, many of us were doing probably too many experiments, but I had a friend with a densitometer and a very good exposure meter. He spent a year photographing gray cards, checking to be sure they were evenly illuminated, and trying various agitation methods, checking the negatives with the densitometer for even development.

We all knew that the common agitation of the day, often turning the film using a spindle, produced more velocity at the outside, and just inverting the tank would possibly lead to uneven hydraulics, so the best compromise seemed to be shaking the tank up and down, except I pointed out that the middle of the frame would get more fluid flow.

Bob finally started shooting sheet film and developing it with a paint brush, painting the developer from one end to the next for the most even development, which for him seemed to yield a very even gray, verified by his testing. Then I pointed out that the leading edge- well you get the picture. At the end of the year he had used a lot of chemistry and film.

I did and do prerinse in most cases, but I also try to use developers that allow reasonable length development. And I use tanks that allow rapid filling from a beaker, and rapid emptying of used developer, plus a generous amount of developer.

I do not rap the tank sharply, any bubbles that firmly attached are not of this earth, and it can cause the tank to crack along the injection molding lines. I have seen people slam a stainless tank down hard enough to crack walnuts. I think some gentle tap is OK. I normally agitate at normal recommended intervals, but seem to find different intervals recommended for the same developers in different sources.

I also use plain tempered water for rinse, rapid fix with hardnerer, a good wash in tempered water, and a final rinse in distilled.

Probably reasonably good treatment, certainly better than machine handling.

Bob did get a letter from AA, saying he had great technical skills, possibly the best he had seen, but knew nothing about photography. He framed it.


Regards, John
 
Chris101 said:
For the chemistry of film, The Fundamentals of Photographic Theory, by T. H. James and G. C. Higgins. A chemistry background is recommended for this one. It's from the 60's, and so, may not be fully up to date, but fortunately, not much has changed with film for the last 40 years!
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Film chemistry and physical composition has changed massively in the last 40 years. For good chemical evidence, try one of Crawley's developers with iodide on a modern film and watch it fail...

Marty
 
As to antihalation dyes, some of the European films have dyes that wash out in the prerinse, Kodak, no. Also, the need for these dyes is not uniform, film with black paper behind them need less I believe, and the base color of some 35mm films seems to have some additional antihalation function, or so I have been told.

I suppose some experiments with the lights on and some scrap film is in order. ;-)

I probably have less energy for experimentation and just go to the pages of data papers and the big Kodak book, and check what I wrote in them to make an estimate of what development times I am going to use that day.

Next long post might be about the photographing of gray scales and all the fun I had testing the ranges of tones of various films. ;-)

John
 
ZorkiKat said:
Just because Ilford says it's a waste of time doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Prewetting is time-tested, and most of Ilford's recent recs aren't, and not too universal.
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As Ilford themselves cheerfully admit, as noted in my post, it probably does no harm. That doesn't mean it's good, either. 'Time tested harmless' is a bit of a non-recommendation.

Cheers,

R.
 
I was under the opinion that pre-wetting resulted in longer dev times as the emulsion had already absorbed plain water.

I dont because I have problems enough with air bubbles with my water supply and do not want to wash out wetting agents.

I did in the past when using Pyrocat HD
 
Roger Hicks said:
As Ilford themselves cheerfully admit, as noted in my post, it probably does no harm. That doesn't mean it's good, either. 'Time tested harmless' is a bit of a non-recommendation.

Cheers,

R.
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Some of Ilford's recommendations don't, and won't work all the time. Like Prewetting and Use of Hardening fixer plus short washes.

Apparently Ilford forget that there are places in the planet where "room temp" is around 30-35C and that the tap will spout water at about the same temps.

It's one thing to temper the processing solutions (dev/stop/fix) at the recommended temps, but it's an entirely different thing to chill wash water as well. Possible but not practical. Ilford advocate the use of non-hardening fixers and short washes. That's sound, since little fixer is retained by unhardened emulsions.

But do that in the tropics, and the emulsion frills or crazes. Seen it happen. Not just with the oldfashioned Efke films, but with Fuji Neopan, and Ilford Pan F as well.

However, using hardening fixer makes the emulsion tougher. And washing the film even in water as it comes out of the local tap doesn't cause their gelatin to swell too much or abrade easily. Washing is longer than what Ilford now say; but since the water here is warmer, the cycle isn't as long as the 30-60 min routine for the 15-20C taps in colder climates.

And prewet here HAS an advantage- it prevents the 'hot' film, reel, and tank from warming the cool developer. That's the reverse of what the fussy tea lovers do in preparing tea - warming up the pot first before putting in the leaves. The English know this well...😎
 
ZorkiKat said:
Some of Ilford's recommendations don't, and won't work all the time. Like Prewetting and Use of Hardening fixer plus short washes.

Apparently Ilford forget that there are places in the planet where "room temp" is around 30-35C and that the tap will spout water at about the same temps.

It's one thing to temper the processing solutions (dev/stop/fix) at the recommended temps, but it's an entirely different thing to chill wash water as well. Possible but not practical. Ilford advocate the use of non-hardening fixers and short washes. That's sound, since little fixer is retained by unhardened emulsions.

But do that in the tropics, and the emulsion frills or crazes. Seen it happen. Not just with the oldfashioned Efke films, but with Fuji Neopan, and Ilford Pan F as well.

However, using hardening fixer makes the emulsion tougher. And washing the film even in water as it comes out of the local tap doesn't cause their gelatin to swell too much or abrade easily. Washing is longer than what Ilford now say; but since the water here is warmer, the cycle isn't as long as the 30-60 min routine for the 15-20C taps in colder climates.

And prewet here HAS an advantage- it prevents the 'hot' film, reel, and tank from warming the cool developer. That's the reverse of what the fussy tea lovers do in preparing tea - warming up the pot first before putting in the leaves. The English know this well...😎
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Sorry, you're losing me. Use the Ilford 3-bath wash seqence, and you need about a litre and a half of cool-ish water for a 2-reel stainless tank. Not beyond the wit of man to produce, even in the tropics. Nor is it beyond the wit of man to cool the tank before putting the dev. in, via a water bath. .

Nor have I heard Ilford interdict the use of hardening fixers in exceptional circumstances -- and water coming out of the tap at 35 degrees is exceptional in most of the world.

I strongly suspect that Ilford has not 'forgotten' anything, and that they know a good deal more about film processing than you or I. It's just that they aren't so doctrinaire about it.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Sorry, you're losing me. Use the Ilford 3-bath wash seqence, and you need about a litre and a half of cool-ish water for a 2-reel stainless tank. Not beyond the wit of man to produce, even in the tropics. Nor is it beyond the wit of man to cool the tank before putting the dev. in, via a water bath. .




R.
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Perhaps you'd have to experience the actual / real (situations here) to see what I meant.

Yes, we put tanks and bottles in cooling baths. But ask anyone who does home BW processing and lives a few degrees from the equator how feasible it is to cool a barrel full of wash water for the final wash.

It's not a question of wit. It's applying the tried and proven in a familiar situation....in our case, following the traditional / old methods of processing is not a matter of doctrine or dogma. It's what the situation calls for.
 
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ZorkiKat said:
Perhaps you'd have to experience the actual / real to see what I meant.

Yes, we put tanks and bottles in cooling baths. But ask anyone who lives a few degrees from the equator how feasible it is to cool a barrel full of wash water for the final wash.

It's not a question of wit. It's applying the tried and proven in a familiar situation.
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A litre and a half is not a very big barrel. That's one of the reasons they recommend this wash technique.

No-one is going to argue that your technique doesn't work for you.

It is widely known that very high temperatures can cause film processing problems. I don't think Ilford has 'forgotten' anything, including this.

Cheers,

R.
 
At this time I do not. I learned the basics with Tri-X and D-76 (without pre-soak) at my junior high school newspaper. I hadn't heard of it until I started joining forums (APUG, etc.) and saw various youtube videos of people doing it (like Jason Brunner). I have recently returned to developing my own B&W so right now I am just trying to get into a routine again. I am interested in trying it some time though.
 
I never found the need but can be useful in tmax films to get rid of the orange film base and save the fixer, mind I don't use stop bath either!
Tap the tank once at the beginning then 10 inversions at the beginning and then a couple once a minute. I think with black and white you need to find your own way that gives the best results.
 
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