film process with x-ray film chemicals?

[ianhu]

Hi all,

I work in a biology lab and have access to developer and fixer of x-ray films. Would these work on camera films as well? Has anyone tried this before?


cheers,

ian

 

[mfogiel]

This I don't know, but you can use xray film in a large format camera, to take pictures. Many people cut it down to size and do it.

 

[Scandium]

Perhaps...

Perhaps...

X-ray film is processed in a high contrast developer, e.g. D-19. D-19 will work for conventional films, but the negative will be high contrast with few middle grey tones. You may find this useful or you may not.

The stop and fix are pretty much the same as for regular film processing. Stop mixed for X-ray processing is usually more concentrated to better neutralize the more alkaline X-ray developers. It won't be a problem for regular still processing.

 

[x-ray]

Give it a try. Dilute about 4 part water to 1 developer and try a clip of exposed film in it. Most likely it will have greater contrast but you might be able to tame it. For the x-ray work I do I use D-19 with HP5. X-ray film is grainy compared to conventional film. My guess is the developer is going to be a moderate grain developer. With the exception of dental x-ray film modern screen films use a fluorescent screen or set of screens that the film is sandwiched between. The screen fluoresces when hit with x-rays and that is what exposes the film, not the x-rays themselves. Testing blue and green sensitive x-ray film I found to my surprise the film is lower sensitivity to x-ray exposure than HP-5.

 

[chrism]

A few years ago, before we swapped over to digital X-rays, I took a film into the hospital's darkroom and ran it through the processor. I was a bit nervous as if it got jammed in all those rollers there'd be some laughter the next morning. After a few minutes it extruded itself into the hopper for dry films and didn't look too bad. Rather contrasty and a few scratches though. I never did it again because of the scratches.

Chris