help for a first time dark room developer

[hmiranda]

Today was my first attempt at dark room developing which resulted in two separate rolls turning out with absolutely nothing on them -- just a few shades darker than undeveloped film. I diluted Ilfotec DD-X film developer 1+4 in the plastic film tank which was dutifully loaded in a dark room with light orangish darkroom light. First roll was left in for 10 minutes at 20 c with 30 sec of agitation per minute. followed with stop wash, fixer for 10 minutes, then water rinse and hypo clearing agent. Second role was black & white film taken today and did it for 7 minutes thinking we developed too long and same result.

After loading film in the tank in the room with orange light, we did all of the chemical adding and dumping in daylight. We obviously need a better book than we have to give us the basics. So if that is the easiest advice, please suggest something on that front. Many thanks.

 

[jwcat]

There is a forum down below that is very helpful.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=61

 

[ron1945]

try this

try this

try loading film in dark,practice with ruined film it can be done,but with practice.perhaps your safety light is faulty. in the past when i useed to develope myself i never loaded film in any light.good luck .ron

 

[Al Kaplan]

The "light orange" safelight is for paper, which isn't sensitive to much but blue light. For developing film by inspection you need a green safelight filter, and only use it for a quick look shortly before the developing time is up. Load the reel in total darkness and don't open the tank until it's been in the fixer for at least two minutes if you just can't wait for a peek. Continue fixing for twice as long as it takes to clear the film of the milky look.

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

 

[oscroft]

Yep, you shouldn't use an orange safelight for film - it will fog it.

Total darkness is what you need when loading the film - once it's closed in the tank, you can use normal light.

 

[Roger Hicks]

SAFELIGHT -- no it isn't!

As already noted, total darkness required. If the film were not sensitive to orange light, it couldn't record orange subjects....

Don't feel bad about it. It's easy to gain the wrong impression.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Siluro]

Totally agree about the safelight, however if the rolls came out with 'absolutely nothing on them', then fogging/exposure is not the problem!

I could understand if they were a lot darker than normal. If the rolls were, as the OP stated, only a little darker than blank film then there would of still been the original exposed frames, albeit slightly fogged.

I would say that something else is the problem here. Of course, the OP still needs to switch the light off!

 

[hmiranda]

Thanks everyone. It sounds unanimous. I should have loaded in total darkness. I guess that is common sense now that I think about it. Back to the darkroom....

 

[Al Kaplan]

Wash and dry the ruined roll, then use it for practice until you can load the reel in the dark.