I developed my first roll this morning

[grizzz]

So I figured I'd post my experience to maybe help the next person to try. I used a roll of plus-x in a camera I needed to test so I figured if I completly failed it wouldn't be a loss. Diafine is easy to mix and work with so that is what I used. I used it with kodak fixer at ~74 degrees. I think the biggest thing I had problems with was getting a good workflow going. I almost dumped in fixer at the wrong time since i had all of my bottles sitting in the kitchen sink. I need to mark them better and keep them organized. I got all the way to the hanging stage before I hit a really newbie snag. I didn't prepare for anything to hang the roll on :bang: So there I was walking around the house looking for a clip to hang. Once I found one I clipped it without checking and hung it. Yup, about 2 seconds later down went the roll on the floor...... damn my cat sheds alot :bang: . I will try to clean and scan something tonight to see how bad I messed them up. At least I know that I got images there and a few that didn't hit the floor directly may come out ok. Actually I'm thinking there are some scratches and if this wasn't a test roll I could probably save most of em in PS. Biggest lesson i learned from my first try is have everything in order and ready before you stick your hands in the changing bag. I hope this doesn't make me look like to much of a newbie but what the hell it was fun and I can't wait to do it again. By the way thanks to everyone who posted about diafine since I got this idea from there. Scanning black and white will be the next threads I have to read.....Grizzz

 

[oftheherd]

Don't you love the smell of D76 in the morning (or Diafine in your case)? 😛

 

[f/stopblues]

A couple weeks ago I had the same thing happen with a roll falling off the hanger while wet. I hang my film in the same area that my dog hangs out during the day while everyone is at work, so her black hair is *everywhere*. That wet film sucked up most of the hair in the room I think. I immediately rolled it back onto the reel and dropped it in the film washer again. I washed for an additional 20 minutes and it still managed to have hair stuck in the emulsion, etc.

Moral: firm film clips and hairless pets make for a happy photographer.

 

[kmack]

I think the process of developing the negitive is the most enjoyable part of my hobby.

As for dropping wet film, I think Bill Mattocks has the ultimate cat, wet film story in this thread, it gave me a chuckle.

 

[grizzz]

Thanks, your right I guess it could have been worse. Actually I didn't miss the cat box by much.... I think Chris has an idea with hairless pets. I'll be shaving the cat tonight. 😛

 

[bmattock]

Don't you love the smell of D76 in the morning (or Diafine in your case)? 😛

You wanna know what's funny? I can't smell D76. Seriously. I smell nothing. I think (Kodak Quick Fixer) fixer smells like vinegar. Others have told me that fixer smells like ANYTHING but not vinegar. Weird.

I know I'm color-blind, but this is ridiculous.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

I think the process of developing the negitive is the most enjoyable part of my hobby.

As for dropping wet film, I think Bill Mattocks has the ultimate cat, wet film story in this thread, it gave me a chuckle.

Well, it's funny now. Wasn't at the time...grumble.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

PS - Yes, label those bottles! If you accidentally use Solution B before Solution A, you don't just ruin that roll of film - because you pour the solutions back into the bottles, and now your Solution A is contaminated with whatever was left of Solution B, your Diafine would now be worthless and you'll have to mix a new batch. Getting Solution A into B is not a major problem, and happens in the normal course of development.

 

[bmattock]

Snort some Kodak stop bath. If you can't smell that...you must be dead. 🙂

Never touch the stuff. What's it smell like?

 

[anselwannab]

Congrats on coming to the Darkroom side my young apprentice!

Two things:

I went to work on a Saturday to divide up some powders into actual quart amounts. I used our lab scales and put them into Zip-loc baggies, threw them in the car and headed home. I'm stopped at a light and a cop pulls up next to me, with me sitting there with about ten 100gram white Zip-loc baggies on the passenger seat. We aren't in the best part of town either. Full pucker. Luckily St. Louis' finest just rolled away.

Film Hangers, field expedient:
Take a coat hanger and cut 4 inch long sections with some cutting pliers. Make two hooks, one to hang the film by its sproket holes, the other to loop around whatever support you have. You could probably use a hole punch to punch a hole in the middle of the film also. I double up the sprokets to make sure it's strong enough to hold. I tried all kinds of film wipers, and ended up just using my middle and pointing fingers as a squeege.

 

[bmattock]

I went to work on a Saturday to divide up some powders into actual quart amounts. I used our lab scales and put them into Zip-loc baggies, threw them in the car and headed home. I'm stopped at a light and a cop pulls up next to me, with me sitting there with about ten 100gram white Zip-loc baggies on the passenger seat. We aren't in the best part of town either. Full pucker. Luckily St. Louis' finest just rolled away.

I used to work at a factory in Gurnee, Illinois - we manufactured Sorbitol, a suger-free sweetener made from corn syrup. The pure stuff is white, crystalline, and has that 'diamond glow' to it. Our CEO was taking a big 2kg bag of it to a convention and had it on the front seat of his car when he got stopped at a police sobriety checkpoint (he was sober, of course, it was just a roadblock check). The police had him down at the station, making a LOT of phone calls in the middle of the night. It did not help that our factory was owned by a French company from Lisle - that made explanations even more difficult.

We finally got our CEO back...

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[grizzz]

Funny, I got the diafine in the gallon pkg. I only had half gallon bottles so I measured out half and put the other half in baggies and was thinking just how weird this could be. i guess I wasn't alone in that one. If the gov't is nice and kicks us outa here shortly I am going to shoot another roll to develope tonight. If not i got the weekend to play. No taste test needed. 😉

 

[Doug]

Funny, I got the diafine in the gallon pkg. I only had half gallon bottles so I measured out half and put the other half in baggies...

There's an additional danger in doing this, practical rather than legal. ;-) The powder in the containers is not uniform; that is, some granules have a different chemical makeup from others. It's a mix of different stuff. Some particles are larger, some are denser... some are in greater concentration at the bottom of the container than at the top. The risk is in not having exactly the right mix of chemicals in the final... err... eventual solution if you use only part of the dry product. So it's wise to mix up the entire container at once. Once thoroughly dissolved, then you can divide the liquid up into separate batches.

If you don't have 1-gal containers, you could use something larger temporarily as a mixing tub. Should go without saying this would need to be thoroughly clean at beginning AND end...

 

[Trius]

If you have room to hang it, you can use one of those garment storage bags that hang by a closet rod. Most of them aren't long enough for a 36 exp. roll of 35mm to hang, so you have to hang the film by both ends, looped at the bottom. I bought a square canvas bag since canvas breathes, and the synthetic ones don't. I keep it zipped up all the time, so dust and animal hair (e have 4 cats, a dog and a bird) don't enter while not in use.

Earl

 

[bobofish]

Might sound like dumb advice, but it works for me:
Always place your chemical bottles in the order you will use them, and when you've used them, return them to their proper order.

Eventually, this obsessive compulsive behavior will make it unnatural for you to grab the wrong chemical at the wrong time, or pour fixer into your fresh developer.

I even go so far as to place the lids or screw tops, etc. in the right order, just in case the one or two drops left on the lid polutes one of the solutions.

 

[Trius]

bobofish: Always worked for me.

 

[Goodyear]

Yes, label those bottles! If you accidentally use Solution B before Solution A, you don't just ruin that roll of film - because you pour the solutions back into the bottles, and now your Solution A is contaminated with whatever was left of Solution B, your Diafine would now be worthless and you'll have to mix a new batch. Getting Solution A into B is not a major problem, and happens in the normal course of development.

Something I learned from experience:

As long as you realise before you return them to 'their' bottles, using B before A can still yield usable (I scan) negs. I just dumped the A I used since it was then contaminated with the B that was already in the tank.

 

[grizzz]

OK, I looked at the negs and am not really happy with them. I understand the are dirty due to my hanging problems but alot of them are really grainy. I did A and B for about 3.5 minutes and fixed for 2.5 minutes. film was plus-x. Camera was an M3, no meter and I did sunny 16 to the best of my ablities (which may not be that good). I am not sure if I have exposure problems, develping problems or scannning problems or all 3. I am going to attempt to attach an image to this message but if it doesn't work it is the only image other than my avitar I have in my gallery. Scanning was with a KMIV default everything and nothing was done to this image in photoshop. I have since been able to make it look better in photoshop but was just wondering if I goofed something.http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=23340&cat=500&ppuser=1561

Actually this was one of the better images I got. Most were more grainy than this one. Since this was my first try at developing and at scanning I'm not going to get to worked up over this. I will learn more about scanning in the next few weeks and will try a different film type with a metered camera this week and see how it goes. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Grizzz.

PS how do you get the little thumbnail in the post? I was only able to figure out the link...

 

[Simple]

Almost gave up

Almost gave up

Hi i am a newbie I have been reading books and trying to teach myself about dveloping and printing photos for a while. My husband helped me set up a darkroom studio it was a project that took 3years in the making. You couldn't believe the joy of finally getting to the end of that project. Only to find out that it wasn't quite light tight so I purchased a black bag. Next problem we turned on the water but of course it wasn't going to work the pipes that hubby ran underground had got a hole in it. After he had drilled holes near the house to put posion against termites. So we ran a garden hose up to the darkroom. next problem i purchased a second hand Jobo ATL 2 processor thought I was going to be so easy. Well it started linking water everywhere. Not only that the taps linked hubby didn't screw the sink drain in, we put water done the sink and water come out everywhere. Oh I was having fun. But I thought no this is not going to stop me. So I started to try and find the chemicals to process the negatives. But I was confronted with "why to you want to do that just buy a digital camera or go to the photo labs to develop your photos". I finally found the place to buy the chemicals and on the weekend i started the machine and guess what my first 7rolls turned out blank. i was ready to give up. i didn't know what I did wrong. But I tried again with a batch of new chemicals and it worked. i have developed 3 rolls of film and I was jumping for joy. Now I would like to put them on paper. (Now that should be an experience). Now I found out that you need colour paper to process not the paper you used for b/w prints. (of course I tried to use the wrong paper). sometimes I feel right out of my comfort range I have bitten off more than I can chew. But as they say i have found out alot of ways not to process photo's and one way on how to. I hope you all get a laugh out of this true story. couldn't put everything that happened or I would be here forever.

 

[T_om]

Funny, I got the diafine in the gallon pkg. I only had half gallon bottles so I measured out half and put the other half in baggies and was thinking just how weird this could be. i guess I wasn't alone in that one. If the gov't is nice and kicks us outa here shortly I am going to shoot another roll to develope tonight. If not i got the weekend to play. No taste test needed. 😉

Uh oh.. NEVER do this. As was pointed out, the different chemicals are not randomly distributed in dry form.

Diafine keeps for a LONG time even after it is mixed. There is not need to set aside any of the package contents for later use.

Gallon jugs are everywhere... bleach, drinking water, milk, etc.

Tom

 

[kmack]

Simple... I have not even attempted color at home yet. Bravo for your persistence.

(you got love a thread that re-emerges after a six month hiatus.)