Nothing like developing at 11:30 at night...

[Stephanie Brim]

Yeah. I just remembered that my Litre of fixer may be shot...figured I'd try a couple rolls before I did everything I had. So I'm part of the late night crew again.

Anyone else do this? When I was first developing, I did it frequently because it's a heck of a lot easier to blot out light when it's dark outside anyway.

 

[jlw]

Yeah, I've done it zillions of times -- usually because the photos had to be done tomorrow, or I was too excited or curious about seeing what I'd gotten to wait.

The REALLY fun part comes when you're developing film at 11:30 at night, and need to have finished prints ready by 8 am next day! Then you're in for developing the film from, say, 11:30 to 12, having a snack while it's washing, then waving a hair dryer over it for a half-hour or so trying to get it to dry faster, then mixing up Dektol while it's hanging for a few minutes, then holding it up to the light trying to pick the best frames about 1 am. Then you're ready to start printing, hoping against hope that you don't run out of anything because there's no place to run out and buy more paper, fixer, etc. With any luck you've made a few decent prints by 2 or 2:30 am, so all you have to do is stay up until about 3 am washing them... then you're ready to squeegee them and lay them out to dry before getting in a restful three hours of sleep!

Yup, when I was about your age I used to this fairly often. And I hated it! So why does it make me feel nostalgic now?!?!?

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I'm loving it. The stuff's in the fixer now. Gotta go wiggle it around.

 

[Chaser]

I will be developing after my roomates stop eating food so that i can clean the kitchen... that should be about 11:30 ...wouldn't trade it for the world.

 

[ChrisN]

Stephanie - concentrate on the job in hand! I made a mess of a roll of film by trying to watch tv at the same time. I got the developer and fixer mixed, or was it the stop bath and developer? Anyway - I ruined the roll!

 

[wclavey]

It reminds me of the many nights working at a small daily paper back in the late 70's. We didn't start developing film until 11:00 PM and prints had to be done by 2:30 AM to get to the printers. I had a full time day job, then went to the darkroom at about 10:00 pm to get ready for the nightly rush. Sometimes, I don't remember how I got home when it was all over. Ahhh, to be young again...

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Heh. It was fun. Won't do any more tonight, though...at least I don't think I will. I'm still pondering.

I want to develop the roll of HP5 that I have sitting on my desk because there's a photo on it that my cousin wants, but I may do that tomorrow.

And my fixer isn't dead yet. These photos turned out fine. One set is a bit light and I think that it's the film having been expired longer than the other one...but the rolls themselves are nicely fixed. 🙂

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Well, I knew of that test. But it's a full mixed thing of fixer that I haven't used yet. I wasn't sure if it had a shelf life or not...apparently it's longer than I was aware of.

 

[ikiru]

I souping some tri-x in diafine right now! (1 in the morning!) For the two reasons A) easier to keep it black and B) I'm excited about some photos I took tonight! (just don't ask me about the roll I lost tonight due to my dumb assness and bulk loading!)

-jay

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Oooh, oooh! I have a film loss story.

I went to New York City at 16 to sing with my choral group at Carnegie Hall (yes, I've stood on stage at Carnegie. I can now cross that one thing off my list of things to do before I die). I took 5 disposable cameras (yeah, I wasn't really happy about this either) worth of photos, including some really nifty shots from the plane. I got home with 3 of the cameras. One of the ones that I actually lost was the camera with all the shots of the clouds and NYC from the plane. Really, really sucky.

 

[ikiru]

I actually had the film come off the roll, and I found a dark room (that wasn't dark enough) and fumbled to get the film back in the canister, I fumbled too long and had no luck...hence I "lost" my roll of film. Good sense would have been to wait till I got home and to just load it onto a reel. But there were some good shots to be had (that I hoped would be better than the currently messed up roll) so good bye old roll!

-jay

 

[kaiyen]

As you've discovered, fixer doesn't really have a shelf life - its effectiveness is based entirely on silver content and saturation. I have kept fixer around for printing over a year and it's still been fine.

I develop at 10 or 11 all the time. I work during the day, after all, then dinner, etc, and voila.

allan

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I'm so tired now...but I'm hoping that will pass later on when I come home and crash for however long I need to. 🙂