Taking the plunge! Sanity check, couple a questions ...

[dmr]

New toy ...

New toy ...

Well, for those who are following this southbound odyssey, I picked up the Jobo a few days ago. I didn't intend to dive into this scene this deep, but this was something I could not say "no" to.

I've never used one of these before but I'm going to give it a try. I downloaded TFM right after I got it home and studied it.

This looks like a very slick little gadget! I had intended to do color processing using a kitty litter pan to keep the solutions at the temperature. Well, this thing kinda reminds me of a combination high-tech temperature-controlled kitty litter pan with a rock tumbler and a filler-dumper thingy attached. 🙂

I was gonna try it tonight, but it's late, I just got in, it's stormy, and I'm too tired and I haven't mixed the chemicals yet and I know it would take an hour at least to stabilize.

So, this will be a project for tomorrow.

I have three rolls exposed, one of them being a test roll that I don't really care about. I plan on doing the first roll in the steel tank I got, so I can at least say I did it manually, and then using the Jobo for the other two.

I'll let everyone know how it goes. G'night! 🙂

 

[dmr]

Success! 🙂

Success! 🙂

Well, yesterday I got my feet wet, well, hands wet, kinda, anyway.

I had three rolls to do, which is what they say is the capacity of 8oz of mixed solutions.

As I said, I wanted to do the first one manually, in the steel tank, just to have the experience of doing it the hard way. 🙂 For that I used the Jobo only as a heated water bath to keep the tank temperature-stable. The second and third I used the Jobo.

For these first three rolls, I followed the mixing, temperature, and timing to the letter!

A few notes on the process ...

* I used the Cinestill brand solutions. In doing some web surfing and price comparisons and such, it looks like the Arista brand kit uses exactly the same bottles with similar but slightly different labels, so I'm assuming those kits are the same.

* I mixed the solutions with distilled H2O. I'm assuming this is best, as in not having contamination from, or worse, reactions with, any stuff that's in the city water.

* I'm assuming a stainless laboratory type stirring stick is OK to use. It said to stir continuously when mixing the solutions.

* The first one I did on the Jobo was 24 exposures. It "walked" into the Jobo reel easily. The second was 36 and it took me a good 15 minutes in the dark to get it right. It would "hang" every few motions. I finally figured out that coaxing the wound film to the exact center using thumb and fingernail would help get it moving again.

* The Jobo makes it almost too easy! Just pour the solutions in, time them, and hold the bottle up to the drain hose to collect them. No real "wet work" at all! 🙂 I'm very impressed.

* As was noted, a film squeegee was not needed. After the bath in the stabilizer solution and a hanging for a couple of hours, the films were dry and clean. No obvious spots at all.

* For the recommended (mandated) seven rinses between the blix and stabilizer, I used plain old city tap water at approximately the correct temperature. I assume this is correct, since the purpose is to get rid of the blix and the stabilizer was indeed mixed with distilled H2O.

* The blix looks like really nasty stuff! 🙂 🙂 🙂

* I'm also assuming that it's OK to simply run the tanks (steel and plastic) and the Jobo bottles and such through the dishwasher. (Yes, I did them in a separate load, not with any human-food dishes or utensils.) 🙂

Below are a few scans from the first, second, and third rolls respectively.

The first roll was just slop shots. Test charts, shots out the window, a few of the cats who would not hold still for me. The one I'm posting is of the one test chart, room lights only, handheld, not scientific but a good sanity check that the colors are somewhat in the ballpark.

The second one is kind of a random one from a roll I had exposed. One of those abandoned roadside signs.

The third is odd color, odd light, using an odd film. This was a roll of Rollei/Agfa CN 200, which I decided to try just for the {whatever} of it. It shows one of the UP heritage steam engines parked by the local stadium in celebration of the College World Series, which is going on now.

Again, thanks to all here for the advice and encouragement. I think that (particularly with the Jobo) this will be a great alternative to the Disappearing Photo-lab Blues! 🙂

 

[x-ray]

There's no need to use distilled water. The chemicals are formulated for an average of tap water with chlorine, sodium fluoride, calcium, iron and sulfur. In my work I've run thousands of rolls and sheets of E6 and C41 and never used distilled water nor has any Kodak rep ever recommended it when visiting my studio. Just think about commercial labs and how much distilled water it would take to mix all the chemicals in each processor in a lab.

The BLIX isn't as bad as you'd think. It's fixer plus halide compounds, iodine and bromine as an example. It's purpose is to convert the processed (reduced) metallic silver image remaining after the developer back to a silver halide compound. The silver halide, silver iodide or bromide, is removed by the fixer in the BLIX.

I read where some folks extend the chemicals way beyond their usable life. They might get away with it but then you might not. When processing film the developer reduces the exposed silver halide to metalic silver and dyes are coupled to that image proportionate to the silver. Oxidation of the developer occurs as a part of this reduction process. It has nothing at this point to do with oxidation from air. Besides oxidation there are bromides that build up in the developer as well as the depletion of the active components that reduce the the silver halide. These components need to be replenished but in these little kits there no provision for that. Times in the developer can be extended up to a point but it's risky for good results.

Also the BLIX need to be oxidized or bleaching won't be imports and color issues will occur.

This is a word of friendly advice based on many years of professional experience. Let's say I'd change labs if I found my lab trying to cut corners and squeeze out more than recommended capacity. Remember labs replenish and run control strips, read them with acdensitomrter and adjust chemistry per the data from the control strips. There's a very delicate balance of chemistry in color.