Congrats on your new film retriever and for the step you're taking into the real world of darkness 😎
Francisco, be it metal or plastic reels, I STRONGLY recommend you to get a dummy roll and practice loading it onto the reels under daylight.
That way you can get familiar with how it loads and what kind of touch you should expect when doing it in darkness. You have to rely on your hands and ears there to spot if something is going wrong (it's usually really easy to notice 😛)
I used to pop open the casettes with a can opener but some of them were quite reluctant to work with so since a while ago what I do is:
a) when rewinding, be sure to leave the film leader out.
b) If I fail and put it inside, before going into the darkroom I use the film picker thingie. I also like to first cut straight on the film leader to get rid of the first couple inches of reversed curl. Finally I usually trim a bit the corners to make them rounder.
c) once loaded, remember to put that locking clip in the central column if youre only developing one reel at a time, otherwise the reel could move to top during inversions.
d) As for pouring inside chemicals, I pretty much follow the Diafine box recommendations. First, Diafine A in. A couple slight bump-bumps to get rid of bubbles and first couple inversions. Not too gentle, not too vigorous.
I do maybe 2-3 inversions in that way to the tank while Diafine A is inside during 3+ minutes. Don't worry if it's 4, or 5 or even 6. Nothing dramatic will happen.
e) Pour Diafine A out the tank (and inside its bottle, the whole key is reusability with this thing). With time the solution gets uglier, usually turns slightly grey. After a ClassicPan film soup it got a tasty pink. Again, don't worry 🙂
Be sure to pour out all the Diafine you can, btw, you can help by shaking a bit the tank. (this is why the central column clip is indeed important)
f) Now time for B. Repeat the same as with A. Pour in. Initial bump-bump, maybe 3 couple inversions while it's there. 3+ minutes (I read you can get more contrasty negs by leaving it less time). Pour out, shaking a bit in the last drops.
BTW) I use to rinse the 'embudo' I use to help put chemicals inside in the bottle between processes, so you don't contaminate one with the other. You CAN get some A in the B bottle as it's indeed normal, but DO NEVER allow any of B enter the A bottle. Remember, A is like a bottle full of C4, and B is the detonator 😉 It won't explode, but all A will get activated and become unuseable.
g) Stop bath / wash. I use plain tap water for this step. What I do is fill the tank till water comes out from the top. Then put lid. Invert 5-10 times. Pour out. Repeat two more times.
Again, be sure to get the tank out as much water as possible when finishing this step. Water there will make the fixer a tiny bit more diluted. Shouldn't be a problem, but just in case...
h) Fixer time ! Fixing is important and fixer is as well. Exhausted fixer will ruin a developing session. You can check the 'health' of your fixer by dropping a bit over a light exposed piece of film (a film leader ie). Be sure to check the specifications for dilution and # of rolls on the fixer box. Indeed these people took time to write them and most of the times they are right 🙂
So, pour in the fixer. In this step I discovered I got better results when applying to this process the same inversion policy as for Diafine. If I leave fixer in for maybe 5 minutes I do 2 or 3 couple slow inversions there.
i) Once time is gone, you CAN open the film tank without damage, slightly get out the reel and look at how film looks (don't take it out the reel though). It should be as transparent as possible (you can see a slight color depending on how strong the film base, pink usually), and what you DON'T want is a sort of 'milkyness'. If you see something like that, film is not completely fixed, put it in there, close and wait another minute or to and check again.
j) Ok, it's fixed 🙂 Pour it out, and then time to wash film again. You can repeat the same steps as when doing the stop bath. I usually use a 5 litres can of water per developing session (2 reels tank).
k) Finally, pour in the tank the final wash / fotoflo / wetting agent dilution thing. For sure there are many recipes here. I use Agfa Agepon, 1 bottle cap for 1 litre of washing solution.
l) And that's all, after a couple minutes, pour solution out as well as the film reels, and then do the squeegee thing or pass your fingers (wet with wash solution better) along film to take out the excess of water. Again, there are a lot of recipes here, whatever works best for you 🙂
m) Put the roll in the dryer (shower for me) with a weight clip on the bottom, and let it dry while you have a well deserved coffee / cigar / sherry or combination of them !
n) Pop open the window and let all your neighbours know that you developed your first roll of film 😉
And good luck this didn't come much longer, otherwise I'd have to learn the greek alphabet...
Oscar
