student needs help!

im trying to find a list of common processing faults for college

assignment but not havin much luck, can anyone help!

If you're only talking film development, probably the one I read about most is using fixer instead of developer as the first step. Clears the entire film with no images being developed.

 

Only other ones I've seen much of are too much/little agitation, or somehow incorrectly mixing chemicals.

 

Sure there are others, but I find film development to be a pretty error free process. Only guilty of under agitation once, having never made any of the other "common" mistakes.

 

Now, if you want to talk about printing, I got plenty to add, the biggest of which is forgetting to stop down the enlarging lens after you've opened it up to make the image brighter for focusing. I pretty much do that on every other print I make!

re: agitation - it's not just a matter of too much, it's also a matter of too vigorously. I agitated like a mad man when I was in class, and had development patches all along the sprocket holes Very bad.

 

When you do agitate, do it gently. I get through only 2 inversions during the 5 seconds in which I agitate.

 

allan

Here's some of the ones I remember....

 

-Improperly loading the reels. Having one of the spirals touch another can lead to

clear spots on the negatives.

 

-Watching temperature. Make sure the temperature of your developer is within the

recommended range for processing times. Plus, make sure the temperatures of your

stop bath, fixer, etc. are within +/- 5-10 degrees.

 

-Remember to "rap" the tank to dislodge any air bubbles.

 

-Watch to make sure the fixer isn't exhausted.

 

I've personally never have had a single roll of self-developed b+w turn out bad...but

I've been in the lab when others have made all of these mistakes and it isn't a pretty

site.

While I have never seen a comprehensive list of processing errors if it was my assignment to develop such a list I would start by listing all prep and processing steps one by one for both negative and paper. Then I would brain storm each thinking up as many errors as possible. For example in prep for negative processing you might list chemical preparation: chemicals failed to disolve - temp too low/ chemicals mixed at wrong dilution/ chemicals mixed in wrong order/ chemical solutions out of date etc. I bet you could come up with 100 possible errors without even breaking a sweat. Let us know how many you came up with. Actually seems like a useful excercise. If you know what not to do you probably have a good idea what you should do.

I know folks who have poured in the fixer before the developer.

 

Game over, man!

I've also seen students reverse the ratio in mixing developer all the time -- with Sprint's D76 clone, instead of 1+9 they do 9+1 and end up with massively overdeveloped negatives.

Another one would be using old developer.

What was that assignment? Find a list or compile one?

Look in the Upton Photography book.

There is a comprehensive list there:

 

- Under/over development

- Under/over fixing

- Air Bubbles

- Too much/liitlle agitation

- Exhausted develper/fixer

- Scartches

......

My own self-education has been like that line from the movie, "there's a

million ways to screw it up, and if you can think of fifty, you're a genius." And I

am no genius.

 

Temperature, tempurature, tempurature.

Tough assignment for someone who hasn't even had much opportunity to screw up many times.

 

Here are some off the top of my head that I've seen way too many times:

 

1. Pouring in fixer instead of developer and then wondering why the negatives are blank.

 

2. Turning on the regular room lights before capping the developing tank after loading film onto reels. Or leaving loaded reels out of the tank.

 

3. Fumbling stuff in the dark and loosing your opener (I use an ordinary beer bottle opener), scissors (I like neat ends) or, worst of all, dropping the entire roll of film.

 

Some of these problems can be remedied in your personal darkroom by attaching openers, scissors, etc., to strings. Nothing helps a dropped roll tho', especially if it decides to unspool and roll itself under a cabinet.

 

4. In community and school darkrooms where someone other than the supervisor/instructor is assigned to maintain the large batches of chemistry, someone will eventually replenish the D-76 with fixer.

 

5. Having the lid pop off a stainless tank during inversion agitation, dumping the reels onto the floor or, at minimum, fogging the film. Gotta mate those lids and tanks whenever possible.

 

6. Not using enough chemistry. This is especially true when using plastic tank systems with inversion agitation. The Spanish made plastic tanks are the worst of all at trapping chemistry in the light baffle/funnel lid. Then you wonder when one entire edge of your negatives didn't come out right.

 

7. Minor variations in time, temperature and agitation aren't really screw-ups. They simply make the difference between mediocre negatives and really good, easily printable negs.

 

You'll manage to invent a couple yourself. Have fun.