Alternatives to Ilford Rapid Fixer

Ilford Rapid Fixer has specific smell. I do processing in the bathroom and try to be as clean as possible and ventilate well, but occasionally there is residual odour of that chemical (even if very, very light one). It's not a big problem, but I wonder if there are more "home friendly" solutions.

 

There is Tetenal Odourless Superfix fixer available, which sounds like it could be a problem solver. Does anyone has experience with it (+Ilford films/papers)? I would assume there should be no substantial difference, but wondering if there is one.

Hello. Most rapid fixers are base upon ammonium chemistry. . .that might be the "faint" odor. Most non-rapid fixers combine acetic acid in their formulation which will give you a "vinegar" after smell. For ages I have been using a simple, DIY fixer of Sodium Thiosulfate with a small amount of sodium sulfite in it. You can find several formulas on any web search. A fresh solution clears film (135-36) in less than 3 minutes, so figuring 2x time for a total fix of the film, the film is fixed in under 8 minutes even when many rolls are processed. Aloha, Bill

If you clean up well when you're done and have good ventilation (are you getting enough intake air?) in my experience Ilford Rapid Fixer doesn't have that much of an odor. That said, if you're willing to wait a bit longer for fixing Bill's suggestion of a sodium thiosulphate fixer may be less annoying for you.

Yes, rapid fixers have both ammonia and acetate.

 

If another acid worked well, I suspect that they would use that instead.

Thank you for your comments. The smell is not too bad, but ventilation indeed has room for improvement. Anyway, I will also give Tetenal Odorless Superfix a try and see how does it compare to Rapid Fixer.

The odor you abhor is sulfur dioxide being generated and comingled with acidic acid (vinegar) and effervescing from the fix solution.

 

 

Formula for odorless Acid Harding Fixer:

 

 

Water 50°C 600ml

 

Sodium Thiosulfate (Hypo) 240g

 

Sodium Sulfite (anhydrous) 15g

 

Acetic Acid 28% solution 48ml

 

Sodium Metaborate 15g

 

Potassium Alum (fine granular) 15g

 

Cold water to make 1 liter

 

This is odorless because Sodium Metaborate is substituted replacing Boric Acid which otherwise would combine and form sulfur dioxide. Rapid Fix uses Ammonium Thiosulfate as this ingredient fixes in twice the time. In other words 5 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Important in a high-speed film process or but moot in a home darkroom. Film may not need a hardening fix, OK to omit Potassium Alum.

Update/conclusion. I tried Tetenal Superfix Odourless fixer for printing, happy with it. It really is odourless.

Important in a high-speed film process or but moot in a home darkroom. Film may not need a hardening fix, OK to omit Potassium Alum.

 

Alan,

 

I've been advised that T-grain films should always be fixed with rapid fixer as hypo-based fixers can't adequately fix AgIs. Although it's not necessarily relevant to this discussion, I've also been advised that they're essential for modern color films for the same reason.

 

Can you confirm if this is the case, or is it a wive's tale?

 

Also, I've always used hardening fixers for film and paper. The times I've done E6, one of the things that always noticed is that wet E6 emulsion is EXTREMELY fragile and really nothing like what I'm use to with modern B&W films. Is this just a by-product of the emulsion, or is it because the(commercial) Blix formulations I use aren't hardening? BTW, from old discussions from Ron Morwley(SP?) on here, I add .1% formalin(along with Photoflo 1:200 all in DI water) to my final rinse for E6 for this reason. I think his reasoning had to do with stability although it was no longer done in commercial processes. Do you know anything about this?

BTW, from old discussions from Ron Morwley(SP?) on here, I add .1% formalin(along with Photoflo 1:200 all in DI water) to my final rinse for E6 for this reason. I think his reasoning had to do with stability although it was no longer done in commercial processes. Do you know anything about this?

 

Ron's last name is Mowrey, so it should show up in searches. Two others you might look for are users randrew1 and dan_sapper (Dan specifically said he was an Ektachrome film engineer, as I recall).

 

My experience has been with C-41 (color neg), not E-6, but my understanding was that a certain older-type magenta coupler (in the film), if unreacted, could eventually cause a stain. But formaldehyde could tie up the couplers and protect against this. In the color neg world the major film manufacturers changed couplers long ago, and eliminated the need for formaldehyde.

 

I think that Ron may have spoken of formaldehyde as a means of keeping certain micro-organisms from having your film for lunch, so to speak, but you should verify rather than trust my memory.

 

My experience has been largely in high-volume work, where a lot would have been at risk from a process failure. Consequently we never varied from formally-approved (by a major manufacturer) process variations. We even went so far as to run periodic image-stability tests on our materials, just in case the unforeseen problem were to sneak in somewhere. Anyway, we would have never added in formalin to any of our color materials without some sort of formal approval from Kodak. I can't say if it's good or bad, just that we would have taken the conservative approach. The color films were just too complicated to make predictions; they might have some obscure side reaction going on that might be disrupted by the addition of formaldehyde, and effects might show up further downstream. (Note: your addition is essentially similar to the one-time C-41 stabilizer; I'm saying that once this had been commercially eliminated for a lot of years, it's possible that newer films had evolved with some sort of incompatibility; seemingly unlikely, but possible.) On my own, with my personal film, I'd be much more liberal with experimentation, but there was too much $$ at stake with the corporation product.

 

As a note, there was a long-time Kodak corporate photographer in Rochester, Neil Montanus, who found much of his old film being "eaten up." He actually made prints for a gallery show to demonstrate the "artistic" effect of some of this. I'm sure it can be found with a quick search, and perhaps more info will be found related to protecting the film (as I recall, his problem film had been stored in a humid part of his basement).

 

I don't have any hard info about modern films (with AgI) in sodium thiosulfate fixers; my "solution" is that I just always use Rapid fixers.

 

Ps, a likely source of info on these matters would be the old Kodak "TIPS" publication, seemingly unknown on photo forums. These came out once or twice monthly, and addressed all of the current issues in professional photofinishing, along with recommended solutions or workarounds. If you came across an old lab qc guy who was a packrat, they may have possibly saved theirs.

 

Pps, another good historical record for many detail is Henry Wilhelm's book, available for free download on his website. I think it's about 25 years old by now, but some of the things I mentioned might have been addressed by then.

Alan,

 

I've been advised that T-grain films should always be fixed with rapid fixer as hypo-based fixers can't adequately fix AgIs. Although it's not necessarily relevant to this discussion, I've also been advised that they're essential for modern color films for the same reason.

 

Can you confirm if this is the case, or is it a wive's tale?

 

Also, I've always used hardening fixers for film and paper. The times I've done E6, one of the things that always noticed is that wet E6 emulsion is EXTREMELY fragile and really nothing like what I'm use to with modern B&W films. Is this just a by-product of the emulsion, or is it because the(commercial) Blix formulations I use aren't hardening? BTW, from old discussions from Ron Morwley(SP?) on here, I add .1% formalin(along with Photoflo 1:200 all in DI water) to my final rinse for E6 for this reason. I think his reasoning had to do with stability although it was no longer done in commercial processes. Do you know anything about this?

 

@ Ben Hutcherson ----

 

I believe it’s folklore as there is no significant difference between the end results of film fixed with ammonium thiosulfate (rapid fix) and sodium thiosulfate (standard fix). Hardener is added to prevent excessive swelling and softening of the gelatin based emulsion. Potassium alum is the most widely used hardener. Sodium thiosulfate was the fixer of choice. In the middle of last century ammonium thiosulfate became available, not as a crystalline, but as a 60% solution. Fixers made using ammonium thiosulfate fix in half the time.

 

Films are made with different degrees of hardness. This is based on the recommended time and temperature of the process. Gelatin, when wet, swells. This action opens the structure and allows the fluids of the process to enter and percolate about. The time of development is in part, controlled by the infusion rate.

 

Gelatin, under the microscope resembles transparent spaghetti (a long chain). Color film is comprised of an oily globule of dye. The oily nature permits dye globule to move and pool. Additionally, the dye and the gelatin are organic (gelatin is made from animal bones). This mix becomes a culture media whereby microbe beasties lunch and dine. Formalin (formaldehyde) was added to the rinse agent. This is a biocide that retards microbes and it forms a peptide bond. The gelatin strands are tacked together at every point they touch. This traps the dye globule preventing its migration.

 

About 1980, formaldehyde was classified as a carcinogenic. It was thus necessity to remove it from the stabilizer. The stabilizer was reformulated minus the formaldehyde, however the chemicals in the new stabilizer generated formaldehyde. This satisfied for a while until the emulsion could be changed. It was pre-hardened to eliminate the need for formaldehyde. The current stabilizer contains a mild biocide that prevents the growth of the beasties.

 

Likely the need for a hardening fix with modern films is all but eliminated except when it is necessary to develop using elevated fluid temperatures. Films designed to be processed in roller transport automated developing machines often specify a pre-hardener, usually a saturated solution of sodium sulfate. This makes an alkaline solution that softens the acid plastic removable jet black anti-halation backing (rem-jet) common to cine film. The pre-hardener allows the film to tolerate the scuffs and scrapes of a roller transport system.

Films designed to be processed in roller transport automated developing machines often specify a pre-hardener, usually a saturated solution of sodium sulfate.

 

Fwiw, this has never been a standard operation with C-41 (color neg film), at least with Kodak materials. (But I don't know my way around E-6 or cine films, other than via literature or casual conversation with people who did.)

 

I should say that Alan has been around longer than me, and there could well be non-Kodak, (perhaps Noritsu?) recs for such things.

Formaldehyde was still in use until the middle 90's. I was still mixing it up, and 25gallons of stabilizer warmed up to 90F or so required a frikken respirator to work around.. Were was OSHA when you needed them so we could at least get some better ventilation. E-6 color developer part B was bad enough.

 

Not aware of any discrete hardner going into C-41 or E-6 lines I worked around, then again we were dip n dunk. To combat scratching during proofing we used optical sleeving.

@ Ben: From my experience, you shouldn't need hardener for print fixing. Using it will lengthen the wash time necessary for fiber based paper.

@ Ben: From my experience, you shouldn't need hardener for print fixing. Using it will lengthen the wash time necessary for fiber based paper.

 

Thanks.

 

I've never actually done much with FB paper, but I'm getting ready to do several largish prints(and of course trial runs of smaller prints). I'll make up some non-hardening fixer to do that.

 

I primarily print on RC paper, and it's just a convenience thing of using the same fixer as I use for film.

Fwiw, this has never been a standard operation with C-41 (color neg film), at least with Kodak materials. (But I don't know my way around E-6 or cine films, other than via literature or casual conversation with people who did.)

 

I should say that Alan has been around longer than me, and there could well be non-Kodak, (perhaps Noritsu?) recs for such things.

 

@ Bill C -- Noritsu never modified the specifications of a film or paper process. The machines were built around the manufactures specification. I was Technical Information Manager Buena Park (North American Headquarters). Pre-harder was mainly for Cine films and Kodachrome. It did double duty. Softened for removal the rem-jet. Most cine film has this coat. It's secondary job is to protect the interlinings of the roll of film from fogging during loading and unloading and it protects the cine film from fogging should the camera operator remove his/her eye from the viewfinder. This act can allow light to enter a movie camera. C-41 and its predecessor C-22 as well as E-6 and its predecessors did not feature a rem-jet but likely they could have beneficiated from a pre-hardener. At lot of film was scratched and abraded in a roller transport system. At Dyancolor, our Kodachome machines moved at 100 feet per minute and faster. Preventing scratches as a prerequisite.

FWIW, I've about given up on my local lab for C-41 as they always manage to scratch it all to heck. It's not a HUGE deal on 120(and 35mm to a lesser extent) but when I got a roll of 110 back with a scratch down the center I about went ballistic. 110 is unforgiving.

 

Fortunately, they've yet to scratch any E6 for me.

 

I've switched over to the local camera store for C-41. They(naturally) do roller transport also, but on a fairly modern minilab and are meticulous enough about maintenance that they rarely scratch. The usually do it while I wait(nothing like "15 minute photo") and are about 50¢ cheaper a roll for 35mm(they are more expensive for 120). Of course, they also can only do 35mm, 120, and 220.

 

The other lab requires you to pay upfront and won't refund on scratched film. Back when I used "The Film Lab"(yes, that was its name) in Lexington, KY I'd regularly drop $300 worth of work in the night drop and just pay when I picked it up in a day or two. They never scratched C41 since it was D&D(and would cut and put it in Printfiles for me) but on the RARE occasion they scratched E6 they wouldn't charge me. Often times, too, the scratches were so small that I'd have a hard time finding them. Unfortunately, they went out of business in 2007-they weren't cheap even by 2007 standards, but were worth every penny.