paul_oosthoek

Hi there,

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I just came home from a 15 hour day, much of it spent trying to

create peace between various parties who were not internally

motivated to achieve peace. I was hoping to just enjoy reading some

non-emotionally charged stuff about a really safe topic and hobby. I

would really appreciate it if we can keep this forum civil. People

have every right to ask about avoiding or creating grain. There is

no need to censor these topics though any means. We can skip topics

that do not interest us by simply not clicking on the link.

Thanks in advance for keeping photography sane.

I want my negatives to have shades of grey, rather than blacks and

whites. Overexposed, overdeveloped negavives or parts thereof

contain no detail. Same with underexposed, underdeveloped negs. I

find is far easier to increase contrast in printing than to decrease,

given the lesser ability of paper to reproduce shades of grey. I am

also not convinced that the edge markings are a great way to

determine properly developed negs.

Try printing some negs, see what happens. Your negs may be better

than you thought.

And you won't have to argue with security people about airport X-

radiation once the film is processed...

Conrad is, of course, completely correct in his answer. Grain in a

5X7 print from a 35 mm negative should not be extreme with Tri X.

Nevertheless, Tri X will look considerably more grainy than the

average colour print film. Overdevelopment will make the grain stand

out more as well.

By the way, grain is not bad per se. The effect of grain may be used

for various purposes. Some photographers are very effective with

this technique, quite unlike me...

Germany and France are both EEC countries. I would be very surprised

if you could not get your Agfa in France. But I have not been there

for a while....

Don't give up hope yet. I recently developed some film that had been

exposed at least 11 years ago, and the negavives came out near

normal. I over-developed about 10% in ID-11. I guess my quanta had

not wiggled...

I do not remember how I developed the old Agfa films way back when,

but I believe that the technology involved in the film was noting

earth-shattering, and that old fashioned developers should work

normally. I vaguely remember that development time depended mostly

on film speed.

I was LOL before I read your second message! Otherwise some of those

cheese fumes created in the darkroom would have made me forget

everything anyways!. This has been a question that stimulated much.

We are in Holly's debt!

I am with Shawn: Stripped to its bare essence, black and white

photography is a chemical process wherein light is turned into beer,

in a safe light illuminated dark room. There is no miracle here,

since then the end result would be wine. It's really very simple.

Like vinyl records, and tube amps, blanck and white photography will

be appreciated by people who are capable of distinguishing the merely

immeasurable from the infinite.

If you are talking about colour print films, C41 process, I think you

will be disappointed with the results when printing on B&W paper.

The effort required is also disproportionate to the results; the

orange masking causes long exposure times.

I do not know if C41 films scanned into a PC could give decent B&W

prints. Has anyone out there tried this?

Check your developed film: if there is printing on the edge,

indicating manufacturer, frame number, etc, you developed the film

properly, but did not expose the film. If the edges are blank, too,

as well as the leader that was exposed to light when you loaded the

film, you probably mixed up the chemicals, and used the fixer before

the developer, leaving a blank film.

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Welcome to the wonderful world of taking control over the creative

process! It will be worth it in the end.

I recently developed some Ilford FP4 films that I exposed about 15

years ago, and the images came out fine. I have no idea how colour

film stands up - I expect the colour to be off. If images develop,

scanning them should at least give you digital prints. I would

definitely contact Kodak - there is no reason to assume they would

not be helpful.

I recently bought an Albert Adjustable Roll Film Tank at a garage sale in the hope that it would allow me to develop 120/220 roll film. I think the film will fit - but the design of the tank baffles me. The tank is made out of plastic or Bakelite, and has a top that does not screw on. It has a hole in the centre of the funnel-shaped top, obviously to pour in liquids. It further has an opening at the side of the top, apparently to pour out the liquids. The whole thing leaks liquids like a sieve when inverted.

Questions: 1. is this thing supposed to be light tight?

2. How does one agitate if not by inversion?

3. Is this tank designed to be used in a darkroom, where the liquids can be poured in with lights on, and agitation is supposed to occur with lights out and tank top off by turning or lifting the spool?

4. Is this tank a waste of my $5? (It seems to require about 750 ml of soup!)

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Paul