chris_waller

<p>I pre-soak for 2 minutes with an initial 6 inversions of the tank, plus rapping it on the heel of my hand to dislodge air bubbles before pouring in the developer. But after that the only rinse is between first and second fixers (I use two-bath fixing).</p>

<p>I would assume two stops loss of speed due to age and thus increase development time by about 70%, e.g. if the dev time for new film were, say, 8 minutes, I'd give it 14 minutes.</p>

<p>I found that the purple stain was much reduced after I moved to two-bath fixing. In any event, it fades in time.</p>

<p>I get this as well. I filter the fixer through a coffee filter every so often. I think it might also be due to the stop bath losing its acidity.</p>

<p>Maybe there was some contamination of the tank with wetting-agent? After washing the film, using the Ilford Method, I take the reels out of the tank and dunk them in a separate container of water containing wetting-agent. Also, after an initial 6 inversions of the tank I give one inversion every 30 seconds to avoid excessive churning of the developer.</p>

<p>It is due primarily to the fixer becoming saturated with silver. From my own experience I suspect it may also be due in part to the progressive exhaustion of the stop and its loss of acidity. I filter my fixer at intervals through a coffee filter.</p>

<p>When downrating, as a rule of thumb I reduce dev time by 1/3 per stop. So if your dev time at rated speed was 12 minutes then I'd cut it to 5.5 minutes. Your negs will be very flat but you can recover the contrast in printing.</p>

<p>I use Ilford FP4 for the vast majority of my work and dev it in Rodinal/Adonal. I've tried some of the Adox films and they are fine but I haven't the time at the moment to go through the learning process to fully appreciate them.</p>

<p>Anne,</p> <p>I suggest you try downrating the film by as much as 2 stops and reduce development time accordingly. This will achieve the low contrast you are looking for. I would also suggest you look at the work of Josef Sudek. </p>

<p>As above, it sounds like your fixer is exhausted.</p>

<p>All b+w films can be developed in ay b+w developer. I've used pyrocat with several films. It's a good developer.</p>

<p>No, don't worry. The chemicals are no more toxic than many other domestic chemicals. I've used them for years. Just rinse any splashes off your hands and you'll be OK. I don't bother wearing gloves for cyanotyping.</p>

<p>No, that is quite normal for many cameras. Mine does the same.</p>

<p>First one is dust and the second one is air-bubbles. When you fill the tank with developer, give it half a dozen inversions then slap it sharply on the heel of you hand to dislodge the air-bubbles. Otherwise, try pre-soaking. To avoid getting dust on he film ensure you dry it in a cabinet or under some other type of cover.</p>

<p>First make sure that you are coating the paper very consistently. Secondly, I recommend you wash the prints thoroughly before you put them into the hydrogen peroxide bath. Perhaps you peroxide bath is becoming exhausted as you process more prints.</p>

<p>If you are using only one reel in a two-reel tank then put an empty reel on top. Otherwise for processing a 120 roll I cut a piece off a length of plastic pipe about 3/8" deep to slip over the central column.</p>

<p>I remember seeing a television programme a few years ago about a Japanese photographer whose technique was to wander about the streets and then jump out in front of people with his camera and a flash-gun and capture their expressions of shock. (I'm surprised nobody floored him! ) Could anyone please tell me who he was? TIA.</p>

<p>Ciaran, hi.<br> <br />For bleaching prints prior to sepia toning I use it at full strength. It takes about a minute of constant agitation to bleach the print. Note that the image doe not completely disappear, it fades until it is very pale. For split toning I use it diluted 1/50 or even 1/100 so that it very slowly bleaches just the highlights. Then I wash it, sepia tone it, wash it again then selenium tone it.<br> For film I use it again at full strength. I used it in the photo-pointillism process with colour film prior to redevelopment in C41.</p>

<p>Ilford FP4 is to my mind still the best medium speed b+w film.</p>

<p>My agitation regime is: 6 inversions in the first 30 seconds then 1 inversion every 30 seconds after that. If you are getting foaming then I suspect you are over-agitating.</p>

<p>It's very much like the Paterson reel except it has no ratchet so you have to press down on the film as you crank it forward to encourage it to feed into the reel.</p>

<p>I make bleach using 100 gm pot. ferricyanide and 100 gm pot. bromide made up to 1 litre with water. That's very concentrated so you might want to dilute it to make a working solution.</p>

<p>The film cassette is about 4 1/2 inches deep, so the whole thing is about 16-18 inches top to bottom.</p>

<p>OK, so after several minutes of nervous fiddling about in the dark, I managed to get the cassette open and withdraw the film spools, only to find there was no film in it. A few moments reflection and it occurred to me that no one would fly a reconnaissance mission over, say, Berlin in 1944 and then leave the film in the camera. No matter, I have at least expanded my knowledge of cameras to include a K24 aerial reconnaissance camera.</p><div></div>

<p>John, Craig,</p> <p>Thanks for the info. I'm going to take a look at the camera this morning. OF course, 70 years on the film may be stuck together and impossible to process, and the latent image, if any, will be very weak, not to mention lost in fog. But here goes.</p>