rontoolsie

I haven't seen any previous mention in this forum about this, so I

thought I would bring it up myself. The digitaltruth.com site has in

its header the fact that FX-50 has some production problems and that

development times should be about 25% greater than originally

recommended. The last three rolls I have done with FX-50 (all Tri-X)

have all come out very thin.... I would estimated about 3 stops

underexposed/undeveloped, even though I knew my exposure times were

good (the colour pics I took at the same ISO came out with perfect

negatives)and my development times/temperatures/agitation were

comfortably close to the recommended. The first two times I convinced

myself that I had inadvertantly underexposed the film. The third time

I just knew it had to be something amiss with the developer and since

then have never used it again. Shame as I REALLY miss the ascobate-

based X-tol look to Tri-X and I was hoping that the ascorbate based

FX-50 would be a good alternative. Instead I have had failures that I

never encountered in the notoriously unreliable X-tol.

If any of you have procured the FX-50 I would proceed with great

hesitation and only after you have tried and tuned it on film that

has no important images. Even so, I am unsure whether it is poor

stablility, or just a poor formulation. It seems to me that the first

few rolls I developed in X-tol were slightly thin... but further down

the bottle the potency became greatly reduced; and this after only a

few weeks after opening.

Caveat emptor.

I forgot to give the link that has my comparison of different film/developer combinations. The last two images on this page are with HP5 in both 35 and 120 format. They are technically far less good than about any other film/developer combination I have tried. I have had similarly poor results with Tri-X too which has a legendary intolerance to malprocessing.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=118273

Ive processed maybe 15 20 rolls including Tri-X, HP-5, Delta 400 in both 35mm and 120 format. I have found the results to be uniformly quite a bit poorer than X-tol, ID-11, Microdol, Ilfosol and Rodinal, all of which I have used extensively in the past. The grain is not particularly small, and even worse, the grain pattern is quite unattractive. In spite of it being ascorbate-based it lacks the wonderous luminosity that X-tol seems to bestow with ease.

I bought 3 packs of FX-50. I am now halfway through my second. Unless I find some magical trick I will not be buying any more. Why oh why did X-tol have to disappear from 1L sizes; I never had any failures or inconsistency problems with it.

Ron

The red filter beneath the enlarger lens is a safety filter- to be used composing the image on the paper without actually exposing the paper. Note well that you should NOT critically focus when the filter is 'online'.

If your exposure times are way too short there are a few ways to increase them to more manageable times (maybe 10-20 seconds).

A. Stop down the enlarging lens. While focusing is easier when it is wide open, this can result in unacceptably short exposure times. A lens works best stopped down to f5.6-f8.

B. Use contrast filters either between the condensor and negative, of between the negative and paper-depending on the type of enlarger. Some contrast filters result in an extra stop or two exposure.

C. Use a longer length focal length... if you are using a 50mm then try replacing that with a 75mm. This will require the enlarger being raised up to produce an equivalently sized image, and a corresponding increase in the exposure time.

D. Increase the exposure on the negatives.. a denser negative will require a longer printing time.

My recent courtship with emulsionary error occured last week when I spent ages feeding the 120 film onto the reel under cover of a changing bag. When it was time to remove the tank I found that I had left both inner and outer zippers wide open allowing light to stream in through the bags rear end. Although the fogging appeared minimal to the naked eye, the resulting scans were awful, completely lacking in contrast.

Ron

Thanks for all the informative reponses. I thought what I was witnessing was an aberration (?luminescent) as it seems very disingenous to have photogenic substances so intimately related to a light sensitive surface. The flash marks resulting on the film emulsion came within one cm of the adjacent exposed frame, so I suppose no harm done. <BR><BR>

As an aside and non-sequitur- I am finding that Tri-X when used in 6x7 size has a wonderful, creamy look with great mid-tone seperation- a trait that is much rarer with the 35 mm format. I don't know why there is too much market for slow speed, finicky 'new-technology' emulsions in the 120 format when such results are available. I have rolls of Acros and Delta 100 that I probably will not get around to for quite a while, until I get bored with the uniform excellence of Tri-X.

Here is a frame from this very roll of flashing Tri-X film <BR>

<a href='http://www.photo.net/photo/666809'>Tri-X in 6x7 format</a> <BR> Ron

Last night I was loading some 120 Tri-X film onto developing tanks.

Usually I use a pair of scissors to cut the film from the glued-on

paper, but for some reason I instead decided to tear it. It took two

sharp tugs to get the film free from the paper. With each tug I say a

fairly bright and very brief flash of green light coming from this

paper/film junction that was quite evident in the complete darkness.

The duration and intensity was sort of reminiscent of a firefly. Once

developed the film shows a few weird dark marks at exactly this spot.

I am guessing that this is either some sort of static discharge or

weird chemical phosphorescence. Either that or my 'darkroom' (laundry

room actually) is haunted.

Any one else experienced this? The reason I elected to tear instead

of cut was that the last time I cut I sliced through the last exposed

frame before the paper began.

Ron

In a word... Yes. <BR>

In a paragraph.. yes they can. Not only do film scanners allow many of the attributes of different black/white films to pass through, they also show up quite nicely the attributes of the individual developer used.

I have a page showing samples of different black&white film/developer pairings at the following site:

<a href='http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=118273'>Black & White Film Comparison</a>.

<BR>

There are examples of both 35 mm and 6x7 film scans. All done with the Minolta Scan Multi. <BR>

Ron

I had something similar happen to me a few weeks ago. The shutter cocking lever suddenly lost its tension and when I tripped the shutter release, there would be only a faint popping sound instead of the normal clanking sound of the mirror moving and the whir of the shutter timer. It turned out that it was the mirror spring that had failed. It was repaired along with a full CLA to the body for circa $185... the body is now probably good to go for another 20 years- I hope.

Ron

I found the single roll of Acros I've tried so far to offer nice (but

not exceptionally tight) grain, a very wide tonal palette and quite

lovely mid tone separation. I've compiled a few similar shots using

various types of b/w film detailing the developers used in the

follwing site

<a href='http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=118273'>Black

and White Film Comparison</a>

The Acros is somewhere towards the end of the thumbnail images.

Ron