Relizations on technique and work flow.

[tgtaylor]

it can get pretty monotonous loading holders and its easy to forget if you loaded the other side or not. I have found an easy way around that. When I start I pull both slides open with the one facing up to be loaded first pulled out further than the one in the rear as necessary. When I finish loading that side I close that slide and if the other slide is still pulled out I know I haven't loaded it yet. Before I hit upon that method I found myself having to reopen to see if a sheet was in there and in some cases left it empty only to find out that there was no film loaded when I went to develop.

Thomas

[Jmarmck]

As I said before, I have never loaded the emulsion side wrong. I just got it shoved too far into the holder. Either that or they are shifting on their own during transit.
I'll ask the question again. Is it normal procedure to tap the holder hinge side down to seat the sheet correctly?

Out of the 120 (BW) or so of shots I took, I lost one due to missing the rail. I obviously messed up on flipping the dark slide about 2 times. I pulled the dark slide while the shutter was open only twice. I have another 4 that were never exposed for some unknown reason (probably related to not paying attention to both sides of the dark slide). One never got pulled from the holder and was exposed.

I did have one box that most of the TMX went into. Some of the fomapan was processed in the motel rooms. The remainder stayed in the holders. The neopan acros remained in the holders. I did have two boxes of Velva. One was loaded into holders when those were shot they went back into that box, then moved to the next box. As the exposed sheets were put into the boxes I labeled the box as exposed. I could not remember if I had but fomapan back in the box. That is why I wasted one sheet to see if the remaining 8 sheets were exposed. I would have never mixed exposed with fresh. My memory is not that good.

I just ordered Tetenal (5L) for the 40 sheets of 4x5 and 5 120 rolls of Velva. That ought to be interesting.
I also ordered Tetenal C-41 (1L) for the 10 sheets of Portra 4x5.

[Nigel Smith]

I'll ask the question again. Is it normal procedure to tap the holder hinge side down to seat the sheet correctly?

I'll say no. If the flap doesn't close easily, somethings wrong (film not in far enough). Also, if the darkside doesn't close easily, something else is wrong (film out of guides)

[djdister]

I'll ask the question again. Is it normal procedure to tap the holder hinge side down to seat the sheet correctly?

No, I've never done that.

[Jmarmck]

I just checked it. It is the other way around. The sheet is shifted to far under the hinge.
I need to pay closer attention to this.
Thanks.

[Michael E]

I just checked it. It is the other way around. The sheet is shifted to far under the hinge.

It's pretty much impossible the other way around. I don't tap either, but with my old and worn holders, I have film move too much to the hinged side as well. I just don't really care :-)

If I were using so many different films, I'd be heavily confused and screw up all the time. I settled on one kind, it makes things a lot easier.

[Jmarmck]

I was trying TMX, Fomapan 100, and Neopan Acros 100 just to compare. I was assuming that the fomapan would do better in flat lighting, TMX for most everything else and Neopan Acros simply because it sounded interesting or was an ordering error. I can't remember which. The negs look pretty good for the Neopan Acros, contrasty with shadow detail. Though, I have not had a chance to scan them yet. Scanner is still filthy.

I really don't know how the film got under the hinge. My holders are older Riteways so yes it could have shifted in transit. I did notice that some of the dark slides have dinged edges on the handle side. Maybe someone tapping these to get the sheet out from under he hinge? Who knows.

[Doremus Scudder]

I just checked it. It is the other way around. The sheet is shifted to far under the hinge.
I need to pay closer attention to this.
Thanks.

Jmarmck,

If loaded correctly, the film should not slide back under the hinged flap. There should be a stop that holds the film up and keeps the film from moving down. Check your holders to make sure they are in order and practice positioning a scrap piece of film to see how it fits.

That said, some of my older holders let the film slide down a bit too far, making a very thin border at the bottom of the image (when viewed correctly). This has not usually been a problem for me except when the code notches were on that end and would impinge onto the image area. This is why I load film now with the notches on the flap end.

FWIW, many of us do tap the loaded holder on whatever end/side will be the bottom before making an exposure. I do this to seat the film and make sure it doesn't slide during exposure (especially when making longer exposures).

Hope this helps,

Doremus

[Jmarmck]

I finally got all the B&W from the trip processed and scanned. My biggest problems are/were the positioning in the holder, sheets touching in the processing tank (solved), and of course handling of holders during image capturing.

Now that I have processed all of the B&W I do see issues with dust both from the scanner and I would assume on the film. Some spots are white irregular shapes and strands of some sort (black dirt) and some are black dots perfectly round and some short black bars (white um old man hair?). I guess I am not as clean as I thought.

But I noticed that there is some uneven development on the sheets, typically a wavy curtain about 1/2 inch from the edge running across the short dimension of the sheet. I am having a hard time wrapping my feeble brain around this one as, except for the first run, the tank was completely full. Bromide drift?

Thanks to you all for the comments and help. I hope this thread is useful to other beginners.

[Doremus Scudder]

I finally got all the B&W from the trip processed and scanned. My biggest problems are/were the positioning in the holder, sheets touching in the processing tank (solved), and of course handling of holders during image capturing.

Now that I have processed all of the B&W I do see issues with dust both from the scanner and I would assume on the film. Some spots are white irregular shapes and strands of some sort (black dirt) and some are black dots perfectly round and some short black bars (white um old man hair?). I guess I am not as clean as I thought.

But I noticed that there is some uneven development on the sheets, typically a wavy curtain about 1/2 inch from the edge running across the short dimension of the sheet. I am having a hard time wrapping my feeble brain around this one as, except for the first run, the tank was completely full. Bromide drift?

Thanks to you all for the comments and help. I hope this thread is useful to other beginners.

Marty,

It's a learning curve alright, but you're well along in getting your problems solved.

Dust is your enemy: Keeping things as dust-free as possible from loading and storing holders through processing the film and scanning is not really difficult, there are just a lot of things to do and habits to acquire. Keep refining.

As for uneven development: a completely full tank will sometimes not let the agitation move the solution around adequately. I would suggest finding the minimum volume of solution that completely covers the film in the tank and using that amount to develop with next time. I don't know what tank/etc. you have, but I had a similar problem years and years ago with 120 film and using less developer solved the problem.

Best,

Doremus