New to Black and White developing...........

[Jim Noel]

The only thing I can add is that the biggest culprit to smell is the acedic acid stop bath. You have a few options, such as getting a fan to blow out the fumes, find a low-fume stop bath, use the vinegar in your fridge (it's really the same thing, and tell her you are making a salad) or get a LOT of FEBREZE.

Or do as many have done for 20+ years - use a plain water stop bath.

[Leigh]

Expose normally, and "underdevelop" to make the highlights less dense, and the midtones a little less dense and shadows hardly affected if at all ( and not dense in the first place ) , This now makes sense to me if I am on the right track !

Yep... Exactly.

- Leigh

[Pere Casals]

Or do as many have done for 20+ years - use a plain water stop bath.

I use plain water as stop bath, it takes some 15s longuer to halt development than an acid stop bath (30s instead 15s). With water bath I shorten development some 10s to get just the same, as effect it has to be compared with development working at half speed, but I think I would notice no difference with same development time.

The fumes which emanate from acetic acid stop baths are not good for lungs, a citric bath is better, but plain water is even better because it has no risk of carbonic bubbles that soon or later may happen with some developers.

[Horseman]

My order from Speed Graphic has arrived.

I went for Ilford DDX, odourless stop and Ilford rapid fix. And the Paterson 3 reel with MOD54 insert.

Thanks to Pere, Leigh,Jim, Mick, esearing,Kirk,xkaes,luis,John,Randy and Doremus for the advice , support and time.

Oh, I also got 240 bottles of fabreeze, ( Country meadow), just in case.....

Hope to be posting images soon !

Horseman

[Rapidrob]

I've been developing film now for 50 years. If there is one tip for a new guy, I would say do not over agitate the developer. It is easy to do. You think you bathing the film in fresh chems,but your causing pressure ripples that can streak your film with plus density bands and ruin the negatives. Read up on what the best techniques are.

[Pere Casals]

Hope to be posting images soon !

Horseman

Just a final suggestion, after washing film with tap water you can bath the sheets in a little of distilled water, this will prevent drying marks from salts in tap water...

You start a nice trip, enjoy !

[Leigh]

Just a final suggestion, after washing film with tap water you can bath the sheets in a little of distilled water, this will prevent drying marks from salts in tap water...

The proper way to avoid water marks on dried film is to bathe it in PhotoFlo as the last step before drying. You can put the PhotoFlo in regular water unless it's nasty. If so, use distilled.

PhotoFlo is designed to decrease water surface tension, allowing it to run off rather than forming drops.

- Leigh

[Pere Casals]

The proper way to avoid water marks on dried film is to bathe it in PhotoFlo as the last step before drying. You can put the PhotoFlo in regular water unless it's nasty. If so, use distilled.

PhotoFlo is designed to decrease water surface tension, allowing it to run off rather than forming drops.

- Leigh

Of course I also use a PhotoFlo equivalent... but I found that while using a Squeegee a sheet can take scratches, specially with 8x10, if a single hard particle ends on the sheet or the Squeegee you have the scratch... most of the times it is cosmetic, but if I scracth a Velvia sheet I do not sleep well that night , so I use a very small amount of PhotoFlo (or none) in a final bath of distilled water, then I wipe out water very, very gently, and if some distilled water remains it does not leave marks.

Some tap waters have x10 more salts than other, so distilled (or deionized) water may be more or less useful depending on that... in my case tap water is very high in salts, so I tend to use it... it is just 15 cents cost for a batch of processed sheets...

[Michael Kadillak]

Of course I also use a PhotoFlo equivalent... but I found that while using a Squeegee a sheet can take scratches, specially with 8x10, if a single hard particle ends on the sheet or the Squeegee you have the scratch... most of the times it is cosmetic, but if I scracth a Velvia sheet I do not sleep well that night , so I use a very small amount of PhotoFlo (or none) in a final bath of distilled water, then I wipe out water very, very gently, and if some distilled water remains it does not leave marks.

Some tap waters have x10 more salts than other, so distilled (or deionized) water may be more or less useful depending on that... in my case tap water is very high in salts, so I tend to use it... it is just 15 cents cost for a batch of processed sheets...

Why in Gods name would you ever subject a negative to a squeegee? A print yes, a negative hell no. You are inducing a risk variable that is completely unnecessary to the process.

I have also never used pho flow and do nothing more than let the negatives dry with gravity doing what it does best. I wash the negatives in Inglis dedicated film washers to keep the negatives from touching each other.

I acquired a large drying cabinet and tied the electrical cord in a knot so I would never use the power dryer. I use a pin registration punch to put two nice clean holes in the negative before I process it and then use cut up paper clips as the handing devices inside the cabinet. I let the film hand in the closed cabinet insitu for four hours or more and I have never had an issue with drying marks or dust of anything. Perfect negatives each and every time. Sometimes easy just works. Don't make it harder than it needs to be.

[Pere Casals]

Why in Gods name would you ever subject a negative to a squeegee? A print yes, a negative hell no. You are inducing a risk variable that is completely unnecessary to the process.

I have also never used pho flow and do nothing more than let the negatives dry with gravity doing what it does best. I wash the negatives in Inglis dedicated film washers to keep the negatives from touching each other.

I acquired a large drying cabinet and tied the electrical cord in a knot so I would never use the power dryer. I use a pin registration punch to put two nice clean holes in the negative before I process it and then use cut up paper clips as the handing devices inside the cabinet. I let the film hand in the closed cabinet insitu for four hours or more and I have never had an issue with drying marks or dust of anything. Perfect negatives each and every time. Sometimes easy just works. Don't make it harder than it needs to be.

Michael, my tap water is around 300mg/L of salts content, when I did it like you I got remarkable marks inevitably, with distilled water finishing bath I never had a problem, now I use a hair dryer a few seconds (with cold air) just to remove the droplets.