Ok, I bought my 8x10 about a year and a half ago, but I just finally got it out shooting on Saturday morning. Developed the negs on Saturday evening, printed t hem later that night, and both negatives are pretty uneven, variations of about one to two stops average density across a relatively even scene. The contact pr ints are significantly darker in some spots, particuarly close to the center of the image, but in an irregular shape. Doesn't look like a light leak, as the ne gative looks pretty sharp with no ghosts or fogging, just uneven, and possibly a little thin.
The particulars:
old B&J camera with Wollensak 12" vari-soft focus lens. Scene was a pretty even ly lit landscape, nothing too odd.
T-Max 100 film, developed in D-76 at about 69 degrees, developer is probably a bit old. stopbath was fine, Fix may have been a bit old.
Developed in total darkness in an 8x10ish tray, rocking left, right, center wait, left, right, center, wait, etc. 6:30 devel. for one, 7:10 for the o ther (to try to build more density in the second neg).
Stop for 15 sec.
Fixer, agitate first thirty seconds then every minute or so after that for 10 mi nutes.
Wash in water using an 11x17 horizontal print washer (water flows in through hol es on one side, out through holes in the other side. Wash for 30 minutes.
The negatives came out of the wash with what looked like lots of little bubbles affixed to the surface, and dried with several white spots of various sizes.
I didn't notice the variation when looking at the negatives, but when I printed them and found the unevenness, I could match it up with slight variations in the negative. The variation is pretty subtle on the negative, but rather pronounce d on the print.
The prints were made on an enlarger baseboard with a cold head (Zone IV cold hea d in Beseler MX45). I thought it might be the enlarger lens focusing the bulb o n the baseboard, but it did the same thing at different enlarger heights/focus l engths.
I'm going to mix a new set of chemistry (it was probably six months old) to see if that's the problem.
Any thoughts on this? How do y'all prefer to develop 8x10 negs? I have a besel er drum that I may try using for the next one.
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