Use of X-ray film: technical discussion with example images

[SergeiR]

Dishwashing liquid is the same as a photo flo?

yup. Picked it up from the book, tried - happy ever since.
Just watch out to use normal ones (Dawn is ok, its clear enough, recommended to wash stuff for babies), and not things heavily polluted with additives (Ajax & etc).

I just drop a bit into tank, for about 15 s of last rotary wash cycle, it doesn't make much of foam (about 500ml of water there at the time), and film is dry and scan/print ready in about 15-25 minutes. Makes huge difference for me, as i tend to leave film in cabinet for forever otherwise and it gathers dust.

[SergeiR]

You are putting Kodak out biziness, PhotoFlo needs you...

I kept running out of it and there is no longer any stores in Dallas or nearby that carry stuff. And i don't have huge storage space its bad enough i can't park car in garage with all the … stuff.. i have - costumes, light stands , camera bits and pieces My wife is patient about it, but i don't want to push it Or she will stop posing for me

[SergeiR]

Detergents, Photo flo and LFN are all surfactants so they all have the quality of causing water to sheet off surfaces.

yup. Basically anything that can change surface tension of water seems to work nicely. PhotoFlo , i guess, is more clear solution than our average soapy things at households, but i have not yet seen much of difference to switch back. Plus i can always use same stuff to wash off basin and dishes afterwards Win win..

[Tin Can]

I don't have wife, no room.

Kodak sunk their own ship.

I kept running out of it and there is no longer any stores in Dallas or nearby that carry stuff. And i don't have huge storage space its bad enough i can't park car in garage with all the … stuff.. i have - costumes, light stands , camera bits and pieces My wife is patient about it, but i don't want to push it Or she will stop posing for me

[towolf]

So, with my mediocre results shooting on some mystery Kodak x-ray film (seems like blotchy patches of low contrast), I tried stripping the emulsion on the other side. And trying to be systematic I took three frames and stripped the back and the front on one each.



This is with fixed scanner exposure. The backside is really blurry. Viewing the front+back sheet this creates areas of reduced contrast. So not local micro-contrast, but impaired medium radius contrast. Like a halo.

Here’s a GIF that switches between kind of equalized versions



I think I will strip always from now on. I found a method that is really quick. Take a tray, put two sheets of toilet paper on the bottom. Soak the TP with 3-4ml of bleach. Drop the sheet on top of that and move sheet around with gloved fingers. The emulsion is stripped in 10-20 seconds, no mess, no tape, no glass plate. Just rinse of the back first.

[StoneNYC]

yup. Basically anything that can change surface tension of water seems to work nicely. PhotoFlo , i guess, is more clear solution than our average soapy things at households, but i have not yet seen much of difference to switch back. Plus i can always use same stuff to wash off basin and dishes afterwards Win win..

What about the effects on archival, isn't dish soap a corrosive of some kind?

[StoneNYC]

I kept running out of it and there is no longer any stores in Dallas or nearby that carry stuff. And i don't have huge storage space its bad enough i can't park car in garage with all the … stuff.. i have - costumes, light stands , camera bits and pieces My wife is patient about it, but i don't want to push it Or she will stop posing for me

Running out? I have an edwal brand dropper and over 3 years and never run out, only getting close now, I have a whole bottle of kodak stuff, I expect it to last me my entire life....

[SergeiR]

Running out? I have an edwal brand dropper and over 3 years and never run out, only getting close now, I have a whole bottle of kodak stuff, I expect it to last me my entire life....

When i am "on the roll" - i shoot 100-200 sheets in a month of 8x10 alone. Add there some occasional roll film and stuff. And i don't reuse final rinse solutions (only fixer is reused). So yep. I did ran out of it on times when it was not convenient.

As of archival - i am not sure i care for negatives to be here in 50 years, b/c i know i would not be. But i know that i don't see any problems with film and X-ray film that been done 2 years ago (just re-scanned some stuff from 1.5 years ago recently). So - who knows. I prefer to keep huge tiffs of my scans, knowing full well that i can print out 8x10 negative from them and storage is far less consuming (that said - i do keep good negatives, and it eats up space like crazy ()

[towolf]

Here’s two more examples of stripped versus unstripped. Is it my film (pretty much unidentified: it says Definix Medical on the envelope and KODAK XDM on the edge) that exhibits this large blurry cross-talk from the rear emulsion? Some people here said that stripping gives insignificant benefit. Are they using more modern film?

[Vaughn]

Unstripped, x-ray film has never given me sharp carbon prints.