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Raffay
14-Apr-2013, 03:04
Hello

What is the general colour of the fixer? Initially, when I used to make fixer (plain hypo) if I remember correctly it used to be a little milky. But now when I make it, it is as clear as water, any idea what the problem may be, the hypo could have gone bad or I don't know. Also, it seems that my pictures are also not being properly fixed. Following is a picture I took yesterday, please comment.

Hayaa

Arista 100 f5.6 1/15 sec
D-23 (5 mins), and plain Hypo (8 mins)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8123/8648247502_40f6e4be2e.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/february71/8648247502/)
Hayaa (http://www.flickr.com/photos/february71/8648247502/) by february71 (http://www.flickr.com/people/february71/), on Flickr

Cheers
Raffay

N Dhananjay
14-Apr-2013, 05:28
Fresh fixer is usually colorless. And why do you say the prints are not fixed properly? The picture you posted does not show any discoloration etc. Did you do a residual silver test or something? Cheers, DJ

Raffay
14-Apr-2013, 05:32
Hehe, you are way too technical for me, I don't even know what that means. Maybe I am understanding the process completely. There is something not right about the pictures I am taking, they don't have good contrast, they are a little milky or I don't know how to explain it. If you zoom then they don't seem sharp and the overall effect is that they are not very clear, as I see most of the pictures posted on this forum... I still don't know how to explain it.

Cheers
Raffay

danno@cnwl.igs
14-Apr-2013, 06:43
Raffay, with the exception of a thin hairline across the upper right shaded area ( probably caused, coincidentally enough, by a hair on the negative) I can see no indication of fixer failure in this picture. You have excellent creamy midrange, crlea, unblemished highlights, and no sign of staining. I see no lack of sharpness in the rather pretty subject, and would caution against increasing the contrast in this picture.

polyglot
14-Apr-2013, 06:54
Rapid fixer once mixed looks water-clear. The only exceptions are:
- when first mixing it, you can see refracting turbulence patterns in it due to the concentrated fixer being denser than water
- it can go a little pink after fixing a large quantity of some films but the pink fades in a few minutes
- if it goes off, you may get a white precipitate of sulfates.

Your image doesn't look underfixed to me.

polyglot
14-Apr-2013, 07:07
Hehe, you are way too technical for me, I don't even know what that means. Maybe I am understanding the process completely. There is something not right about the pictures I am taking, they don't have good contrast, they are a little milky or I don't know how to explain it. If you zoom then they don't seem sharp and the overall effect is that they are not very clear, as I see most of the pictures posted on this forum... I still don't know how to explain it.

I think I know what you mean. It's mainly because you're shooting in very uniform and flat light and your subjects (people it seems) do not have specular-reflective surfaces. If you want sparkle to your photos (e.g. see most of what SergeiR posts) then you need to control your light differently: stronger ratios between bright/dark parts of faces and use some backlighting so that hair glows and you get specular glints off some bits of skin. Have a read of the Strobist Lighting 101 (http://strobist.blogspot.com.au/2006/03/lighting-101.html) series, or get a book on lighting. I can't even begin to describe the huge range of techniques to consider.

I hope you don't mind me editing your image, but I have posted a copy here with much higher (and closer to natural) contrast. Your print above has attempted to retain detail in both the sunlit background and the diffuse-lit face and the dynamic range between the two is much larger than can be represented by the paper. So you've printed at low contrast, which means it looks flat. To fix that in future, you need to:
- either ignore the background brightness and allow it to blow out to paper-white (as I've done here by boosting the contrast), or
- arrange your photo so that the background is lit the same as the subject, or
- add light to your subject (e.g. with flash) to match the background brightness.

93330

Raffay
14-Apr-2013, 07:12
Wonderful, and thanks for the input. And I do not mind you editing, have learnt a lot from it :)

photobymike
14-Apr-2013, 07:13
If i use tap water yes the chlorine in the water seems to turn fixer milky.... I ALWAYS USE DISTILLED WATER TO MIX MY CHEMICALS! Tap water has to many disolved solids to mix anything. Even my coffee taste better with distilled water.