warning on film storage for beginners

[MacGregor Anderson]

Hello, first post here. I've learned a lot from this forum over the past year and wanted to offer some advice to the less experienced large format black and white photographers on the board. It's pretty basic, but I was still careless and it has cost me several hundred dollars.

Store your film properly. That's it. I have some unexpired FP4 and HP5 that I kept in a laundry room for about eight months. No air conditioning in my house, and that room hit well over 80 this summer a couple times. But mostly it was in the low 60s.

I picked up my 4x5 for the first time in a few months recently. There have been some great opportunities in the area lately and I was excited to get back into it. But my negatives, carefully exposed and developed based on testing I'd done a year ago were greatly lacking in shadow detail. Not enough to flat out ruin the prints, but enough to make a very noticeable difference. Even shots bracketed to put shadows in zone four were very very thin on the negative.

I had always thought that differences were subtle unless film was left at very high temps for long periods. I've known so many people who were casual about this in the past. And I learned my lesson the hard way. I doubt I'd have seen it on 35mm or even 645, but it's obvious on the big negative.

At least it's a small boost for Ilford...a hundred HP5 and 200 FP4. And the local appliance store. Small refrigerator is now a must.

I'll be testing the various boxes of film I have left. There is some Tmax 100, some Tri-X 320, and even some Tech Pan that I never got around to trying out. See if there is a speed I can use that still leaves decent latitude.

Hope this helps save someone a bit of money. Thanks for the great forum and site.

If there is a school out there or student that wants some of this film let me know. Might be useful in learning tray developing or something. It may be a few hundred sheets I won't be using, and definitely is 50 or so. Obviously, no charge to a good cause.

mac

[Kevin Crisp]

MacGregor: On unexpired film the temperature you mention should not be enough to cause this problem. I have left the same film in my darkroom unrefrigerated many times when it is over 80 day after day when it is locked up and not being used. The eventual result of age and too high temps is an increase in base fog level, which should put density in your shadows, not make them empty and transparent. Unless you are absolutely positive your film speed test result is fine, and your development time test is correct as well, you might try repeating with fresh film before you decide the old stuff is ruined. Old developer can cause what you describe. Just a thought.

[MacGregor Anderson]

Thanks Kevin. Perhaps I posted this prematurely. I based this note on several responses I'd received from another forum.

The chemicals were fresh and at my usual 68 degrees. But your point about fog makes sense, and at least to the eye these negatives are nearly clear in the shadows with just the usual slight tint.

I will say that I've had very satisfactory results from my testing a year ago. While I did not use a densitometer I did manage to confirm good exposure and development time info. I shot dozens if not hundreds of scenes similar to what I am shooting now after that testing and always found that my zone III had consistent shadow detail. What I'm getting is probably two stops away from that, with only the faintest detail if any apparent on the negative, and none apparent when printed even at low contrast using anything like normal printing times for true black.

I'll do some testing in the next few days and see what I find. I'll report back. Thanks again.

[Jim Rice]

Though for the color tannie shooters, Velvia (and for that matter, Ektachrome) does not respond positively *repents for the pun* to this treatment. You can get by pretty nicely at room temperature.

[MacGregor Anderson]

You know this is going to turn out to be something like my light meter (dedicated old film slr) has the exposure comp set to -2. I almost can't bring myself to look.

What a way to introduce myself to the forum.

Should I tell you now about how I used a handheld darkslide to prevent flare yesterday? Too cheap for a lens hood (until now). I've done it a bunch of times and was sure I wouldn't be vignetting the image. I used my strong intuitive feel for the lens' field of view, something I've aquired over nearly a full year minus a few months of casual experience.

I cut off the top 1/3, top 1/4, top right 1/5, and top 1/8 of my four sheets.

It was a great opportunity of a scene that won't be repeated again (a controlled burn by forest service I think) and also a long ways from home. One of four negatives was usuable, though I would have liked a little more sky as I had composed the shot. And of course there is no shadow detail in the stumps or hills like I wanted. Still, I kinda like the imperfect results, so who's complaining. I got lots to learn.

[Mike b]

You mean this stuff doesn't only happen to me?

[Dan Fromm]

MacGregor, I'm still learning. Most of what I'm learning is how to make new and better mistakes.

Welcome to the club.

Regrets.

Dan

[Jim Rice]

The newest mistakes are always the best ones.

[Jim Galli]

Mac, good advice so far. My problem is that you should have had the opposite problem of what you describe. Heat exposure should add slightly to film base plus fog. Kind of like what we do on purpose when we pre-flash the film to get densities into the shadows. You should be seeing more info in your shadows, not less. What I do with old film is in the dark, cut a sheet in half. Put 1 half straight into the fixer. The second half (with no other exposure than the heat or age) goes into Dektol or whatever else you have laying around. Dektol for 3 minutes is about right. Then it goes in the fixer. When the lights come on it will be perfectly apparent how much film base plus fog density you will have to deal with over the clear base. You may find that there is very little damage which might be good to know before you give it all away to kids who will make perfectly gorgeous pics with it.

[Mike Chini]

I came across some TMax 100 film (without the box!) from about 10 yrs ago that had been stored in a warm closet in a commercial photo studio and it developed fine. Just a personal experience.

[Ralph Barker]

Jim Rice said: "The newest mistakes are always the best ones."

Yeah, I agree. I hate it when I make old, stale mistakes.

[mark blackman]

Is this the place to admit to silly mistakes? OK then. Last shot I took was of a stone urn in a nearby cemetry. To darken the background I used fill-flash, 4x multiple pops with a handheld gun. There I was, carefully recocking the shutter, waiting for the flash to recharge, holding the release cable in the other hand, standing in front of the camera.... you can guess the rest.

[Paul Butler]

In lieu of shading the lens with the dark slide, I recommend the traditional method of shading the lens with your hat. There are several on-line retailers of these items of equipment nowadays, and you can make a natty fashion statement while you're at it. You'll want one with at least a 3 inch brim.

[MIke Sherck]

I cut off the top 1/3, top 1/4, top right 1/5, and top 1/8 of my four sheets.

Damn, I've been cloned! Ohh, the horror of it all! :)

Mike

[Kevin Crisp]

Macgregor: All this is not to say that a darkroom fridge isn't a good idea. Keeping your faster films and, especially, paper, in a fridge down in the 35 to 40 degree F range will greatly extend its useful life. Living in a warm area, I found that hot summers were just killers to paper and in a relatively short length of time your purest white will be about a Zone VIII-IX. If refrigerated, papers can last 8 years or longer. I still have some of the original (original) Oriental Seagull I am using which is just fine, it must be 14 years old, at least. The frig made the difference. And if you think about the loss from losing a couple boxes of paper, the fridge can pay for itself very quickly. With color material I absolutely agree it should be in the fridge whenever possible. With all films and papers, let the material slowly return to room temperature before you open the box and start using it. A final fridge caution, assuming you'd get one of the little cubes or cheaper rectangular ones for your darkroom, defrost it a couple times a year or you will have a flood down on your materials if the power goes out or a GFI trips and the outlet goes dead. If the paper and film are in plastic bags (a good idea anyway for condensation issues when taking it out to use) then the drips won't do damage to anything but the floor.

[Bill Fay]

I'm a real amateur at photography so don't have experience at effects of temperature - humidity. My input is if there is a dryer in the laundry room you are introducing massive warm humidity in that area and could that be the cause? My profession is woodworking and I have seen the results of laundry room humidity on wood. I know in the early days humidity affected film in tropical climes. Could be the culprit.

[MacGregor Anderson]

More excellent advice, and also some good tales. Thanks to all of you.

There is a dryer in the room and it's something I had never considered. It is vented to the outside, but I'm sure it could still be a problem. Fortunately, I'm a bachelor living in the woods and seldom do laundry. My girlfriend handles most of that for me at her house.

Now that's not a sexist thing going on, by the way. I do all the cooking and shopping, and keep her kitchen clean. It's just a preference for certain chores.

I'll advise her that my artistic well being depends heavily on my not doing any laundry at all. Perhaps if I pick up vacuuming at her house all will be well.

I shot eight sheets of Tmax 100 today. Sunset over the local mountains (Three Sisters, Oregon). I may be weird, but I like b/w sunset shots. I'm not too worried about my zone III detail in this batch, since I can't process Tmax the same way twice anyhow. Sometimes I get lucky with it and it's great, other times I'm a degree off and too fast in my aggitation and I get junk. We'll see.

Cheers,

Mac

[Frank Bagbey]

Just a note. In the early 1960's I was given some photo paper dating back to world war 2, which printed amazingly well. Once I added some additive to improve the blacks, I was in paper heaven since all this paper was 16X20, including some mural paper, and this allowed me to do a great deal of printing ( and learning) at practically no expense. The prints from that time period still look great.