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I work under an amber-coloured safelight. Even when loading/unloading the holders. Never ever seen any fogging. My safelight is about 2 metres away.Quote:
If the film is ortho, why do you use your safe light intermittently? Is your light not completely safe? Or, is the film not strictly ortho? Or some combination of the above?
I believe Sandy King noticed some fogging from a safelight during development -- some paper, and perhaps this film also, gain sensitivity during the first part of development.
When I was printing on 16x20 Portriga Rapid, I would get "fingerprints" on the paper where I would lift the paper out of the tray after the first 20 seconds or so of development (introduced the paper emulsion side down, then flipped it over). The pressure of the firm grip needed lift to the paper would "expose" it as it became temporarily pressure-sensitive.
Very interesting! I'll have to pay close attention. Developing under a bright safelight is quite a shortcut when testing a new film or developer. Thanks again for the excellent tips.
When developing I do it in the dark for the first 4 minutes of development just to be safe. Never any problems. I still load holders in the dark. I guess I need to try it with the safelight on but I don't want to get spoiled!
Jay I just wanted to be safe when I developed my film. Superstition? Nothing more. The stuff is very easy to work with. The emulsion on both sides takes some getting used to but I find it great for portrait work especially.
I keep the red safelight on during cutting the film down and loading with no problem.
Developing I stand between the safe light and the developing tray for the first half, then don't worry about if after that -- no fogging noticed so far. Seems to be an average base+fog for film. I'll take a closer look at my negatives tomorrow. But I do use Agra film marked "Daylight", which I do not know what it actually means.
I do know that the light freckles of one of my boys jump out! Until I made this print, I did not even realize that he had this many freckles. Taken perhaps 7 years ago, plus or minus a year.
Taken in open shade at ASA 800 (lots of blue light!), developed at the hospital by the X-ray tech. The neg taken at ASA 400 was still a good exposure, overly dense.
Sorry -- all prints are printed to the same values (like the boy with the freckles, but can't seem to get them matched on this software!
Light gray wall, red shirt, black pants -- full detail in all of the negative. Scanned silver gelatin contact print (8x10)
The second one was taken as ASA400 -- and accidently contacted backwards -- can't flip the neg with my software. Now I notch the film!
Sorry for the massive editing of this post -- hopefully I have not confused anyone (besides myself!)
Jim,
I understand completely. Why jinx it? The more I learn about this stuff the more excited I am to try it. Portraits are my first love, though I've been branching out a bit lately.
Vaughn,
It seems there's more than one way to skin this cat! I noticed the same freckle phenomenon using lith film. It reminds me of tintypes. I like the effect, grotesque though it can become. Thanks for the examples.
In back to back tests I have found the CXS green latitude to be faster than Foma 100 for ~10s exposures under tungsten light. I never nailed down a daylight speed but I do believe 100 was plenty of exposure. It's perfectly safe under my red LED safelight out to several minutes.