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

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Originally Posted by StoneNYC

Dishwashing liquid is the same as a photo flo?

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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.

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Originally Posted by Randy Moe

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

:)

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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 ;)

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Originally Posted by Jim Noel

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

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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..

I don't have wife, no room. :)

Kodak sunk their own ship.

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Originally Posted by SergeiR

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 ;)

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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.

http://i.imgur.com/u4UY7qHm.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/aNfjAHYm.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/2TmIBuTm.png

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

http://i.imgur.com/wsAc9EC.gif

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.

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Originally Posted by SergeiR

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..

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

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Originally Posted by SergeiR

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 ;)

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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....

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Originally Posted by StoneNYC

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....

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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 :(()

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?

http://i.imgur.com/VHLMSe8.gif
http://i.imgur.com/JX6eYu5.gif

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