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

[koraks]

Check your safelight; this may just be optical fogging of the film.

[Dpatt711]

What base-fog is considered acceptable?

[David Schaller]

Check your safelight; this may just be optical fogging of the film.

Thanks Koraks, I will try the next one in the dark.

[koraks]

Good luck. I've had a fair sharw of safelight fogging qith xray film myself. Most red leds are not safe enough due to a secondary emission peak in the green part of the spectrum. A dim red led with an additional red filter fashioned out of a sheet of rubylith film works very well in my experience.

[Daniel Unkefer]

I followed Jason Lane's lead, and made a safelight with red LED bulb, and the deep red Kodak Ortho filter.

I have some of his Speed 25 Glass Plates, they can fog, unlike his ISO 2 plates. Also should work well for XRay.

I have 8x10 Fuji green two-sided, and four new 8x10 Cesco trays from B&H, so we will see. Rodinal 1:100 looks promising with very minimal agitation.

Looking forward to dusting off the 8x10 Norma.

[Peter De Smidt]

Well, I developed my Extascan in my Jobo....but I might have loaded it under red safelight. Thanks for the tip!

[David Schaller]

I spent most of the day solving my computer problems, but after I did, I developed the second negative with several changes in my method.
1. Developed completely in the dark, as I have done with regular film, so no red safelight.
2. Presoaked with agitation for 4 minutes.
3. A more dilute Pyrocat, 15/15/2250 (1/1/150), for 8 minutes, with agitation the first minute, and for 10 seconds every minute thereafter.
Negative is drying now, and I should be able to scan tonight.
Thanks for your help.
Dave

[jp]

I have red LEDs from superbrightleds.com or something like that and if I leave them on the whole time while developing I will get some fogging. It does not seem to create notable fog if I use the LEDs for loading/unloading the film which is generally less than a minute. Also try more liquid in the tray for pyrocat developing.

[David Schaller]

Thanks Jason. That LED might have been the culprit. I don’t mind loading and unloading in the dark

[David Schaller]

Of course this was a flat-light-on-snow day, so it looks a bit smudged, and I didn’t spot the dust, but I’d say the original problem was the safe light. I will try to shoot some more this weekend, indoors and out.
Thanks again for all the input.
Dave