All the gear and no idea! Film dev questions for a beginner

[Ben Jennings]

Hi Guys,

I have had a load of films waiting for me to develop for ages (ones even the cheap as chips challenge) and finally as I have a bit of time I plan to do so. Now the issue I am having is that I have all the stuff i need (as per recommendation from Hamish) I'm now just unsure of how I use it. Heres what I have and what film I plan to develop:

Paterson Super System 4 Film dev tank (290ml required per film inside, holds two so 580ml).
Ilford Ilfosol 3 film developer (can be used at 1+9 dilution or 1+14).
Ilford Ilfostop stop bath (1+19 dilution)
Ilford Rapid fixer (1+4 or 1+9 dilution)

Jessops PAN 100s Black and White Film 35mm 36exp

So I got an old film and practiced loading it on and off the reels, I now have a light sealed room for loading the film on and sealing it in the tank. Now I just need help with the science bit.

Basically Im not sure of timings and temps for each stage, I've been reading through guides etc and here is what I have so far:

I am assuming that the film I have is equivalent to Ilford Delta professional 100, I don't know that it is so if anyone could shed some light that would be great.

Ilfosol 3 first (1+9 dilution so 60/540ml mix) 5mins at 20 degrees
Do 4 agitations every minute (10 secs at the start)
Drain the developer
Immediately add Ilfostop (1+19 dilution so 30/570ml mix) 10sec at 20 degrees
Drain the stop
Add Rapid fixer (1+4 dilution so 120/480ml mix) 3mins at 20 degrees
Drain the fixer
Wash with water for 5-10 mins (new water each min)
Add a tiny bit of washing up liquid to the last wash (acts as a wetting agent)
Take the films out, get excess water off (any recommendations for this other than fingers?).
Hang until dry.

Does this seem right? Am I making the correct assumption about my film being equivalent to Delta 100 Pro?
Can the chemicals be stored for reuse? Any good ways of getting excess water off? Is washing up liquid good to use as a wetting agent? Any tips on getting the liquids to the right temperature? At what stage is it ok to expose the film to light?

Any help would be great.

Thanks

Ben

 

[Brian Moore]

Does this seem right? Am I making the correct assumption about my film being equivalent to Delta 100 Pro?
Can the chemicals be stored for reuse? Any good ways of getting excess water off? Is washing up liquid good to use as a wetting agent? Any tips on getting the liquids to the right temperature? At what stage is it ok to expose the film to light?

Your process seems right, Ben. Some thoughts regarding your ending questions:

Not familiar with Jessop's film but if it were me, and because I'm not familiar with it, I'd probably look at the country of manufacture. If it says, Czech Republic I'd guess its Fomapan. If it says Croatia it's probably Efke. If it says England it's probably Ilford. And so on. Also, if I were unable to determine what company made the film I'd process it using a "stand" or "semi-stand" technique. You can Google those terms for some good information. It's very simple, though. Basically you just use a highly dilute developer and let the film brew for an hour or so with no or very little agitation. However, check if your developer is right for that first. (I use Rodinal exclusively and I sometimes do stand/semi-stand,...usually if I'm processing two different emulsions at the same time.) You might search Flickr for some information on the Jessop's film, too. I'd probably ask someone at Jessop's, too, although I would not take a counter-person's answer to be gospel. Going forward you might want to bookmark the "Massive Development Chart." (Digitaltruth Photo - The Massive Dev Chart B&W Film Development Database) It doesn't mention Jessop's unfortunately, but you'll find it useful if you continue to process your own film.

Like I said, I use Rodinal exclusively. It has a very long shelf life and is very inexpensive (especially if you are diluting it 1:50, 1:100, etc.)

When I first processed my own film I bought a squeegee for getting excess water off the film. I immediately discovered I didn't like it because I couldn't "feel" the pressure of the rubber on the film. I prefer to use me index and middle fingers as my squeegee. I can feel what I'm doing that way.

I use a wetting agent that I bought. But I've heard of people using washing up liquid without problems.

I put my chemical bottles in a large bucket to bring them to approximate temp. I use ice or warm water to adjust.

You can expose the film to light after the fixing process. By the way, you may want to look up "clearing time" for fixer, because your fix time will change as your fixer degrades. Clearing time is a way of gauging how much time you need to leave the film in the fixer.

Good luck, Ben. I think you'll find it is fun!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Yeah, a bit of research on the film maybe worth while ... what date is it?

if you go to Brians link on your Iphone and buy the app ... its brilliant!

Def fingers for squeegee ... i used a rubber one only once, after is scratched my film it went in the bin!

I hang my films to dry in the shower cubicle ... least dusty place in the house

Your stop and fix times look a little short ... I stop for a minute and fix for at least 5 ...
after fixing, have a look at the film before you chuck away the fix ... it shouldnt be purple! If it is purple you need to fix for longer!

erm... Ill see if i can think of anything else ...

 

[Ben Jennings]

Well the film expired in 2009, was made in the eu.

I have been doing some research, some say that it is just a rebranded afgapan 100 in which case it would be 6mins dev.

But I also found on

http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Jessop&Developer=&mdc=Search

And if you look at the times for Ilfosol S 1+9 @ 20C its 6 mins, I then looked at the fact sheet for Ilfosol S, for 1+9 @ 20C,
and basically any film that required 6mins, Delta 100 Pro matched (@E21/100), so that film for Ilfosol 3 has a time of 5mins.

Thanks for the other tips by the way, all really helpful.

- - - Updated - - -

A bit more digging and more info found, opened out the box and found this:
View attachment 3212

So I guess matching that with another film that is on the list would make it the same as Delta 100 Pro.

Silly me for not looking in the box before!!

 

[Pete Askew]

Ben. Stop and fix times are fine. Hamish, 5 minutes is a bit too long and you can degrade film in the fixer. I wash for a minimum of 15 minutes. Your process otherwise sounds fine although obviously you need to verify the development times for the emulsions you have.

You are actually only a short distance from our laboratory where there is a darkroom. If you want to come over and do your first films here that is no problem. There is a system set up ready but I would suggest you use your own chemistry etc to give you confidence rather than ours. Send me a PM if you are interested - I'm in the UK until the 24th Sept and the lab is near Fleet.

 

[Brian Moore]

You are actually only a short distance from our laboratory where there is a darkroom. If you want to come over and do your first films here that is no problem. There is a system set up ready but I would suggest you use your own chemistry etc to give you confidence rather than ours. Send me a PM if you are interested - I'm in the UK until the 24th Sept and the lab is near Fleet.

A very generous offer, Pete! I'm going to HHF you for that!

 

[Ben Jennings]

Cheers for the offer Pete, really appreciate it. Gonna shoot a test roll tonight and try and process it to see how I get on, if all goes to pot I will take you up on your offer, have a rare evening to myself tonight so gonna take full advantage of it. If all goes well I will get the results up here soon, will split the film, and try a few combinations to see how they turn out. Better to sacrifice one film of random photos than one with photos I actually want. That way I can hopefully find a winning combination.

I'll post the results up with the different recipes up that I used for reference. And any feed back on peoples opinions of which turned out best would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again guys!

 

[Ben Jennings]

So I did a first test, made a couple of mistakes, firstly I should have let it dry longer, was a bit tacky when handling, also I drop the neg on my jeans, hence a few hairs in the scan.
Any advice on drying time would be lovely.

Here is a scan of one photo:


I did 5mins with Ilfosol 3 at 20, followed by 10sec with ilfostop, followed by 3mins or so rapid fix. Then 11 mins wash and finally a bit of washing up liquid at the end.
Dried for about 20mins.

Let me know what you think and if you could recommend any ways to improve that would be great. Scanned on epson at 1200 dpi and 24 bit colour.

Any help would be great, But as far as things went for a first attempt I am pretty happy.

 

[Brian Moore]

Success! Nicely done, Ben. I'd recommend drying longer than 20 mins, though. Usually I let mine hang from the shower curtain rod for at least a couple of hours.

 

[Pete Askew]

Well done Ben. Looks pretty good to me although it is hard to say from the inverted scan but there is nothing obviously wrong. I agree with Brian about drying though. Mine go in a film drying cabinet with filtered air and heat and take about 15 mins but you still need to take care of drops hiding under clips. I usually cut the film from the clips to avoid last-minute runs and put them straight into 'print-through, archival sleeves before even looking at them (Silverprint - Store - Browse Products -). I always do a distilled water rinse last thing to avoid drying marks but have occasionally used a wetting agent and it can certainly help. My bottle of Ilfotol must be at least 15 years old - you don't need much!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Looks good to me mate!!
congrats on the success... All the better for not having to wait for me to drag my *** down!

Pete
back when I started deving my own films I found reference to 4mins fix time ... So that's what I did
my films kept coming out purple.
I read more and found that this was from too short fixing time and that 5 mins was about right.
ive just read this that says 3 mins http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/200629163442455.pdf
but massive dev says 5

does it not matter if the film comes out a bit purple??

 

[Pete Askew]

Stopping development is mainly a matter of shifting the pH down to below a level where the developer will function. It actually only takes a second or so for film. It doesn't hurt to leave it in longer and I usually use about 15 seconds or so. The other day I discovered that the temperature controller on my deep tank had failed. I checked just before loading 5 spirals with 120 film and it was spot-on 24ºC (the temperature I always use). So I loaded the spirals but as I lowered them in, my hand touched the developer (luckily I had slightly over-filled the tank) and I realised that it was too warm. So after the initial 30 seconds agitation (golden rule - 'DO NOT PANIC'), I closed the lid, put the lights on and checked the temperature in the stop tank (they are in the same water 'bath'). It was 29ºC! The temperature controller had failed and it was pure chance that it was 24ºC when I checked! So I turned it off and adjusted the time down to compensate and then popped the film into the stop. Luckily again I had forgotten to take out the floating lid from the fix and so switched the light on to do so (I normally wouldn't) and so saw that there was a white scum on the surface of the fix (I had used a bottle that Asun had labelled 10/11 and I assumed it was bought last year - it was actually some old stuff and the unopened fixer had precipitated! - it was bottle 10 of 11!). So now I had to make up new fixer and put it into one of our large daylight tanks to fix the film (it would have taken too long to emptly, clean and refill the deep tank). Which took about 15 minutes all-in. So the film just sat in the stop.

That every long story was just to illustrate that there is quite some flexibility once you are past the development stage. And also not to panic when something goes amiss. The temperature just meant using a shorter time (there are tables and charts to work this out - make sure you have one to hand). Finding the fixer was unusable just meant extending the stop - it helps to know where you can take a 'break'.

The fixer I use and that Ben used was Ilford Rapid Fixer - there's a clue in the name! Many modern fixers are rapid and extending the time doesn't add anything and can cause some damage if taken too far. The purpose of the fixer is to remove 'unreacted' silver halides and help remove some other accessory components from the emulsion. The rule used to be to work out the time it took to 'clear' the film - ie remove any visible traces of colour and haze from the base emulsion - and double it. And with some films and processes that could be quite a long time. But modern rapid fixers do an efficient job in a few minutes and wash out quite well too. They will leave a clean, clear image with no significant 'colour'.

 

[Brian Moore]

The rule used to be to work out the time it took to 'clear' the film - ie remove any visible traces of colour and haze from the base emulsion - and double it. And with some films and processes that could be quite a long time. But modern rapid fixers do an efficient job in a few minutes and wash out quite well too. They will leave a clean, clear image with no significant 'colour'.

What about degradation of the fixer through use, Pete? I always check the clearing time before putting the fixer in, and I leave the fixer in for double the clearing time. It sounds like you are suggesting this isn't necessary with modern rapid fixers.

 

[Pete Askew]

I'm guessing that Ben used single shot chemistry but you are of course right that the capacity of the fixer decreases when re-used as does the developer. For the deep tanks I add 10% of the time for each batch after the first and use for the recommended capacity. Modern rapid fixers work fine in most circumstances using the recommended time (3 minutes for Ilford Rapid). Other chemistry may require you to 'calibrate' it first.

I used to check the remaining capacity of the fixer in the deep tank but now I dump it at the same time as the developer and don't use replenisher for the developer (mainly because I'm only in the UK for 3-4 weeks and then I just ditch it.

I'm guessing you make up a stock and store it. Do you re-use also?

 

[Brian Moore]

I'm guessing you make up a stock and store it. Do you re-use also?

Thanks for the response, Pete. Yes, I make my fixer and store it then re-use it. I make a new batch when the clearing time gets up around 4-5 mins.