Processing film in hot climates

[Charlotte Ortelli]

Living in Queensland, Australia, the water that comes out of the tap is usually above 27 degrees.
I'm long overdue on doing my own homeprocessing properly, I was wondering if anyone in hot climates had good techniques for processing and maintaining temperatures?

Indoor temps can often be hot, too.
None of the rooms with AC would be appropriate for processing film, so ambient temperature would be an issue, most of the year this is at a minimum of 26+ degrees. Plastic tanks transfer less heat, so I'm guessing that is the way to go?
I'm also guessing ice is probably the standard method of keeping the developer at 20 degrees.

 

[Gary Ayala]

For B&W developing, I found temperature not to be extremely critical. A few degrees either way, can easily be compensated by more or less development times. Overly warm temps will increase grain. There are charts available online to adjust development times for different temps.

I would use a shallow tub for soaking/immersing your stock chemicals and ultimately your film tanks. I'd use metal tanks. I'd fill the tub with water, adjust temps via bagged ice and toss all your bottle chemicals and film tanks in the tub.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

The Df96 monobath that I used to do my last batch of b&w is happy at 27 degrees C for 4 minutes in the tank. I didn't worry about temperature for b&w (never worried about it 50 years ago either).

I just did my first batch of color where I worried about chemistry temperature over the 12 minutes of developing and blix. I used a 2 bath process from CineStill at 39 degrees C which I maintained as Gary suggests above by keeping everything in a water bath using a Sous Vide heating/circulation device.

What is your cold tap water like?

 

[Charlotte Ortelli]

The Df96 monobath that I used to do my last batch of b&w is happy at 27 degrees C for 4 minutes in the tank. I didn't worry about temperature for b&w (never worried about it 50 years ago either).

I just did my first batch of color where I worried about chemistry temperature over the 12 minutes of developing and blix. I used a 2 bath process from CineStill at 39 degrees C which I maintained as Gary suggests above by keeping everything in a water bath using a Sous Vide heating/circulation device.

What is your cold tap water like?

25-28 degrees for my tap water, depending on the weather, it's a little annoying.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

25-28 degrees for my tap water, depending on the weather,

That's a bit on the warm side however as I said, the Df96 would be happy at that temperature doing b&w developing. It is 2 minutes less time than I used for 22 degrees C (ambient here).

 

[Chris Bennett]

Reusable ice cubes (little plastic things, full of liquid). That way, they won't dilute your liquids.
Water bath
Adjust your dev time - there's a useful calculator on the massive dev chart - https://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?doc=timetemp

 

[Charlotte Ortelli]

Thanks for the comments, I ended up using some Ilfosol 3, I couldn't get the temp consistently around 20 degrees, best I could manage was 22.

Processed Lomography Potsdam Kino as my first roll, funny choice, taking a little time off the 20 degree time (very unscientific), it went well.
Negatives are well developed, they were exposed well, everything went right...

Except cleaning.

I used the ilford wetting agent in the ratios it said, with distilled water (hell, I used distilled water the entire process), but I still ended up with drying marks.
I'll have to clean off my negatives when I'm not working.

A test scan on a (free) version of Vuescan on an ancient two-decade old scanner I got for nearly nothing was quite good too. I'll have to get the full version of Vuescan when I can spare the money, it's only 1600 dpi, but for my primary format (6x9 and 6x6), it's more than enough.


(Photo taken with an Agfa Clack)

 

[Gary Ayala]

Well done Charlotte Ortelli. Vuescan won't let you forget its a trial version.

(PS- I have a Clack also.)

 

[Gary Ayala]

(PPS- If the negs don't clean up easily, you can try to rewash them and then use a different ratio. I never used Ilford wetting agent, only Photo-Flo. I'd unscientifically just add a few drops to the tank and give it a shake and then a squeegee (with my fingers).

FYI-
Too Little Wetting Agent = Water Spots
Too Much Wetting Agent = Soap Stains

 

[Chris Bennett]

I use the Ilford wetter and, afterwards, I put the film, still in the spiral, into the Bennett Film Roto-Tron™ and give it a good whiz around to get the bulk of the liquid off. Then I hang it up to dry. Since I started doing this, I haven't had a single water or soap spot on my negatives.

I understand some people use a similar device to dry lettuce leaves.