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| Date | |
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Jorge Gasteazoro. |
14:10 29 Dec 07 |
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Steve Nicholls |
23:51 29 Dec 07 |
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John Hannon |
8:26 1 Jan 08 |
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Philippe Bedfert |
5:04 8 Nov 07 |
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Michael Finger |
17:31 26 Oct 07 |
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Steve Nicholls |
18:13 26 Oct 07 |
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Miles Nelson, M.D. |
17:53 4 Nov 07 |
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film development problems |
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Michael Finger |
19:35 8 Oct 07 |
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I have been using the black plastic tube method of film development for at least 15 years now and have been having an increasing problem with scratches on my negatives for the last several years. I made these tubes myself and they worked great for the first several years but then I began to get scratches on the negative on an occasional basis.The frequency and severity of the problem has been increasing until now just about every negative has a collection of horrible scratches running horizontally (but at a slight diagonal) across the top of the negative (the notch end). After developing the film and plunging the tube into stop bath, I then pull the negative out of the tube and place it into a 10X10" pyrex glass cake pan that has about an inch of Kodak Rapid Fixer in it. I proceed to interleave the film for about 5 minutes then move it out of the fixer (setting all the sheets into a tray of water) while I pour the fix back into the bottle and put Kodak hypo-clear into the same baking dish. I interleave the sheets of film for 3-5 minutes in the hypo-clear then move it into my GravityWorks film washer for about 6-8 minutes of washing. When the wash cycle is done I dribble a little LFN into the washer and let sit for about 3-4 minutes then hang the sheets in my drying cabinet, shut the door and leave it there (no heat) overnight. The next day I then remove the dry sheets of film and take them to the light box to admire a new collection of scratches. I am getting frustrated. There isn't much point in making new exposures if I'm just going to ruin them sometime in the development process. Any suggestions? I have been thinking it is the tubes that is causing the problem but they were fine for the first several years. I went at them recently with some steel wool and really polished them good. They are as smooth as the proverbial baby's butt. The scratches continue. I began to think there was something in my fixer and I was scratching the film while interleaving in the tray of fixer. I save my fixer for reuse and had been mixing it in the same bottle for may years so I thought there may have been some residual silver in the solution that was scratching the film. I threw away the fixer, cut open the bottle and found a great deal of sludge in there. OK-mixed up new fixer in a new bottle and developed a new batch of negatives. They were all scratched. What should I try next? I would be grateful for any suggestions. |
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Steve Nicholls |
0:52 9 Oct 07 |
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Michael Finger |
7:17 9 Oct 07 |
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