 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| PhotoKB HomeDiscussion Groups Digital Photography Digital PhotoDSLR CamerasZLR CamerasPoint & Shoot CamerasFilm Photography 35 mmLarge FormatMedium formatDarkroomFilm and LabsOther EquipmentPhoto Technique Nature PhotographyPeople PhotographyTechnique GeneralGeneral Photo Topics General TopicsAustralian PhotographyUK PhotographyDirectoryPhoto Clubs |
Photo Forum / Film Photography / Darkroom / July 2004Photo Flo
At processing time I like the convience of one shot processing. I have all chemistry premeasured and ready for final dilution. That is for Photo Flo. I thought I might predilute to 1:30 a few one ounce bottles and when time to process add that one ounce to 12 of water for a final dilution. Will that 1:30 in well sealed glass bottles last? I'd like a few weeks from it. I've no idea of it's keeping property. Dan > Will that 1:30 in well sealed glass bottles last? I'd like a > few weeks from it. I've no idea of it's keeping property. Photo Flo working solution mad with distilled water lasts a long, long time. I often use it a year or more, as long as nothing starts to grow in it. > At processing time I like the convience of one shot processing. > I have all chemistry premeasured and ready for final dilution. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Will that 1:30 in well sealed glass bottles last? I'd like a > few weeks from it. I've no idea of it's keeping property. Dan I'd be much more inclined to use a medicine dropper to dispense a fraction of a milliliter for immediate dilution from concentrate -- consistency isn't critical here, as it would be with developer, and doing it this way eliminates any question of shelf life of diluted "stock" solution. For a 16 ounce tank, 1 ml should be perfectly fine (a little less than half Kodak's recommended strength), and that amount is very easy to measure and dispense with a small syringe or dropper; 1/2 ml in an 8 ounce tank, etc. isn't a big math challenge. Of course, you can safely reuse the working solution until it starts to show mold growth, typically several days to a couple weeks -- again, it's just detergent, it doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the image on the film, and you don't use up an active ingredient by treating several films with one batch in any case -- but if you prefer to one-shot, I don't see an advantage to making up stock solution.  SignatureI may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz! -- E. J. Fudd, 1954 Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer Lathe Building Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/HomebuiltLathe.htm Speedway 7x12 Lathe Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/my7x12.htm Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth and don't expect them to be perfect. > > At processing time I like the convience of one shot processing. > > I have all chemistry premeasured and ready for final dilution. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Will that 1:30 in well sealed glass bottles last? I'd like a > > few weeks from it. I've no idea of it's keeping property. Dan > ...to one-shot, I don't see an advantage to making up stock solution. It's a matter of processing method. With start to finish one-shot everything goes down the drain. I can do one-shot with one cup and the tank. If I had all the solutions set out in advance the last roll of film I processed would have taken seven containers. I use a modified Ilford wash and that's three plus the Photo Flo. Between inversions bottles can be rinsed and the next solution prepared. Dan Think months, not weeks. Photoflo is very stable and if not contaminated with dirt or processing chemistry, you can just keep on using it over and over and over again. It's nothing more than a surfactant. As an additional comment, I use stabilizer from my color processing chemistry for both B&W and color. Stabilizer is photo-flo with some formaldehyde added, albeit weaker in concentration than is often used for B&W. Using the stabilizer for both saves me the trouble of keeping separate B&W photo-flo. Of course there aren't any dyes to stabilize, but the result is the same as standard photo-flo. > > > Will that 1:30 in well sealed glass bottles last? I'd like a > > > few weeks from it. I've no idea of it's keeping property. Dan ... If I had all the solutions set out in advance the last >roll of film I processed would have taken seven containers. ... jul1304 from Lloyd Erlick, What a coincidence. I set out seven (tall cylindrical) containers full of my requisite chemical baths and process my little batches of film in the dark. I find ten rolls at a time quite comfortable. I'm close to all-one-shot, but I haven't got into one-shot fixing (yet...). For quite some time I've been mixing my print developer directly from dry powders to a working solution. No storage, very easy to mix at working temperature. (Actually, I do store my developer working solution. It works just fine after twenty four hours, after forty eight it's different but OK for hacking about. I never mark the container, or date it. If I can't remember what and when, it's too old.) regards, --le Signature________________________________ Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto. voice: 416-686-0326 email: portrait@heylloyd.com net: www.heylloyd.com ________________________________ > > Dan Quinn wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > I'm close to all-one-shot, but I haven't got into one-shot > fixing (yet...). One-shot fix is a hurdle. No less personage than Bill Troop has said that Eddie Ephraum's 60gr fix is not practical. I had to test dilute fix because of the one-shot start to finish challange I had decided to undertake. After all I could'nt very well throw used but still with some capacity fix down the drain. I went through maybe six rolls of film, each with a lessor amount of sodium thiosulfate. Cutting under the amount needed, two rolls came out of the fix pink and a little cloudy. Entirely clear film and fix testing with some margine by the iodide test were the results of using fifteen grams of the anhydrous. I felt safe after twelve minutes; a little slow. I think I may go to eighteen grams; a little more margine and perhaps a couple of minutes shorter fix. From what I've learned the use of fix is purely quantitative. So much silver, so much fix. Also, very great dilution will increase fix time. Mr. E. Ephraum's fix was likely as quick as full strength. One thing to keep in mind in evaluating one-shot fix performance is it's being completly devoid of silver or halides at time of use. I dare say the usuall muti- used fixers are very dilute when near exhaustion. Dan > For quite some time I've been mixing my print developer > directly from dry powders to a working solution. No storage, [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > net: www.heylloyd.com > ________________________________ >... I dare say the usuall muti- >used fixers are very dilute when near exhaustion. Dan jul1404 from Lloyd Erlick, Plus of course the accumulated reaction procucts, usually regarded as contaminantas. Using a multi-use fixer when it is near exhaustion is something to be avoided. Do you do a double-bath, single shot fix step? From the details you've provided, it seems to me that eighteen (can we round it up to twenty?) grams of sodium thiosulfate (presumably anhydrous?) per roll of film, applied twice, in two separate baths, for about twelve minutes per bath, would pretty much do it. In my case, for a developing run of ten rolls of film, that's about four hundred grams of sodium thiosulfate anhydrous. My usual fixing baths contain five hundred grams of sodium thiosulfate each, so the total would be a kilogram used and reused until fifty rolls had been fixed. Your method implies about two thousand grams (two kilograms) for fifty rolls. So the 'price' of fixing film one shot (which gives significant security from accumulated contaminants in the fixer, which implies a far superior chance of clean, so-called archival, negatives) is a doubling of the amount of sodium thiosulfate used. It also takes more time. Partially offsetting this is the fact that for one-shot use, plain sodium thiosulfate can be used, no sodium sulfite or any other ingredients necessary if it is not to be stored more than a few hours. Another offsetting factor is that fixer is no longer a storage chore. I've been able to find sodium thiosulfate anhydrous locally at C$130 per hundred pound bag. This price held from 1998 to 2001, the last time I bought, so it could have risen since, but I'd guess not by much. Thus, I set the price of a kilogram at around C$3.00, suggesting that the price of switching to one-shot fixing would be around three dollars per fifty rolls processed, or six cents a roll over my current outlay. If we stick to your original number of fifteen grams per roll, the comparison drops to 1.5 kilograms vs my multi-use fix containing one kilo. Nearly all issues connected with fixing and washing and 'archivability' etc etc, are obviated by one-shot fixing. Nearly all problems with fixing are sidestepped. Would there be any other way to achieve a similar level of 'cleanliness' in fixing and washing? I wonder if my reasoning has any flaws, because, if not, six cents a roll is a pretty small price. The added time only comes to seconds per roll, I think. What about applying this method to FB print making??? regards, --le Signature________________________________ Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto. voice: 416-686-0326 email: portrait@heylloyd.com net: www.heylloyd.com ________________________________ > > ... I dare say the usuall muti- > > used fixers are very dilute when near exhaustion. Dan [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Do you do a double-bath, single shot fix step? I've done that with paper and may give it a go with film. Two bath is usually used when the two baths are multi-use. One-shot is not the same. At start the first and perhaps only fix bath is virgin. Also it is very dilute being 1/4 that of a 160gr/ltr fix. Being very dilute the level of silver is a small fraction of what a conventional fix might carry. And that IS considering the one- shot fix to be NEAR exhaustion at end. > From the details you've provided, it seems to me that > eighteen (can we round it up to twenty?) grams of sodium > thiosulfate (presumably anhydrous?) per roll of film, > applied twice, in two separate baths, for about twelve > minutes per bath, would pretty much do it. With 15gr S. Thio. I had clear film and thiosulfate to spare by the iodide test. I'm only speaking of Pan F+ 120 film. Times are for a concentration of 40gr/ltr one bath. Agitate as with developer. I think I'll up from 15 to 16gr anhydrous. That would be 24gr plus a fraction of the penta. That 16gr is ALL that it takes to do one roll of 120 Pan F+. I have made a determination for Pan F+ only. I'll be testing some others over time. To test with A. or S. Thio. three or four rolls of film will be needed. I tested with some totaly unexposed rolls. Doing so places the entire silver load on the fixer. In the future I'll likely expose some little. I do a real world test. The film is developed, exposed or not. How about an after fixer chaser! To one liter of water add ten grams of S. Thio, any brand, and half that amount of your favorite alkali. A sulfite, bicarbonate, or carbonate will do and go well with the following washes. Sounds good! I think I'll give that a try myself! Dan > In my case, for a developing run of ten rolls of film, > that's about four hundred grams of sodium thiosulfate [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] > net: www.heylloyd.com > ________________________________ I found a screw cap with a built-in eyedropper that fit my wetting agent bottle and add a couple of drops to my final distilled water rinse. MUCH more dilute that specified but it does the trick. Signaturedarkroommike ---------- > At processing time I like the convience of one shot processing. > I have all chemistry premeasured and ready for final dilution. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Will that 1:30 in well sealed glass bottles last? I'd like a > few weeks from it. I've no idea of it's keeping property. Dan |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2009 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.