Water marks on negatives

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I use only Agfa AXP 25 ASA.

Developer: Rodinal 1:25 for 6 minutes at 68F Stop developer: water for 1 min at 68-70F Fixer: Kodafix 1:3 for 3 min at 68F Wash/Rinse: water at 68-70F Squezee Sponge Hanging in tight closet for 2 hours

Results: everything is perfect, but I get a lot of water marks and/or spots.

Does anybody knows what to do about the above?

Please suggest.

Thank you people - John

-- C. John Nemaric (foto22@yahoo.com), November 16, 1997

Answers

After washing the film, soak in a wetting agent at the recommended dilution (Kodak Photo-Flow or Ilford ILFOSOL) with agitation for 1 minute. Be careful about using a squeegee - you could damage the emulsion. I just hang the film with a weight and let it dry - no spots & our water here is pretty hard. Good luck.

-- John R. Fowler (cpci@fox.nstn.ca), November 16, 1997.

Water marks on negs

John R. Fowler (cpci@fox.nstn.ca) Writes:

After washing the film, soak in a wetting agent at the recommended dilution (Kodak Photo-Flow or Ilford ILFOSOL) with agitation for 1 minute. Be careful about using a squeegee - you could damage the emulsion. I just hang the film with a weight and let it dry - no spots & our water here is pretty hard. Good luck.

---------

Good advice, except for the Typo. Ilford's wetting agent is ILFOTOL. Ilfosol-S is a developer.

Another method is advocated by Lloyd Erlick (www.heylloyd.com, a nice B/W site, by the way). He rinses down his hanging films with distilled water and reports good results.

I use photo-flo (Kodak). I don't have hard water, so I add really minute quantities of photo-flo to my last wash. Invert the bottle a couple of times, open it, and rinse the cap into about a liter of water, then the film into that weak solution. Works well for Louisville Colorado water. Yours is probably different.

-- anonymously answered, November 17, 1997


The best way I've found to eliminate water spots on negs is to eliminate the drops of water on the negs before drying. Yes, I mean squeegee them!!! I use a soft sponge squegee (not the rubber kind) and I keep it just barely damp so that it will absorb 95% of the water/photo-Flo mix. I've never scratched a neg this way and I've been doing it for 15 years. Negs dry quickly this way and I rarely get spots. When I do get them it is usually because I used too much Photo-Flo in the water and the squegee was too wet ( therefore could not absorb enough of the water on the film)

-- Tony Mastres (mastres@id.ucsb.edu), November 18, 1997.

Water spots on negs

Years ago, at a friends house, he was developing tx and as a final wash he used Photo Flo for 30 to 60 seconds. As a final move, he "snapped" the film as though using a whip and most of the water "snapped" off. Have been doing this since about 1972

-- H. David Huffman (craptalk@ix.netcom.com), May 11, 1999.

I had this problem too many eons ago. If I squeegeed, I sometimes scratched the negative, and if I used Photoflow, I sometimes got newton rings when I printed with my glass negative carrier. I resoved the problem by finishing my washing of the negatives in distilled water. After washing my negatives in a washer, I returned them, still wound in Nikor reels, to the Nikor developing tank which had been thoroughly rinsed with tap and then distilled water. I then closed the tank, poured in distiilled water, and gave it a short rinse. I followed this with two one minute rinses with agitation just as I did in the developing step. This process removes the tap rinse water which contains salts that cause the negative spotting. After the final distilled rinse, I hang the negatives to dry without touching them. If you want them to dry faster, you can remove droplets of water by dabbing with a small tissue - no wiping!

-- Eilert Anders (Eilert@dav.com), November 21, 1997.


APX-25 is especially prone to water marks for some reason. It helps if you let it sit in the photoflo or whatever for several minutes rather than Kodak's recommended 30 seconds.

-- John Lehman (ffjal@aurora.alaska.edu), December 15, 1997.

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