water and tank info

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I'm using 16 oz stainless steel tanks with full chemical coverage. As far as water goes I have heard puns about the noho's water system, lol. many people say that Massachusetts water is possessed or something. I haven't found any matter or residual items floating in the water I use, though I don't know about minute details I would have to further check it out. The store brands of bottled water begins at around $2.09, still rather expensive, I'll stick to the tap for now.

I had tested one past negative that was printed and it was tough getting the results I wanted and the print almost looks like the original and this took a couple of reprints to nail it down. Many of the past works had exposure info and filter info, time, etc and when refering to those to make a test print; proved invalid

I can probably find out the ph of the water or if any deposits to exist. Are their any chemical tests I can do from home? I have heard of a send out service for this kind of work before.

I will be trying out a new method of processing, this time at 75 degrees, though I'm trying to get information on HC-110 dil f which I believe is 1:19. Dilution B gives a time of 3:45, way to short I think. Or if I can employ the 1:31 dilution and keep the 200 ISO film speed. I use to do this with the tri-x rated at 100 ISO which came to about 18-20 minutes at 68deg with presoak, one minute inital agitation, then every two minutes therafter. Those negatives were very nice and easy to work with. That was when I first experimented with the Zone system a few years ago. Now I wish I had a 4X5 now :-) lol.

I remember one test I did with 4X5 film when I was a student. I exposed the neg at around f22 and a quick click on/off from the enlarger and I got a really nice positive on 4X5 neg tri-x it looked really neat. The click click method had to be right, I figured around 1/10- 1/30 of a second or how ever fast response times are.

Thanks for your time.

-- Robert D. (rjphoto120@aol.com), June 12, 2001

Answers

I hope you are paying attention to the difference between mixing working solution from stock solution and mixing it from concentrate. For instance, the most commonly used dilution is B, which is stock 1:7 with water, but it is concentrate 1:31 with water. Big difference. Just a thought.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), June 12, 2001.

I have trouble believing it's the water. The water around Rochester, NY can be pretty hard, but that's what Kodak is used to and their chemistry works OK with it. I've done work nearby using well water that was almost undrinkable due to iron, sulfer, and gas (yes, some people near here can actually light the tap and have it burn!). It really had little effect on the photographic results. I do have a friend in NH who had highly radioactive water, but hopefully not enough to fog film! The town actualyl had to change their water supply to another source to eliminate the problem. One clue is the short developing time. Anything shorter than 5 minutes risks unevenness- I like dilutions that put me out at 8-15 minutes. At high temperatures you may want the higher dilution. You said "full coverage". Good agitation requires some air space in the tank. I measure the volume to just cover the top reel and always use that exact amount of developer. Trouble printing past negs is another good clue, and I've been through this same thing. I think most of it is just differences in paper over the years, but I don't have any frozen samples of the old stuff to prove it. You might try printing a simple step tablet from white to black and critically examining it for clean whites, even tones, and decent blacks. Did you do a safelight test using lightly exposed paper? One more thing- I discovered my Multigrade filters had faded over the years, plus Ilford changed the design somewhat. If your filters are more than a couple years old, it might be wise to replace them. I resisted this way too long!

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), June 12, 2001.

Greetings,

One solution for those having water problems, at least in the U.S, is to purchase a filter. These are available in most large home stores i.e. Home Depot. A whole house filter, with replaceable cartridges sell for $20-30 and can be fitted with a 5 micron filter. With the 5 micron filter, they work very well for processing film. I would not recommend using one for the entire house, as filter life would diminish quickly, but it will last quite a while filtering water for the darkroom.

Regards,

-- Pete Caluori (pcaluori@hotmail.com), June 12, 2001.


I agree with the filtration. Very wise way of doing things. Put a 15 Micron carbon filter for the house and a 5 micron poly filter for your darkroom. The carbon filter will filter out and neutralize the taste and the smaller filtration in your darkroom filter won't clog up as much. Just a thought. Cheers

-- Scott Walton (scotlynn@shore.net), June 12, 2001.

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