chemicals

rjramos · 17-10-2007 3:56pm #1

Anyone doing their own developing have suggestions for finding chemicals to process b/w film? Shops and searches have not turned up much. Thanks

DaireQuinlan · 17-10-2007 4:14pm

Camera exchange on georges street, conns cameras, and gunns cameras all have chemicals. Conns only seem to have Ilford stuff, Camera exchange has a whole range of print and film developers & other darkroom gear, as do gunns.

pete4130 · 17-10-2007 6:33pm

Gunnes Wexford Street!

elven · 17-10-2007 7:12pm

And you can use vinegar as stop, which I discovered last week

rjramos · 17-10-2007 8:28pm

cool, thanks. just had a look at the web sites, didn't see anything about chems. but I'll give them a ring, need them posted to Cork. No ideas about online shops.

thx again

deRanged · 17-10-2007 9:07pm

If you're in Cork City try O'Leary's Camera World on Oliver Plunkett street. They usually have Ilford stuff in stock.

DaireQuinlan · 17-10-2007 9:10pm

rjramos wrote: »

cool, thanks. just had a look at the web sites, didn't see anything about chems. but I'll give them a ring, need them posted to Cork. No ideas about online shops.
thx again

Cork eh ? I (quite rudely I'm sure

) always presume people are talking Dublin unless they specify otherwise. There has to be a couple of camera shops in cork that still stock chemicals and darkroom kit. Couple of corkonians on boards, I'm sure they can chime in.

Dr.Louis · 17-10-2007 9:19pm

Make your own lol... Coffee and washing soda some how develop film... Although if you go down that road you'd still have to buy fixer...

Seriously though Gunns on Wexford St are great. I'm sure they could post it to you too.

rjramos · 17-10-2007 10:33pm

Yeah, sorry, thought about it after, should've mentioned where I was.

I rang the Cork shops a little while back, one of them said they had Ilford stuff (prob O'leary's) but ended up being something totally different to what I thought we talked about on the phone- maybe need to try again. I'll give Gunns a ring as well.

Coffee could be cool, see how the negs turn out with a full-bodied developer

thanks again, appreciated

decsramble · 17-10-2007 11:17pm

elven wrote: »

And you can use vinegar as stop, which I discovered last week

How did you discover that? Research or picking up the wrong bottle in the dark

DaireQuinlan · 17-10-2007 11:39pm

rjramos wrote: »

Yeah, sorry, thought about it after, should've mentioned where I was.

I rang the Cork shops a little while back, one of them said they had Ilford stuff (prob O'leary's) but ended up being something totally different to what I thought we talked about on the phone- maybe need to try again. I'll give Gunns a ring as well.

Coffee could be cool, see how the negs turn out with a full-bodied developer

thanks again, appreciated

do you know what you're looking for ? Ilford wise (which is mostly what I use for chemicals, they're also the most commonly stocked) you need a bottle of Ilford Rapid fix, and developer. I'd recommend Ilfosol-S if you're shooting at 400 or under, lovely developer, no nasties in it either, its an ascorbic acid developer like Kodak's XTol. Doesn't keep though, so get the small bottle. Alternatively you can get Ilford DD-X for faster film and pushing film if you want to do that. Also pretty forgiving, lasts a lot longer in concentrate form than Ilfosol aswell. You can get stop if you want, or use vinegar as julie mentions above, or just wash. I've never used stop. After the dev stage I do the ilford wash (fill, invert 5 times, re-fill, invert 10 times, re-fill, invert 20 times or something similar) and never had a problem. A wetting agent is optional but recommended. I found when I started using it that I cut down on streaks on my film in a big way. Ilfotol I think is the ilford wetting agent. A 1 litre bottle of that will literally last you several years I'd say.

Or of course you can eschew all this new fangled buyin' chemicals in shops nonsense and use coffee ...

rjramos · 18-10-2007 12:27am

Thanks for the info Daire. I was hoping to find Ilfotec and/or Rodinal, Ilfosol would be cool as well. Stop, Rapid fix and wetting agent would do the job. DDX isn't familiar, must look that one up.

btw, that's a great shot, very cool clouds. Score one for coffee..
Again, much thanks

trishw78 · 18-10-2007 4:01pm

elven wrote: »

And you can use vinegar as stop, which I discovered last week

I'm completely intrigued by using vinegar. Do you need to water it down how much of it do you use. I'm not finished work till 6 but I want to go home now and try it.

Oh and I usually use Ilford ID11 to develop my film, can't think of the stop of hand but I'm sure it's Ilford.

...VINEGAR... Astounding. Oh Which vinegar, is it the clear stuff or the brown stuff or does it matter.

deRanged · 18-10-2007 4:26pm

rjramos wrote: »

Ilfosol would be cool as well. Stop, Rapid fix

I bought ilfosol s, ilford rapid stop and ilfostop in O Leary's a few weeks ago.

trishw78 · 18-10-2007 4:34pm

Dr.Louis wrote: »

Make your own lol... Coffee and washing soda some how develop film... Although if you go down that road you'd still have to buy fixer...

Seriously though Gunns on Wexford St are great. I'm sure they could post it to you too.

Coffee and washing soda now how did you find that out. What is the proportions does it still need to be at 24Deg.

DaireQuinlan · 18-10-2007 4:46pm

http://flickr.com/groups/53495661@N00/

Flickr group with a lot of trial and error. I started a thread here on the photo board ages ago about my experiments with it. Its fun ! And smells bloody awful aswell...

thefizz · 19-10-2007 12:16pm

Dr.Louis wrote: »

Seriously though Gunns on Wexford St are great. I'm sure they could post it to you too.

Gunns do offer a delivery service by courier.

rjramos · 19-10-2007 2:01pm

Deranged, you're right. I rang O'Leary's and they said they have dev. stop and fix, pricier than I was expecting. This was different to my last experience with them, though I don't remember the details. Thanks for the confirmation.

thefizz, I rang Gunns as well, and they do offer a courier service (An Post won't touch chemicals), but they have a minimum charge of €16 if I remember right.

I'll start with O'Leary's for now, but looking for UK alternatives as well. Thanks again everyone for all the input.

rjramos · 20-10-2007 1:44pm

Just as a positive Cork/chemical update, I did indeed buy Ilford chemicals in O'Leary's today. I also went by McSweeneys who carry Fotospeed chemicals. As well, I talked to RK Photographic in the UK, who have a wide range of stuff, and would ship here for a not unreasonable (IMO) price. http://www.thedarkroom.co.uk

Maybe this info will help someone else, and thanks again for all the help, especially deRanged. Looking forward brewing film again.

chemicals

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