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Film Development - Water filtering

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  • 16-10-2015 10:11pm
    #1
    aidanic
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭


    Hi,

    I'm living in a hard water area - a complete pain. I've made up my photo chemicals with distilled water, and do a final wash in distilled water, with Photoflo - but I still end up with loads of crud and crap on my negatives. I suspect this is from the intermediate washes I do with normal tap water.

    I believe I have the rest of my technique mostly OK - apart from the rotate thing :)

    Below - Kodak Porta 160VC*

    large.jpg

    and Fuji Provia 100f*

    large.jpg

    Both were scanned with the same Nikon scanner this evening - and I think the scanner mirror and optics are OK. The scans are straight from the scanner.

    But I'm dogged with small particles on the physical film surface. I do the development in the bath, and use the regular tap water for the washes...

    Does anyone here use any "inline filters" if they're doing development, or can you guys recommend any filters?

    * The colours may be a bit flat - the Porta expired in 2003, and the Provia in 2012 - plus my soup has been made up for about 3 months, but in airtight containers.


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    #2
    DaireQuinlan
    Registered Users Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭DaireQuinlan


    That is a LOT of crap in the negs. I don't pay too much attention to water except in the final wash and I get nowhere near that amount of crud on the neg. Hard water deposits normally look like chalky drying marks more than that.

    Where are you drying your film ? is dust getting on them then? Is there crud floating in any of your solutions that could end up stick to the neg?

    Lastly is it on the emulsion or non emulsion side? Non emulsion side is ready to wipe off. Emulsion side not so much.


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    #3
    CabanSail
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 9,047 CMod ✭✭✭✭CabanSail


    Rather than distilled water it would be a lot cheaper to use bulk drinking water from the supermarket. Buy it in the big 10 litre bottles.


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    #4
    DaireQuinlan
    Registered Users Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭DaireQuinlan


    CabanSail wrote: »
    Rather than distilled water it would be a lot cheaper to use bulk drinking water from the supermarket. Buy it in the big 10 litre bottles.

    A lot of that water also has the same crap as tap water in it. In some cases it just IS bottled tap water. When I'm making up solutions that I think might be sensitive to water quality (xtol for example) I use de-ionised water, €4 for 5 litres in tesco in the automotive bit


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    #5
    amdgilmore
    Registered Users Posts: 545 ✭✭✭amdgilmore


    That does look more like dust. I've had the nasty water/drying marks and they usually look quite different, as Daire says.

    If it is indeed dust, there are a few ways it could be happening.

    As mentioned above, dust accumulating during the drying process is one. Are the negs being hung in a carpeted area or near any fabrics that might be disturbed (eg curtains)? A good trick is to hang them in the bathroom after letting the shower run on hot for a few minutes. The steam knocks dust particles out of the air.

    Another issue I've had is with dust on the glass and rim of the scanner itself, which would then contaminate the negs when I closed the lid.

    You might just have to methodically go through your entire development process and isolate any point where the negs might be exposed to anything carrying dust or fibres (clothes, carpets, curtains, paper, etc).


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    #6
    aidanic
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭aidanic


    DaireQuinlan wrote: »
    That is a LOT of crap in the negs

    Yup - starting to really annoy me
    DaireQuinlan wrote: »
    Where are you drying your film ? is dust getting on them then?

    Drying in the shower cabinet - not likely to be so dusty there.

    small.jpg
    DaireQuinlan wrote: »
    Is there crud floating in any of your solutions that could end up stick to the neg?

    And we have a winner... Thank you Mr Quinlan...

    I spend a bit of time this morning filtering all of the solutions I used last week - E6 First Developer, E6 Colour Developer, E6 Bleach Fix and C41 Colour Developer. I used unbleached coffee filters, and used distilled water to clean the filter/jug before and afterwards.

    E6 First Developer This one has a load of crud left over in the filter...

    small.jpg

    E6 Colour Developer This one very little crud

    small.jpg

    E6 Bleach Fix This one a bit of crud

    small.jpg

    C41 Colour Developer This one also some crud

    small.jpg

    Full set of cruddy pictures here

    I'm using a set of squashable plastic containers for my solutions, and it looks like they're building up deposits which don't rinse out. (I do tend to leave solutions in the containers for long periods - hence the deposits).

    1004198.jpg

    I've found some new ones for €6 online, so will get a new set of four for my E6, and see about cleaning the old ones out, and discarding those that cannot get clean.

    Thanks for asking the right questions...


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