Following on from my blog posting titled Odds and Ends In B&W Film Development I  thought I would continue with the topic of the final rinse.

Final Rinse Update – In the past I had spots now none:

The final rinse is 3 minutes in distilled water; After the 3 minutes I 
then add 1 drop of Edwards LFN wetting agent.; Shake really well for 5   seconds, wait  until any foam dies down; Then remove film from
liquid. Shake off excess water and hang to dry.


Absolutely no spots!


Notes:

The distilled water adds  about $0.15 per roll but it seems to be worth it, The trick seems to be prior to adding the wetting agent leave the film in the distilled water for long enough to dilute (replace) any of the tap water in the emulsion.

Over washing and washing the film like a raccoon can do irreparable damage to the emulsion.

Obviously if you get white spots with tap water you need distilled for the final rinse if you don’t get them then you don’t.. And of course negatives without white spots and drying marks are better than those that have them.

I did an experiment watching under a microscope one drop of distilled water and one drop of my tap water dry on a microscope slide. Absolutely no observable difference! So why use distilled water? Distilled water removes most minerals from the film gelatin layer so it doesn’t come to the surface later and cause water marks when it drys. The final rinse must be long enough for the gelatin to become in equilibrium with the rinse water. The reason I reuse the same “distilled” water from the final rinse for the photo flow or wetting agent stage is that I want the water within the gelatin to be in equilibrium with the water that has the wetting agent. This and a short cycle time with good agitation keeps the wetting agent surfactant mostly on the surface where it belongs.

It’s all about chemistry, surface chemistry, diffusion and equilibrium.

Why not dishwashing soap instead of a wetting agent? Because it’s a false economy and they contains impurities, contaminants that could cause problems. Wetting agents designed for film do not have the extra impurities that are added to dish water soaps and are only a couple of pennies per film.

Tip: 

Sometimes I find stuff floating in my developer or fixer, to remove pore the liquid through a small fine stainless sieve used for cooking. Don’t forget to rinse the sieve after using to prevent corrosion.

Drying

 I recently I brought an old Kindermann Rapid dryer. I then taped a dust and pollen filter over the fan air inlet so for a total cost of $20 I can now have dry, dust and spot free film ready to scan within 45 minutes of development.

There are many DIY dryers out there on the web including those made with garment bags. This MacGyver like method although I haven’t tried it yet, it looks brilliant!

Warning

References

Why Is Water The Universal Solvent

Diffusion

Surfactant

The Naming Of Types
(Stolen and poorly adapted from T. S. Eliot)

The Naming of Types is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a photographer must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Snapshot, Wedding, Nature, Macro or Travel
All of them fun everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:

But I tell you, a photographer needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you the most accordant
That name is of course Photojournalism.
A name that is a beacon for both truth and realism
With the names Bokeh and Sharpness being of much lesser importance

But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE PHOTOGRAPHER HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice he or she is in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
Of all the names his is the smartest,
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
That of course is because he’s an Artist
Of deep and inscrutable singular Nature.

My Photo Blog at blog.metrix-x.com has been hosted by Google for 8 months now so the data is 4 months shy of a year. The interactive maps are one of the more interesting aspects of using Google analytics to track visitors. From the world map you can click down to the country and then down to the specific town.

Last Saturday on a photo walk I found out that Toronto had an official Lomography store. Of course I had to check it out here’s a place that you can buy a $40 Russian camera from Ebay or $300 in the store. Interesting stuff but way over priced except for this 3 pack of 120 black and white film that was going for$10 taxes in. The store manager said it was repackaged Chinese Shanghai GP3. Surprisingly I had wanted to try some because I had heard some good things about the film.

Specifications:
Made in Shanghai, CHINA,  for professional photography, practising photographing and developing.

• The film is made by coating a panchromatic photographic emulsion on a polyester or triacetate film base.

• It could be used both for professional and amateur photographers for all-purpose providing fine-grain at full tonal range.

• Unit item weight:30 g

Suggested Developing time:
20C degree:

D76 stock – 8 minutes
D76 1:1 – 14 minutes
D23 12 minutes
Rodinal 1:50 15 minutes
D72 1:4 4 minutes 
 
Made by the SMPIC Photosensitive Materials Factory of Shanghai, an industry leader with more than 40 years of experience in making photographic materials. 

Definitely Shanghai GP3 because of the edge code of “SGPFF” It had a slight strange plastic smell when I was loading on to the developing reel. I haven’t seen the punched hole near the end before. Also the sticky end of reel tape did not have any useful glue (make sure you carry an elastic band in your pocket), cheap backing paper with grey on black printing and a curl with enough springiness to act as leaf springs for a truck.

My first roll of Lomography/ Shanghai GP3 film.

This film is rated at Iso 100 and I shot the roll at 100 Developed 11 minutes in Agfa Refinal 19c this is a 2 stop push with no agitation after the first 20 seconds because the telephone rang and I forgot about the film. Except for  one shot with blown highlights they turned out OK. I suspect the film should be rated at ISO 60, Nice tonality not that sharp. Light to medium blue dye in the pre-soak water. The film curls badly but doesn’t bow so it is still easy to scan. See previous photo for more details about the film.

My  second roll I developed  8 minutes at 19c agitated every minute or so. The result was much better tonality also better sharpness for some reason.

Rare find in Toronto a Volvo C202, C303, Laplander or Valp

My favourite out of the second roll the tint comes from my scanning method to pull out more from the negative.

The third roll was developed with Xtol 1:2 plus Rodinal 1:112 for 14 minutes at 19c scanned using the same method as above.

Unlike Kentmere films it is a useful budget film to have in the bag for a slightly retro look.Flickr slideshow of my shots using Shanghai GP3 

RBVP is my tongue in cheek name for my low tech attempt to fool around with moving pictures. As long as I don’t take myself too serious the making of small video clips has helped me widen my horizons.

The following Youtube video I made with about 100 shots out of my DSLR. The idea is to make a sculpture out of real life.

My first attempt at this type of stop motion was done a coupe of weeks ago using much fewer photos from my P&S:

My P&S actually has real video, too bad the compression algorithm is so lossy or else I think it might actually be a good video camera. But it is still good enough to record RBVP documentaries or music video style videos.

I doubt it but if you would like to see more but RBVP on YouTube or on Flickr