That sounds like the start to a joke, but it's not. It's actually a film developer chemical, one that is safe enough to pour down the drain afterward. From the Flic Film web site, "The active developer is Vitamin C and the superadditive is Phenidone, long known as a low toxin developer. The developers are carried in an alkaline solution that is commonly used for a hand cream emulsifier and a pH balancer in shampoo."
Best of all, for people like me, it has a long shelf life. There aren't many people around developing film any more. I was using a bespoke lab here in Calgary, but Paul retired and moved to Nova Scotia. When you're doing lots of film, you don't have to worry much about your chemistry going bad between batches. But when it could be several weeks or more between rolls of film, it becomes a real possibility.
Or, as I found a few days ago, a reality. I had started with Ilfosol 3 and it worked fine. I wanted to give the BW&G a try because long life and pour it down the drain afterward. I picked up a small jar, good for 25 rolls of film.
Good thing. As I was mixing up the last of the Ilfosol 3, it came out dark brown, meaning it had gone off and wouldn't work any more. The BW&G is like a thick cough syrup, and you need 10 ml to mix into 490 ml of water. I carefully poured it into a 1 Tsp measuring spoon and stirred it into room temperature water. It left a film of residue behind, but did the same again and swooshed it for longer. That got all but the faintest of residue. When I ran the spoon under hot water it rinsed clean. So for the next roll I put a bit of hot water in my mixing measuring cup, and stirred in the 2 Tsp, and that worked great. Topped it up to 500 ml of room temperature water and I was good to go. I'm using the spice jar metal measuring spoons from Lee Valley.
I did 2 rolls of film. The first was a roll of 120 Delta 100, the second was a 35mm roll of Delta 400. I goofed slightly because for some reason I thought it was another roll of HP5+. I used Ilford stop, and rapid fixer like usual.
The development times are much longer than with Ilfosol 3, but I'm retired, and I'm not on the clock to churn through many rolls of film. The time given on the label at 20C for Delta 100 is 13 minutes, and for Delta 400 it's 16:15, and for HP5+ it's 15:15. So I guess I slightly under developed the Delta 400. I also made a slight time adjustment for the actual temperature of the water, and did the usual 4 inversions every minute. I don't know for sure if either of those were correct. They give times for lots of films on the label.
I was kind of grossed out when I poured out the developer from the roll of Delta 100. It was a dark blue brown, and down the drain it went. I gave the tank a quick rinse with plain water, then poured in the stop. Then the fixer, then the rinse, and let it dry. One of the reasons I love Delta 100 is that it drys flat.
The residue from the roll of 35 mm was a clear light orange, and I could have done another roll of 35, except I didn't have another roll ready, and don't even have any more on hand. Technically, I suppose it was a waste to create the batch and pour it out after only the one use. I burned a whole 25 cents or so there.
People that have been doing this for a long time have a favourite film and development chemicals and process to get the results they like. From there, some go on to using an enlarger to create prints from that those negatives. They are good enough to have the end print in mind as they hold the camera, and I'm in awe of them. I've pretty much settled on Delta 100 for black and white, and Kodak Gold 200 for colour.
The 35mm camera has an exposure meter I'm learning to trust, but I still think about sunny 16. The GW690 has no batteries and is completely manual. I'll start with sunny 16, but will usually check with a meter as well, especially if I'm doing a long exposure. If anything, I'll err a bit on the side of over exposure. I'm still fairly new to all this.
I use the DSLR method to digitize the negatives. I'll typically aim for the centre of the EV and tweak if I think it necessary. I'm generally around 1/50 second, f5, and ISO 400. Then into Lightroom and NegativeLab Pro to invert and tweak settings. Mostly I don't change them much. I like how film looks. Occasionally if the dust spots are bad, or the cat has inserted a hair into the process, I'll have another go at digitizing, rather than trying to fix it in Lightroom.
Here are the digital versions of the negatives, though there was a detour along the way. I didn't have the camera perfectly focused on the negatives the first time around, and the Delta 400 cupped just enough to throw the focus off. I was looking at the images in Lightroom, wondering if I'd goofed that badly in camera. Then I looked at the negatives and realized what had happened. I did them all over, checking more carefully and making sure the film was flat.
As a reminder, the cameras are an EOS-3 with a 50mm f1.8 lens exposing Delta 400, and a GW690 exposing Delta 100.
1. Fish Creek long exposure, mainly focusing just beyond the stump. I think if I'd worked with this a little more I could have got it all in focus.
I'm quite pleased how these came out, at least from what I've seen so far. How they look on paper might be quite different. I'll probably find out later this week. Perhaps I'll post a photo of the print. Some of you are thinking, wait a sec, a roll of 35mm is 36 photos, and a roll of 120 from that camera is 8 photos, and there's only 21 showing. Unlike the circus carnival games where everyone is a winner, some of the photos are not.
The process took a bit longer, but I was able to work on other stuff in between agitations. Someone more experienced than me might be able to look at the photos and say whether I agitated too much or not.
The next adventure is my first try at C-41 chemistry for developing colour film. I've got 7 rolls of Kodak Gold 200, and a Flic Film 5 step kit that's good for 16 rolls of film. There's a bit of a process to get the temperatures just right, and I want to make sure I completely understand the instructions and think it through first. It's sort of like the first time making wine. I was afraid the slightest variation would result in something undrinkable. Or the first time doing black and white development. Or the first time mixing chemicals and exposing paper in the dark room. For those there is a surprising amount of latitude.
If you'd like to follow along and be notified when I post, either here or my other blog, send an email to keith@nucleus.com asking to be added to the blog notification list. Or comment here with your email, though Blogger is still cranky about mobile devices and some browsers.
