Area 13
News.
Area Leader, Margary Meadows,
reports that the Area held it’s annua1 meeting at Bishop’s Stortford
in Hertfordshire on the 15th of November. She felt that everyone who
attended enjoyed themselves. As usual at the annual get together they held
a slide competition There were 16 entries, with a new member, Colin
Maskell taking first place and Frank Norris :coming a very close second,
and last years winner, Bert Platt, and Mrs. Rita Pearle becoming joint
third place. Margary thanks Roger Wigley who judged the competition after
the appointed one didn’t turn up. After the interval
.
and some refreshments Rita
Pearle demonstrated the C P. pH meter (a fuller report follows in this
issue) and Frank White brought along one
of his Cibachrome prints and demonstrated his slide-copier set up
And Colin Maskell and his brother, Kevin gave a very good A/V presentation
using three projectors.
As mentioned above a new Ph meter has been brought to our notice This
came via Oliver Barron and on request, as the firm was in Bishops
Stortford Margary and Rita went along to find out more. They received a
nice welcome and were given a demonstration meter to try It was also
passed on to Tony Chuter who is a keen pH meter man who also,,builds his own meters and-he also
gives his views on this very convenient model. Your Area Leaders will
receive a coloured advert of this with the Newsletters and Margary will be
able to purchase the meters with a discount. If you are interested please
send your order and postal order or cheque made out to C.P. Instrument Co.
Ltd, Millers Three, The Maltings, Southmill Road, Bishop’s Stortford,
Herts, CM23 .3DH.
Please note, send this to your Area Leader who will pass on your order
to Margary who will deai with the Company and your ordrers will be sent
direct The price is £32 95
V.A .T and according to
the amount ordered the discount will be greater
Firstly, Mr. & Ms Pearle report:
The :pHep. or pH electronic paper is very convenient and easy to use. It
is sturdy and sells for quite a. reasonable price. (see above). It is made
in Italy and the Director of the C.P. Instrument Company says he doesn’t
know how they can be produced so cheaply and apparently they have been
selling well, with very few complaints - one was returned not working and
was found to have been dropped in a swimming pool.
It has a range of 0.0 to 14.0 pH and an accuracy of +/—
0.2 pH at an operating temperature of 0 -
50 deg C which seems well within the needs of photographic processing
The p1-I is indicated by a digital readout which is powered by four 1’S
volt batteries
which are included, and the whole thing is enclosed in a plastic case
with a protective cover over the electrode which in turn is protected by
being within a small slot in the bottom of the case. It even has a clip at
the back to attach it to your pocket like a fountain pen, and a
calibration trimmer which is a srnall screw which, when, the instrument is
placed in a known buffer solution can be adjusted to the correct reading
with a small screwdriver It’s size is 142 mm long x 28 8 mm wide x 15 mm
deep and it weighs 65
grams.
The makers, recommend that it should be placed in a small container of
tap water for a few minutes at least once a week - up to the immersion level which is indicated by the part which is
exposed when the protective cap is removed. If the digital reading of the
pH dodges about. it is because the electrode is
dry Or the batteries have run down. The battery life is indicated
as being 1,000 hours so you could do a lot of’ processing in that time
(or forget to switch it off when you put it away).
We have two sources of tap-water - one is the mains supply to the house
and this read a pH of 7.8 - the
other comes out of a tank in the loft and in our dark-room supply - this
read 6-9 but we don’t use this to make up developers or any other
processing chemicals as we have found small amounts of metal particles in
it which in the ‘past have produced flying saucers on some of our
transparencies - so we buy
Purified water from the Chemists to make up our developers etc. and the pH
on this was also 6.9.
When we made up a batch of chemistry - E6
Arnold Moorhouse formula - the
pH of the 1st developer was 9-6 and that of the Colour developer was 11.6 which is exactly as
indicated on the formula. We did find that upon leaving these two
developers in glass bottles for a couple of weeks that the pH had
decreased in each one by 0.1 pH so before use we were able to add a few
drops of Sodium Hydroxide
until they again reached the mark.
If anyone would be interested in purchasing one of, these pH renters
,would you please contact YOUR Area Leader who should have a leaflet
giving al1 the information and a picture of the pH meter - or alternatively write to, or phone Margary Meadows -
Area Leader of Area 13 because if we, order these pH members in any
number, over 4 we get a discount which is equal to the amount of VAT and
this could be quite a saving.
(Tony
Chuter.gives his report on page.eleven) .
Area
16 & 17
Area 16 & 17 have been formed into a new group under the Leadership of
Eric Clark, under the title of South Western Counties, bringing the
members of Wiltshire, Devon and Cornwall together with the hopes his
members will encourage him :in Club activities and will produce a local
newsletter whenever possible and he would
also like to start a Slide Folio This is an excellent way of seeing
other peoples work and exchange news and views on your processing and
photographic work, many interesting ideas and unexpected answers to
processing problems have come via our slide folios and we hope members
will join Eric in this venture.
We would also like to express our- thanks to Mrs. Pat
Blackman who took on Area 16 during what was a very tragic period for
herself and also without her help we may have lost our Wiltshire members
when the Bristol based group split up. Pat has played a serious part in
keeping the area together, in spite of her lack of technical knowledge of
film processing Mare- thanks Pat and best wishes for the future and we are
pleased to know that you will still be with us in membership.
Area 18 NEWS.
As Ron Knowles has mentioned in his column, Area Leader, Bill Wilson has
made a plea for someone to take over the Area Leadership Bill has been at
the helm for many years and now feels that someone else should give it a
try We would be pleased to hear from anyone who thinks they may have some
ideas for running the group and he/she will have every help and
encouragement in their efforts. Give Bill a reply by letter or phone As
Ron comments, without ~ Leader, Area 18 will find itself without
Leadership and the only possible alternative may be to amalagamate with
another area, Please give this your utmost attention.
NEWS SNIPPET 1.
MR & Mrs. Pearle comment; “We sent to Oliver Barron for some
CD3-when we were having trouble with our E6, just to see if this was the
culprit and funnily enough the CD3 which we received from him looked
different to the lot we had been using from Hogg of Birmingham Oliver’s
CD3 — which produced some smashing slides, was pink and granular like
caster super, whereas the CD3 from ‘long was white and powdery So we
went and did another test with the. Arnold Moorhouse formula using the
Hogg’s CD3 and got the same brownish coloured Leader as before -
although the slides themselves were quite acceptable, but a bit dark
although this was not necessarily due to the processing, it could have
been exposure.
NEWS
SNIPPET 2.
Mr. Frank White of Area 13 says, “In
comments to filtration by Mr & Mrs Pearle in the last Newsletter, and
without detracting from their ideas, the differences in Filtration from
the manufacturers, Firstly, they hadn’t mentioned the enlarger or the
filters used, since Durst filtration and Paterson filtration is entirely
different to Kodak ‘s and Agfa ‘s filtration and can cause terrible:
problems, if one isn‘t aware of them.
Secondly, the method proposed is only suitable for
finding out the factors for the equipment and the height of the lens above
the. baseboard for that test,
in general as the height is raised, more yellow filtration is
required, and when the chemicals are changed there is a general shift of
filtration, hense the yellow cast on some processing houses prints.
NORTH – LIGHT (Daylight simulated lamps)
More thanks ‘to Mrs. Rita Pearle for sending
information about a light bulb produced to give a natural daylight
source for inspecting colour prints in the dark-room and which she thinks
may be an ideal to use when making Slide Copies. It show colours in their
natural shades and as it has no.flicker such as you’ get with
‘florescent tubes - it is more restful to your eyes The NORTHLIGHT is a
100W lamp made with Crystal clear-blue tinted glass carefully balanced to
5,400K If you think you are interested in knowing more please write to
Steve Iggulden