HERE & THERE (Continued)

In his Area 20 Newsletter Oliver Barron again raises. the vexed question of whether to use tap water or distilled/deionised H20 and comes down heavily in favour of deionised water There is strong evidence, he says, for deionised as scientific and technical organisations all lay on supplies for their labs. Likewise chemists stipulate it’s use in making up buffer solutions. I cannot but agree. Deionised water is a must for buffer solutions and for Dl and D2.

Touching on the vagaries of E6 processing Oliver finds it strange that the usual pH values of Dl (9.6), and D2 (11.6) should be thrown out the window by Ron Croad whose D2 is apparently 11.85. Yet he gets very good results. Of course it really all boils down to one’s own particular working procedures and, as Oliver advises, if YOUR methods give good results ... stick to ‘em.

AND AGAIN.
Through the good offices of fellow member, Neil Nurriby, I have the loan of a Laboratory type digital pH meter are usually within a whisker of each other - certainly near enough as not to be of any great consequence. But the great advantage is that the digital far more quickly.

COMPACTS ARE WINNERS!.
i:41 News from friendly my local photo dealers Comley Cameras of Cleethorpes indicate the enormous growth in popularity of the compact camera I’m told that this particular dealer had a record season in 1986 and that the compact was mainly responsible- taking over almost completely from both the disc and 110 models.

The more conventional S. L. R. is, of course, still the choice of the more serious worker - though there appears to be considerable apprehension amongst this class toward moving to the all-singing, all-dancing models made possible by the advent of the micro-chip But I can well appreciate that the automatic focusing and exposure features are a welcome and inestimable boon to people with your eyesight.

Whatever camera, though, is currently popular if this means augmenting the numbers of amateurs using them must be good for the hobby - and perhaps even a chance for the C R C to do what we all hope for and increase in membership At any rate it would appear to provide a case for optimism in that photography is not yet the spent force we fear when the video camera threatened to take over.

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Hexa—Mexa—Mixi—Mac—Toesies .. er .. Hexaxnetaphoephate, umm Calcium Complexing figent No 4, er No! Oh yes Calgon, I think’ Well whatever Tony Chuter explains —

"Those of you who take your formula from the 1986 British Journal of Photography Annual (for E6 processing) will probably have had difficulty-obtaining the ‘Calcium Complexing Agent No 4’ (BPH) that is in the Reversal bath. I too tried to buy this from our usual suppliers, but none of them stock it and my local chemist had never heard of it~ However, I have a colleague in my Cine Club who is a senior manager with British Drug Houses and he tells me. (why didn't I ask him in the first place?) that Calcium Complexing Agent No 4 is the same as Calgon i.e. Sodium Hexametaphosphate and can be used in exactly the same proportions. In the past I have frequently experienced problems mixing my own reversal bath when the whole mix turns into a geletinous precipitate and is the very devil to clear. I find that the Rayco formula, with fifteen grains per Litre of Calgon added, cures my former problems".

Ed.