PROBLEMS MATE! (Conclusion)

added to the problem This not the best way to go about these things. However as the results showed, I wasn’t too far off. Further Light was brought up by corresponding with various CRC members. As expected most fear the problem stems from something that I may have done wrong somewhere along the way. However I feel that after many years of quite successful processing from CR59, slide and cine film, then onto E4 & E6, I must have some fair idea of the work in hand, and in the case of weighing & mixing the only difference from my normal working methods is the fact that I am weighing out the raw chemicals and that isnt that far removed from making up the old CR50 kits which were in all powder form, so I had some experience at making sure the chemicals were all well mixed before pouring in the next chemical.

I have developed a good working method with my equipment. The tempering unit made by Bob Lewis and the ‘UNO’ electronic heater both work very well and my method of washing by using .a home-made two-tap mixer connection with which I can control the water flow and temperature have all been to my liking, producing some excellent slides from all the various makes of film and commercial kits.

So my disappointment in not having yet got ‘full’ results in weighing and mixing is understandable. Especially as the whole project was started to try and encourage more of you to take up this interesting side of our hobby.

One point brought up after all this was that possibly the trouble may well have bee the film’ being from old stock or having been badly stored before Frank Beauriont had bought them. Now this may not show kindly to Frank who got us interested in Labachrome, but this isnt so as the films were in individual cassettes which could well have had poor treatment somewhere along the way before he got them. But you do consider every avenue when things go wrong. However on sharing this idea with Tony Chuter he checked his Labachrome films and found them all to be dated 1988, so that would seem to put pay to that idea. But what caused that idea in the first places.

Bob Lewis examined my sample slides and after being stumped for an answer, then. considered this possibility. He took one slide out of the plastic frame and examined the film under a bright light, then checked the ‘maker’s’ numbers along the edge of the film and as these are exposed by the makers and are not affected by your camera exposure, they should appear, at least, normal, even if your exposures were out. Bob then found that the numbers were ‘indeed’ also very ‘dull’ as the overall processing results were. Bob thinks this could be caused by old or badly stored film.

A little more light came from Tony Chuter. He explained that after he processed the film and took it out of the tank, he got a shock as it looked extremely ‘dark’ with little image to be seen. He considered that he had made an error and perhaps his fixer had gone wrong . He made another brew, but found no difference. But the film did clear during drying.

This made me think, and here I have been found out in not reporting everything that I did when I was processing my film. I too had noticed this effect and thought the film under-fixed and put it through the fixer for another few minutes. It came out the same, very dense. The emulsion, almost as if it hadn’t seen a. developer, but again, it to cleared while drying. Here was one very different characteristic from all other E6 films we know, instead of the emulsion looking white and milky which, darkens on drying, this film looks as if it hadn’t processed at all, all very unerving, as Tony will agree. Proving once again that using an untried film has its hazards. Likewise you should always tell everything you do when you process experimentally. Having seen this affect and made further fixing I had dismissed this as any importance to the finished results. It’s a pity I had been using chemical reversal in this case as it would have been interesting to see what the image looked like at tie negative stage.

So there we have it "problems" indeed. And to conclude, another piece of advice came from Tony. If like me you thought, When after pre-soaking, you thought the water, which is usually the same colour as the emulsion, was causing damage to the film.. Well according to Tony the colour is in fact the anti-halation coming off the back of the film, and has nothing to do with ihe actual emulsion. So perhaps now you ~wont feel so worried about using the pre-soaking method to try and improve getting the 38C temperature settled ready for the nrocessing with a 1ittle bit of luck perhaps I will soon be able to do a follow up article titled ‘Success at last’.