AREA NEWS
HOME MADE EQUIPMENT (Area 17.)
Les Tovey owns a Pheb meter which which he seems very pleased with. Les is a keen Audio Visual fan for which he, with help from a friend, has built some of his own equipment, namely a programmer for use with his dual projectors. Les has details of the complete circuitry, which he is willing to pass on to anybody interested. With regard to processing films. Les has a unique system using an insulated water bath, but instead of using a normal tank for developing he uses six 2lb jam jars with their necks removed. These will hold over 500cc of solutions each. Six tops from 450gm yogurt pots provide covers for when not in use. Six holes are cut into the water bath cover to allow entry of the jars. The necessary chemicals are poured into each jar. Temperatures are controlled with a UNO Control Unit while an old gramophone motor with paddle provides water movement. No pouring in and out of bottles, no contamination with funnels and all temperatures are identical. First development and stop bath have to be done in the darkness, which might present a problem, but Les sticks a luminous tab on the first two covers so that he can find them in the dark. Agitation is by lifting the spiral up and down.Eric Clarke.
SLIDES FROM PRINTS Area 9.
A friend of mine went to Canada last "Fall" and took only print film with him. Of course, on his return, people have asked him to bring his slides to show at their meetings. (This is something that happens to us all). But he had no slides and our local shops didn`t make very encouraging noises. So he turned to me, as a friend who seemed to know something about photography. It was quite an interesting exercise and the outcome is that he has a set of quite reasonable slides. I used a copying stand I made some years ago out of an enlarger. Since exposure times didn`t need to be kept short, I used two anglepoise lamps, with a correction filter over the lens - a Tamron zoom with a flat field converter.Anthony Green.
FURTHER EXPERIMENTS with CD2 (Area 20.)
Chris Coussens, from Melksham, has produced some slides with great promise, using 3g per litre and 4g per litre. His D1 and D2 are a sort of hybrid Derek Watkins - British Journal and he did not use stop baths but did employ a Blix. Les Pettit, of Palmers Green, London, based his weight per litre of CD2 on the molecular equivalent with CD3 at our normal figure of 11.5g per litre in the A.M. formulae and various other formulae. The molecular equivalent is 6.25g per litre. The film used was 100asa daylight; second exposure to white light. There was no deposit in the Paterson tank used. D1 appears to be `standard` This has produced a truly wonderful slide. The red/magenta separation equals the best I have seen on a slide processed in a CD3 developer.Oliver Barron.
E6 AND EVOLUTION (Area 22)
The E6 process has been around for about 10 years and now and I see from my back copies that a very large number of formulae, over a dozen, have been published in the CRCN, starting with one from a Texan named Bert Barraclough, in October 1978, and finally from Frank White in January 1988. The problem was that no single set of formulae seemed to suit all E6 emulsions and possibly everyone`s method of working. Then, of course, just as hundreds of CRC members felt that they had cracked it, we had Barfen making life difficult by secretly changing their film stock and sending us back to time consuming and frustrating testing.
Reading in CRCN (Oct. 87 and Jan. 88) of Kodak E6/7 makes me feel that the time is coming up for another big change before long if any advantage can be given to the commercial processors. At our expense, of course. I think that another change would be a great pity as we have a great film, several sets of formulae and the guidance in the CRCN to obtain results to suit everybody`s personal preference.George Sparkes.
KONICACHROME
One person who offers his slides to be viewed by the outside world is John Salter who has just walked 180 miles along the Furness way and the Cumberland Way. Along these two routes he has used 15 films of Konicachrome from which he hopes to obtain enough material for two lectures.
H. J. Telling, of Area 20. processes his Konicachrome in Photo-Technology E6. From this he gets 8 films from a 600ml kit. As the price of this has just jumped by œ3 for a kit, he is looking for something cheaper.
G. Morley, of Sheffield, has obtained quite acceptable results from processing his Konicachrome in a B. Wheatcroft first developer and an A. Moorhouse Colour developer and reversal bath. He believes that Konica does have he edge on Fuji film, but is hopeless when using Blix.
PINK TAILS
Frank White's latest findings on the subject involve Kodak 'T Max'. This also suffers from pink tails and margins on occasions after fixing. Both colour films and the T Max use similar emulsions and are derived from the flat grain principle. Colour films are generally processed in a continuous processing machine, where fresh chemicals are brought into contact with the emulsion. The T Max is developed in a 'dip or dunk' tank or in processing tanks where the whole film is immersed in the liquids. The resulting pink stain is due mainly to the lack of agitation in the fixing bath because insufficient fresh fixer is brought into contact with the emulsion and the product of the fixing chemicals is causing the stain.
COMPETITION RESULT (Area 13)
At the recent AGM of Area 13 Margery Meadows organised a competition of which the winner was Kevin Maskell.MAPLIN ELECTRONIC THERMOMETER
A number of members expressed interest in the Maplin FD25C Electronic Thermometer as described in the April Newsletter. The price is £9.95 plus 50p postage. For further information and a list write to:- Maplin Electronic Supplies Ltd. P.O. Box 3, Rayleigh, Essex. SS6 8LR.