Weighing and Mixing Revisited

By Dave Morrell (Area 4)

Earlier this year I decided to return to weighing and mixing. I bought quite a lot of chemicals and some Konica film from Ron at the AGM in May.

I accidentally uprated the Konica film to 200ASA following on from a negative to negative to produce slides evening in April. I left the camera set at 200 ASA and did not notice until I had exposed five Konica and one Jessops film at 200. I had the Jessops film push processed by a firm called Berkeley Studios from the West Midlands. They advertise in AP etc. and they did a very good job of it. They also processed my holiday shots from Germany and the Czech Republic, correctly rated at 100ASA this time, and did another superb job. At £2.50 per roll if you are stuck I can recommend them. Many firms are charging about £4 per roll.

The uprated Konica and a normally rated Jessops were processed in a club brew in September, having been kept in the fridge since June. Times for the Konica in the first developer were lengthened by 30%. At first look the results were disappointing. They appeared rather flat. On projection though there was not much wrong with them. I think I may have put too much Citrazinic acid in the colour developer and this has cut down on contrast and the brightness of the colours.

I then put the two developers into 2 litre ice cream containers, first eating the ice cream, and placed them in the freezer for six weeks. They were then defrosted and looked a right mess. Most of the chemicals seemed to have precipitated out of the two solutions. I decided to bring them up to working temperature before filtering and I am glad that I did. This disappeared once they were at working temperature.

I then processed a Fuji Provia, a Kodak Elite, a Kodak Ektachrome Copying Film, and a short length of Novachrome in the brew. The Provia and Elite were pretty successful, the Novachrome a disappointment and the Ektachrome a dead loss. I feel like complaining to Kodak as I have only had this film in stock for about thirteen years. Next time I may store it in the fridge!!

If there are any wieghers and mixers out there still the club brew is definitely worth considering. It does seem to do a good job on all the modern emulsions.

These two efforts are definitely the best results I have had using home brews since the birth of E6.

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