Fuji Neopan 1600 and Adofix?

AmelieZapf · 2011-01-23T10:06:55+00:00

Hallo miteinander, ich habe einen Fuji Neopan 1600 in Adonal 1:25 5 min lang entwickelt (auf die vermutlich kommende Frage: Filmkorn war beabsichtigt), zwis...

AmelieZapf

Hello everyone, I developed a roll of Fuji Neopan 1600 in Adonal at a dilution of 1:25 for 5 minutes (in answer to the question I expect to be asked: the film grain was intentional), rinsed it in between, and then treated it with Adofix. When I poured out the fixer, a dirty, reddish-tinged liquid came out. I then carried out the final wash using 4 batches of water instead of 3, plus 1 batch of wetting agent (Mirasol), after which the solution running out was clear again. The resulting negative strip was completely transparent apart from a few black ‘patches’ and showed no image at all, as if the Adofix had completely washed away the emulsion. I then processed an HP5+ in a similar manner (Adonal 1:50, 11 mins) and obtained an excellent result, so the chemicals seem to be fine. Does anyone recognise this effect? Is Neopan incompatible with the fixer or the developer? Have I got hold of a faulty roll of film? I would be grateful for any suggestions. Kind regards, Amy

Tandemfahren

Hello there! First of all, a warm welcome, of course. It sounds as though you applied the fixer to the film first, and then the developer. That’s even happened to me, and I’m the world’s most reliable lab technician... I assume there were no edge numbers left either? I’m not personally familiar with Neopan 1600, but it’s well known that spilled developer can cause various colour casts. That’s the washed-off antihalation coating. Just run another roll of film through and pay close attention, because: no, it’s not possible for the fixer to freeze your film. By the way, changing the water three times seems too little to me anyway; highly sensitive film in particular needs significantly more. Have a look up the ‘Ilford method’. Hopefully you haven’t ruined the pictures of a lifetime... Best regards Frank

AmelieZapf

Hello Frank, Thank you very much for your reply!

May I assume that the margin numbers were no longer there either?

Yes, the margin numbers are still there.

By the way, changing the water three times seems too little to me anyway; highly sensitive film in particular needs significantly more. Have a look at the ‘Ilford method’.

That’s exactly the Ilford method I usually use. It involves three water changes (tilting the tank 5/10/20 times, pouring out the water in between, and refilling). I added a fourth one just to be on the safe side and to rinse out the developer.

Hopefully you haven’t ruined the photos of a lifetime...

They were photos from a concert. I can do it again, no problem. Best wishes, Amelie

Tandemfahren

Good evening, Amelie, If the frame numbers are legible, then my assumption was wrong. An undeveloped film is blank after fixing, as the fixer washes out all the undeveloped silver salt—including the numbers. There’s something else wrong here, but it’s naturally difficult to judge from a distance. A blank film WITH numbers is developed but not exposed. I once had that happen with a second-hand Yashica I’d been given, which winds the film ‘backwards’. Loaded incorrectly – not advanced – not exposed – film blank, but with numbers. Back to rinsing: that’s the absolute minimum for low-speed films. I once read a research report by a student (I can’t remember where) who went to the trouble of conducting a seemingly endless series of experiments. Since then, I’ve been rinsing all films for 5-7-10-14-20-28-40+ minutes with wetting agent (at 250ml per film), which is certainly overkill for low-speed films, but it doesn’t do any harm either. You can’t always take concert photos again. I’ve ruined photos at concerts – I could still cry about them today; others I didn’t even take in the first place, which is even worse: do you know the French gypsy/jazz group ‘Bratsch’? They’re so old, who knows if they’ll ever make it back to Germany? As I said, let another roll of film run through; it would take a miracle—it’s not exactly rocket science, is it... Best regards Frank

Urnes

Hi Amelie, if the "black patches" are roughly where the spotlights were at the concert, I’d say the film suffered from underexposure. So something like the ISO setting being wrong or something like that. With rangefinder cameras, there’s also the possibility that you forgot to remove the lens cap. Best wishes, Sven.

Otto

As Sven already said, this looks like a severe underexposure. This can happen as follows: if you develop the NP1600 in Rodinal, you achieve a sensitivity of around 400 ISO. Or, to put it another way, Rodinal isn’t really suitable for the NP1600. If the light meter was then set to 1600 ISO, you’ve already got an underexposure of two stops. If spotlights in the frame may have led to errors in the light metering, you can easily end up with the negatives described. A suitable developer for the NP1600 would be, for example, the A49 (ATM 49). But even then, you only achieve a ‘true’ 800 to 1000 ASA. Unfortunately, this is stated somewhat cryptically in the NP1600 data sheet. In the charts at the end of the data sheet, Gradient G of around 0.6 gives the ‘correct’ development time, and from this you can then draw conclusions about the speed. Virtually all so-called high-speed black-and-white films only achieve a true speed of 800 to 1000 ASA. http://www.fotoimpex.de/shop_system/images/artikel/media/23815_1_Neopan1600_Datenblatt.pdf Best regards, Otto!