DieterSchuld
Hello Mirko,
Last night I developed two CMS 20s in a twin-tank, so under identical conditions. One curls badly, the other hardly at all. They were hanging right next to each other whilst drying. I took them out of the freezer the day before, subjected them to exposure and developed them the next day, i.e. last night. I put weights on the bottom, but...
Kind regards,
Dieter Schuld
orwograph
Erm, I might be making myself rather unpopular here, but what’s the problem? Many films I like to use have a tendency to curl. This applies particularly to Russian brands, which quite obviously lack any anti-curling emulsion. When I started shooting on this material years ago, I asked an ‘old hand’ at a Russian photo lab what could be done about the curling – he looked at me in surprise and replied:
Hold the uncut film (preferably one that has just dried) at one end with one hand (where the adhesive strip that held the film to the core is attached) and, with a bit of skill and without touching the areas containing images, wind it onto the spool with the emulsion facing outwards. This means that the longer, image-free leader section of the film lies on the outside of the roll wound in this way – you can now safely handle the roll with your fingers and slide it into an empty film canister. Only the section that you will cut off later anyway gets scratched or marked by fingerprints. Leave the whole thing in the film canister for approx. 24 hours. You’ll need to experiment with the timing, though – depending on the base material, some films are smooth after just 12 hours, others only after 2 days. Acetate-based films smooth out noticeably faster than PET-based ones. The process is ‘complete’ when the film falls out without a long tug when you turn the open film canister upside down. If you wait too long, the film might roll up in the opposite direction after the process :) – in my experience, it’s also better not to roll the film up too long after it has dried. Once it’s completely bone-dry, the unwinding process is more difficult than when there’s a _slight_ amount of residual moisture.
Go for it! I do this with almost every film (only the FP4 and colour films lie completely flat for me; all the others are more or less rolled up), and I’ve never had micro-tears, flaking of the emulsion, scratches (when wound up properly) or any such horrors. And since then, the problem of rolling films has been a thing of the past for me... it’s just that the process takes a bit of time. Anyone who wants or needs to snip their films into short streaks straight after development does indeed have a problem.
All the best!
Peter.
DieterSchuld
Hi Peter,
There isn’t really a problem as such.
I’m just surprised that Mirko says his films hang absolutely straight and flat. I’d like that too. What’s more, the films are from the same batch, as you can tell from the number on the side strip. And in fact, I developed two from this batch in a twin-pack, treated them identically, and –
one curls up terribly and the other hardly at all!!! A miracle, a manufacturing fault, or ???
I’ll give the rewinding idea a go; thanks for that, anyway.
Kind regards,
Dieter Schuld
Wolfgg
And when rolling up roll films for storage after development, roll them back onto the paper the other way round – in exactly the same way as the film was originally attached to the paper, only this time with the emulsion side facing the paper. This guarantees there will be no damage to the emulsion or fingerprints.
Best regards, Wolfgang
Wolf_XL
>One is extremely warped and the other hardly at all!!! It’s a miracle –
...not necessarily – perhaps one film is from the start of the master reel and the other from the end. There are likely to be differences in conditions there that could explain it.
