groping in the dark

First Darkroom Activity

Conclusive evidence of darkroom activity:

Looks dusty in there, doesn't it? We'll see how many goobers I have on the film in the morning.

Whew! my fingers still smell like fixer after the tense couple of hours I just spent developing the first rolls of film in my new basement darkroom. The results look pretty good so far with one slight exception. I'll check things out better when the film is dry.

So here is what I learned:

• I need a timer. The kitchen clock I was using worked well enough, but I misread it enough to throw my intended development time off by 30 seconds.
• I need to seal off light leaks in a couple of places. My first roll of film got a little fogged because I didn't double check for light leaks and also because it took me some trying to get the film spooled onto the stainless steel Jobo reels I was using. To check for light leaks, go into your darkroom, turn off the lights and wait ten minutes for your eyes to adjust. Seriously, this is the only way to tell. I paid for my haste and laziness with one roll of fogged film.
• I'd like to get a hotplate and some stainless steel beakers. the temperature of my chemistry was 62°F before I brought it up to 68° by putting my beaker in a tub full of hot water. This took too long and was a little clumsy.

Some stats for any photo geeks out there: 4 rolls of Kodak 400TX hand processed w Xtol in stainless steel tank 7.5 minutes, water rinsed (I plan to get stop bath) before fixing w Ilford Hypam fixer 1:4 for 4 minutes. I would have processed some more film, but I decided to see how these turn out first.