Film Photography - Chemicals

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jonesy

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Hello everyone,

I am new here and really need some help :D

I am looking to buy some chemicals for my own darkroom at home, at the moment I have got what's left of the jessops echono stuff I got with my enlarger etc when I bought it a few years ago.
Now it looks like looking on the jesosps website that they aren't doing that anymore (well, I found the stop but not the dev or the fix)

Can I use these chemiclas i've already got with these films? (I forget which flms I used to use)

I use a range of films these days, from Ilford HP5 400, Ilford XP2 super 400, kodak TRI-X 400 and a couple of others.

And what chemicals can I get that I can use for all or most of those films?
From what i've read and what we use at uni I can use ID 11 Developer or D76 and they are pretty much the same ??

Also can I use those chemicals to process film and paper?

Lots of questions I know, the help would be much appreciated!

Thanks

Jonesy
x
 
as I recall developer does have a definite shelf life
check the Best Before date
fixer generally last longer as it's simpler!

I seem to recall that you can use the same developer for paper
but you'd really be better off getting fresh stock
try a little surfing to find stockists
 
Silverprint are pretty good.
Jessops will stock Ilfosol s, which will be fine for most films and ideal for Ilford obviously.
ID 11 and D76 are fine too, you need to check the film cartons or online for dillution and developing times.
I'm using Jessops own fixer right now, its ok, I usually give it an extra minute fixing than it recommends (to be safe).
I've shot one roll of kodak and it irritates me that it sends fixer pink, I dont then want to save that fixer even if theres nothing wrong with it...pink fixer...nope not happening.
Whilst ever ilford & Fuji are making great b/w, I'm not bothered with kodak
 
The stuff I already have is good to go as I used it the other week, but to print. I have used it in the past for proccessing as well because you can use it for both but can't remember what films it's compatible with as I don't remember and don't have any literature with it.

Does anyone know, here's a link to the stop I mentioned before thaat I found but there is no dev or fix:

http://www.jessops.com/Products/ProductDetail.aspx?SkuId=1055

Thanks

x
 
joxby said:
Silverprint are pretty good.
Jessops will stock Ilfosol s, which will be fine for most films and ideal for Ilford obviously.
ID 11 and D76 are fine too, you need to check the film cartons or online for dillution and developing times.
I'm using Jessops own fixer right now, its ok, I usually give it an extra minute fixing than it recommends (to be safe).
I've shot one roll of kodak and it irritates me that it sends fixer pink, I dont then want to save that fixer even if theres nothing wrong with it...pink fixer...nope not happening.
Whilst ever ilford & Fuji are making great b/w, I'm not bothered with kodak
Click to expand...


Thanks I will check that out.
x
 
joxby said:
Silverprint are pretty good.
Jessops will stock Ilfosol s, which will be fine for most films and ideal for Ilford obviously.
ID 11 and D76 are fine too, you need to check the film cartons or online for dillution and developing times.
I'm using Jessops own fixer right now, its ok, I usually give it an extra minute fixing than it recommends (to be safe).
I've shot one roll of kodak and it irritates me that it sends fixer pink, I dont then want to save that fixer even if theres nothing wrong with it...pink fixer...nope not happening.
Whilst ever ilford & Fuji are making great b/w, I'm not bothered with kodak
Click to expand...
Do you rinse with water after the stop bath but before fixing?
 
I've used Firstcall, no problems, good catalogue

ID11 is really designed for films.

Firstcall do print developers. They also do a universal, which is suitable for print and film although I haven't tried this.

You can use stop bath between developer and fixer, but some people just use water
 
Do you rinse with water after the stop bath but before fixing?

Sorry, mis-read your question. No, no water required, just: Dev, Stop,Fix, then wash
 
I dont use a stop bath, water kills development pretty quick and I'm not on a watermeter:), I'm not sure how much there is to be gained using stopbath on b/w film apart from water.
Developer > running water for 5 mins > fixer for 5 mins > running water for 10 mins, all at 22-24 degrees, sometimes I use a whetting agent but between you and me its just detergent, trick is to know how little to use.
There are a lot of lists of things you must do, some of them 8 baths long with various potions/wotnot, personally I never had any problems with the above.
Had problems with fixer, if you mix your fixer in a 2 litre bottle, you can re-use it, just tip back into the bottle after fixing and the bottle will last a long time and saves you measuring it out and mixing everytime you develope a roll.
Sooner or later it becomes exhausted and takes longer and longer to fix properly, also check regularly for contamination.
 
Ok so I think I know what i'm doing, haha...

But all I need to be sure of now is, can I use the

Ilford Ilfostop and the Ilford rapid fixer to process films AND print (obviously along with dev for each) because if I can it saves me buying two different types of stop and fix? :D

Thanks

x
 
You can use ilford rapid fixer for prints, I have a bottle here and it says so on the side "film & paper fixer"
I have developers Ilfosol s, Rodinal, HC 110, & Microphen, non of them refer to print development, just film.
Dunno about ilfostop, or even if you use it with prints:thinking:
 
Jonsey

Just a small point.It's very cold at the moment which means that the tap water itself is going to be about 5-8 degrees C. It's a good idea to use warm water for the stop stage, if you don't use a stop bath. ( I never did). When the film is fixed don't immediately drop it into cold water either. This can cause problems. Modern films are "hardened" but sudden changes in temperature can shock the gel coating, giving it a crazed effect. Also very cold water doesn't wash the film very well. The gelatin lattice effectively closes up stopping the wash water remove the chemicals you want to remove. Wash at about 10 degrees C minimum. Unfortunately you don't see the results of poor washing sometimes for several years when the chemicals break down and effectively contaminate the image.
 
Thanks.

I have been doing this a few years and I always use stop and fix and i'm at uni so i have to when im there. I just wanted to know if the one's I plan on getting that I mentioned in my last post where suitable for film and printing?

But if I didn't use stop... i'd use dev, then rinse (for how long?) then fix, then wash?

x
 
jonesy said:
Thanks.

I have been doing this a few years and I always use stop and fix and i'm at uni so i have to when im there. I just wanted to know if the one's I plan on getting that I mentioned in my last post where suitable for film and printing?

But if I didn't use stop... i'd use dev, then rinse (for how long?) then fix, then wash?

x
Click to expand...

Rinse for about 30-60 secs should be enough. Don't just let it stand, give it some agitation, as you would with developer
 
remember why stop baths were invented

before then the sequence was develop, rinse, fix
trouble is you could never remove all the developer so it kept working while you were rinsing,
and depending how quickly the rinse reached all of the film,
different parts would continue to develop for different lengths of time

this meant (slightly) different densities

enter the stop bath
it kills the effect of the developer immediately
trick is to swamp the film with stop bath so it gets everywhere at more or less the same time

my opinion (that'll be 2p please) is that a rinse before stop is a bad thing and counter productive
get the developer out and stop in
it doesn't matter if there's a few drops of developer left - the stop bath will nuke it in short order
 
joxby said:
I dont use a stop bath, water kills development pretty quick and I'm not on a watermeter:), I'm not sure how much there is to be gained using stopbath on b/w film apart from water.
Developer > running water for 5 mins > fixer for 5 mins > running water for 10 mins, all at 22-24 degrees, sometimes I use a whetting agent but between you and me its just detergent, trick is to know how little to use.
There are a lot of lists of things you must do, some of them 8 baths long with various potions/wotnot, personally I never had any problems with the above.
Had problems with fixer, if you mix your fixer in a 2 litre bottle, you can re-use it, just tip back into the bottle after fixing and the bottle will last a long time and saves you measuring it out and mixing everytime you develope a roll.
Sooner or later it becomes exhausted and takes longer and longer to fix properly, also check regularly for contamination.
Click to expand...

I'll concur with the above.

I used to use one shot dev mixes as the adjustment for processing subsequent rolls was unreliable.
 
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