As small as Leica is as a
company when compared to the Canons and Nikons of the industry, they remain as
a major player in the manufacture of 35mm film cameras. Many loyal customers remain that have not
totally succumbed to the siren song of digital photography and many of them
still enjoy making their own prints in a good old fashioned darkroom instead of
a digital printer.
A very important part of
analog photography is to properly fix out prints and enlargements. Old photographic wisdom tells us that we have
to use a two bath fixer to make black & white photographs last. This is accompanied by lengthy washing to
allow all traces of fixer to be removed.
While any of this does not present any nominal problems with resin
coated papers, sufficient fixing and washing does become more problematic with
fiber base papers. Washing times of one
or more hours are not unusual. A lot of
darkroom enthusiasts shy away from fiber base papers because of the lengthy
developing process. This brings up the
request of viable alternatives.
Image scanned from an enlargement on Agfa Portriga Rapid,
fixed with the method described in the article
In an article by Ralph
Steiner, published by the Graphic Arts Research Center at RIT (Rochester
Institute of Technology), he offered such an alternative. This method was further researched, and
verified by Ilford.
Both research papers suggest
to replace standard fixers with fast working fixers like Kodak Rapid Fix. Further more, it is suggested to use these
fixers at film strength. Mr. Steiner
states that sufficient fixing is achieved within only thirty seconds. This is then accompanied by a wash of only 5
to 10 minutes with fiber base papers.
After a five minute wash, a
FASTFIX leaves one tenth as much hypo as does the standard Kodak fixing
advise. And a FASTFIX print which is
washed five minutes has in it one fourth as much hypo as a LONGFIXED print
which was washed thirty minutes.
Since film strength rapid fix
achieves sufficient fixing in only 30 seconds, the paper is submerged only very
briefly, leaving the fixer little time to soak into the fibers of the paper. Subsequently, only a short wash time is
necessary to remove these fixer traces from the paper. Mr. Steiner writes:
Should you think to
compensate for your LONGFIXING by LONGWASHING, just give up on that idea. I tried washing a LONGFIXED print for two
days! In two days of washing I finally
got a LONGFIXED print down to around the residual hypo of a FASTFIXED print
which had twelve minutes washing. Both
washings were uncrowded and thorough.
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I'll have to try that. It will definitely make my time in the darkroom a lot shorter. Nothing wrong with that.
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