Confused. Did I load backwards ?

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Well, I put the Combi Tank to use over the weekend by developing four sheets of Tri-X exposed at 320ASA in HC-110 (7 mins, 21oC)- came out really well - thanks for all the previous comments on how to use this tank. Now, my question. Two sheets of film appear to have been reversed in the film holder - i.e. I exposed on the base side, rather than the emulsion. (I can tell this through the orientation of the film notch) However the images have still come out extremely well. I have been puzzling over this, because intuitively I would have thought that, with an error in loading the film holder, I would have ended up with a blank, or at the very most, a very poor quality image. Does anyone have any insight into this?

-- fw (finneganswake@altavista.net), December 05, 1999

Answers

Response to Confused!

I would suggest that you may have actually loaded the film in the holder correctly and reversed it upon loading it in the combi-tank.

Just as a point of reference it may be useful to intentionally load a sheet backwards, shoot and develope it and see the results. You never know when an Art Director may see the "mistake" and think you are a creative genius.

Hope this helps

-- Richard Hill (richdee@drizzle.com), December 06, 1999.


Response to Confused!

I can say from experience that a backwards loaded piece of film will require about 5 stops more exposure than a properly loaded one. I spent the first three weeks of my experience in LF loading the film into the holders so that the notch was on the upper right hand VERTICAL side - which is backwards. Very frustrating.

I bet you loaded them properly but turned them around, so if usually the notch was in the taped side of the holder, on some cases it was in the solid side.

-- Erik Ryberg (ryberg@seanet.com), December 06, 1999.


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