I came up with a new technique today. Pre-fixing negatives.
Last night I loaded my daylight developing tank (the bathroom is still only light tight at night) with the 6 sheets of 4x5 Plus-X film I had shot last week. Today I measured out the D-76 1:1, a water stop bath, and fixer 1:3 all of them in different style measuring beakers so I could not make a mistake. I got them all to the same temperature and set the developer and stop bath behind the developing tank, and to make doubly sure I made no mistakes I carefully put the beaker of fix on the other side of the sink.
Then in broad daylight, and with the lights on, I picked up the beaker of fix which was there at my right hand, and poured it into the developing tank.
The tank was about 1/2 full when I realized what I was doing and dumped it out. I started to open the tank and trash the negatives, when I realized everything was already diluted to working strength and not savable anyway, and decided to go ahead and see what happened. So I pour the D-76 into the tank and proceeded as normal.
The six 4x5 negatives actually came up with an image and may even be printable. They look about like they were 2-3 stops underexposed, but there is a definite image on all but the one that was actually already 3 stops underexposed due to not compensating for the red filter, and that one had already been reshot. Also none of the negs are unique and can be reshot about any time, so it is only a needless expense and not a disaster.
However, this is, I think, the stupidest thing I have ever done in a darkroom.
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com/graywolf.html
