4 ms·

My first job over a decade ago was managing a photo lab. The x-ray machines would often damage film that people traveled with. Amateur photographers just weren'

My first job over a decade ago was managing a photo lab. The x-ray machines would often damage film that people traveled with. Amateur photographers just weren't aware. The damage typically looks like white fuzzy diagonal lines across the image. It's not enough to completely destroy a picture, but it'll ruin it. The most common widespread damage we saw were people that bought like 50 disposable cameras for their Caribbean wedding, then brought them back home to get developed. The worst overall damage we had at that lab was when high school kids would run customer Tri-X film through the C-41 lab. That would completely wipe the film, no recovery whatsoever possible.

Finnucane 7y ago
Ever put the fixer in first? That's fun too.
- cannam 7y ago
  There are companies like Silbersalz (https://silbersalz35.com/ https://silbersalz35.com/) selling ECN-2 cinefilm stock in 35mm cartridges. You have to return the film to them for processing, rather than take it to a C-41 lab - and they warn that if you send them to a C-41 lab, you can damage the lab's equipment and ruin everyone else's photos as well as your own. I don't know how paranoid the warning is, but that seems like it could be pretty bad.
  - joecool1029 7y ago
    > There are companies like Silbersalz (https://silbersalz35.com/ https://silbersalz35.com/) selling ECN-2 cinefilm stock in 35mm cartridges. To be fair, anyone buying that likely knows what they're getting into. Tri-X was sold next to C-41 film in every store, so a lot of people would just grab it when they wanted B&W thinking it was the same thing to develop as color film. (Yes, there is B&W C-41 film as well)
    - cannam 7y ago
      > To be fair, anyone buying that likely knows what they're getting into. True, I'm just dwelling on the possible consequences. I have some Silbersalz film myself that I haven't used yet, and I'm actively imagining everything that could go wrong. > Yes, there is B&W C-41 film as well Ilford XP2 - it looks a bit different from typical B&W film, with very flat whites. I used to love XP1, which came out sepia when processed C-41.
- philpem 7y ago
  C41 minilabs won't generally let you in normal use. The Fuji machines won't allow you to put the replenisher cartridge in backwards due to mechanical blocks (poka-yoke). The only way you could pull this off is mixing up the chemistry during a dump-and-fill (chemistry restart).
  - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    The Fuji machines might not have had this option, but the Kodak machines I worked with could all be filled with the wrong chemicals. This was fine if you filled once a day and did all of the daily tests: it wasn't so wonderful when they switched to fill-as-needed or if a new person got mixed up. It didn't really improve when the place I worked upgraded their machines: The chemicals mixed differently, but you could still mess up developing film. The digital film scanning was pretty nice, though.
- joecool1029 7y ago
  I'm a little late to respond but the best story I have is from another lab supervisor I spoke to. Wet minilabs all have an effluent tank that fills up with the spent chemicals. This is after a cartridge to collect all the silver. Remember we call one of the chemicals 'bleach'. It's a bad name. This effluent tank usually gets dumped out in a sink near the lab when it's full or at the end of the day. I say that bleach is a bad name because C-41 process contains ammonium ferric PDTA, which I believe is pretty close to ammonium iron sulfate. (not a chemist) Anyways, the store I mentioned had a mess that needed cleaning at the end of the day, so the kids got out cleaners containing bleach and mopped up the floor... then proceeded to dump the cleaner down the same sink as the effluent. This readily produced noxious fumes (possibly mustard gas) that forced a store evacuation. Store was closed for around 2 days as hazmat crews made sure the place was safe to go into. Nobody was hurt but not a great look....
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zippergz 7y ago
Ever get any of that Seattle FilmWorks film? Not C41 process, but people didn't understand that, and I learned it the hard way myself when I first started working at a lab. I had some really frustrating conversations with customers who thought I was lying to them when I told them we couldn't process it for them.
aidenn0 7y ago
Tri-X not T-MAX just a decade ago? [edit] Looked it up on wikipedia and TIL that the Tri-X chemistry was updated as recently as 2007.
- philpem 7y ago
  Tri-X is a tab-grain silver halide film similar to Ilford HP5. T-MAX is delta-grain and more like Ilford Delta. They don't necessarily need different chemistry but it's possible to get better results if you do. Tri-X is still in production to this day, and still very popular. Same with the Ilford films I mentioned.

Finnucane 7y ago

Ever put the fixer in first? That's fun too.

cannam 7y ago
There are companies like Silbersalz (https://silbersalz35.com/ https://silbersalz35.com/) selling ECN-2 cinefilm stock in 35mm cartridges. You have to return the film to them for processing, rather than take it to a C-41 lab - and they warn that if you send them to a C-41 lab, you can damage the lab's equipment and ruin everyone else's photos as well as your own. I don't know how paranoid the warning is, but that seems like it could be pretty bad.
- joecool1029 7y ago
  > There are companies like Silbersalz (https://silbersalz35.com/ https://silbersalz35.com/) selling ECN-2 cinefilm stock in 35mm cartridges. To be fair, anyone buying that likely knows what they're getting into. Tri-X was sold next to C-41 film in every store, so a lot of people would just grab it when they wanted B&W thinking it was the same thing to develop as color film. (Yes, there is B&W C-41 film as well)
  - cannam 7y ago
    > To be fair, anyone buying that likely knows what they're getting into. True, I'm just dwelling on the possible consequences. I have some Silbersalz film myself that I haven't used yet, and I'm actively imagining everything that could go wrong. > Yes, there is B&W C-41 film as well Ilford XP2 - it looks a bit different from typical B&W film, with very flat whites. I used to love XP1, which came out sepia when processed C-41.
philpem 7y ago
C41 minilabs won't generally let you in normal use. The Fuji machines won't allow you to put the replenisher cartridge in backwards due to mechanical blocks (poka-yoke). The only way you could pull this off is mixing up the chemistry during a dump-and-fill (chemistry restart).
- Broken_Hippo 7y ago
  The Fuji machines might not have had this option, but the Kodak machines I worked with could all be filled with the wrong chemicals. This was fine if you filled once a day and did all of the daily tests: it wasn't so wonderful when they switched to fill-as-needed or if a new person got mixed up. It didn't really improve when the place I worked upgraded their machines: The chemicals mixed differently, but you could still mess up developing film. The digital film scanning was pretty nice, though.
joecool1029 7y ago
I'm a little late to respond but the best story I have is from another lab supervisor I spoke to. Wet minilabs all have an effluent tank that fills up with the spent chemicals. This is after a cartridge to collect all the silver. Remember we call one of the chemicals 'bleach'. It's a bad name. This effluent tank usually gets dumped out in a sink near the lab when it's full or at the end of the day. I say that bleach is a bad name because C-41 process contains ammonium ferric PDTA, which I believe is pretty close to ammonium iron sulfate. (not a chemist) Anyways, the store I mentioned had a mess that needed cleaning at the end of the day, so the kids got out cleaners containing bleach and mopped up the floor... then proceeded to dump the cleaner down the same sink as the effluent. This readily produced noxious fumes (possibly mustard gas) that forced a store evacuation. Store was closed for around 2 days as hazmat crews made sure the place was safe to go into. Nobody was hurt but not a great look....

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

zippergz 7y ago

Ever get any of that Seattle FilmWorks film? Not C41 process, but people didn't understand that, and I learned it the hard way myself when I first started working at a lab. I had some really frustrating conversations with customers who thought I was lying to them when I told them we couldn't process it for them.

aidenn0 7y ago

Tri-X not T-MAX just a decade ago? [edit] Looked it up on wikipedia and TIL that the Tri-X chemistry was updated as recently as 2007.

philpem 7y ago
Tri-X is a tab-grain silver halide film similar to Ilford HP5. T-MAX is delta-grain and more like Ilford Delta. They don't necessarily need different chemistry but it's possible to get better results if you do. Tri-X is still in production to this day, and still very popular. Same with the Ilford films I mentioned.