Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/07/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Feli, > You will lose the delicate almost unexposed parts of the film, or the > near whites if it is a print. Without comparison you will never know > that they are gone. Best to fix by time, you know the twice the time > it takes to clear rule. > > Don I got concerned one time about whether I was loosing any shadows to over fixing and so I did a little experiment. Since I was using neutral rapid fix (ammonium thiosulphate at pH 7.1), that's all I have data on. I exposed several rolls of Tri-X at zones I-X and developed them identically. I then fixed for times ranging from 2X clearing up to 10 min. I was surprised to find, after measuring the densities on a densitometer, that there was no loss of density in the toe of Tri-X (zones I-III) regardless of how long I fixed the film. I have not tried this on paper. My clearing times with film are mostly about 25-35 seconds but I cannot stand to only fix for one minute so I fix as a standard practice for 3 min with a 3 min wash aid (mostly to help get rid of the dye). Reasonable fixation times of 2-3 min in neutral rapid fixer will not degrade the image shadows. JB