Today I finaly did that test. Yes, I was always wondering why suggested
time for fixing in Amaloco X88 is not enought to clean a film. It is
suggested to dilute 1:4 and fix for four minutes when T-grain films are
used. I am using Kodak TMY, but even after 6 minutes, there was still a bit
of pink color on clear part of film visible. Ussually I did about 8
minutes. And than clean first in water and than for about 3 min in Hypo
Cleaning Agent from Kodak and as a last 10 min in water.
But back, the test! I have read in Ilford documents about the way of
finding out a time for fixer. It is described like this:
The clearing time of a film and fixer combination
can be found by the following method. It can be
carried out in normal lighting.
Take a piece of scrap unprocessed film and place
a drop of the working strength fixer on to a small
part of the emulsion side. Leave it until the
emulsion under the drop is a clear spot, this
should take around 30 to 60 seconds. Immerse
the piece of film in the fixer bath and using a stop
clock time how long it takes for the rest of the film
to clear. Clearing can be judged by comparing
the surrounding film area with the clear central
spot. The time taken for the rest of the film to clear
is the clearing time. The fixing time needed is
double the clearing time.
So I did that test and yes dot become comepletely transparent in about
45sec. And a cleaning time was 2 min 20 sec. So fixing time should be about
4-5 minutes which is excatly what they say at X88 sticker.
But why is the film still a bit pink? Is it wrong or not? I always
thought, that one has to fix until film has no pink color.
