r/filmdeveloping

The neg itself looks "somewhat" usable. Not the best photograph in the world, but a decent picture - I thought to myself

But after half an hour screaming at my computer, my cats and my girlfriend I decided to ask you:

WTF did I do wrong? These colors are all over the place, I can't get the tress green, the fog white or the post in the foreground "wood"-color...

I home developed with a Adox C41 kit - the 35mm roll I developed last week with it has been fine. Is my film bad or is the T in the Portra 100T doing THIS kind of strange stuff? Anyone got an Idea?

I’ve been working on my own film drying clips because the vintage/professional ones I found are surprisingly expensive, especially if you need a lot of them.

I’ve never actually handled the originals, so this isn’t meant to be a replica. I looked at several different film clips and spring clamps, studied how they work, and recreated the mechanism based on photos, research and engineering assumptions.
The goal is to have one single clip geometry that works for both 35mm and 120 film.

The clip uses a metal hinge pin, torsion springs and mechanical stops to limit the opening and protect the spring.

For 35mm, the idea is to cut off the leader and use the existing sprocket holes to grip the film.

For 120, the clip currently makes small holes in the film about 5 mm from the end, in the part that would normally be trimmed off anyway.

They’re also intentionally quite heavy so they help keep the film straight while drying. The printed body is around 34 g, plus roughly 5–10 g of metal parts, so about 40–45 g per clip.

I’m still refining the design and would really like feedback from people who regularly process film.
Does this gripping method make sense?

Would you change anything about the jaws, spring force, hole position or weight?

Anything else to take into consideration that might be useful to add to the final design?

If there’s interest, I can post more CAD screenshots and prototype photos.

EDIT: Just to be clear, these are NOT for sale. The idea is to release the files for free once the design is finished. I just wanted to get some feedback from people who actually develop film before releasing them, to make sure I’m not overlooking anything!

Inspired by No Grain No Gains’ ECN-2 video on YouTube, I wanted to start mixing my own developer, mainly for long-term storage and cost reasons. I basically follow his process, but on top of that, I also mix my own bleach and fixer.

Recipes I used:

Bleach:

• Distilled water: 900 ml
• Potassium ferricyanide: 40 g
• Potassium bromide: 29 g
• Borax: 1.5 g
• Distilled water to make 1 L

Fixer:

• Distilled water: 500 ml
• Sodium thiosulfate: 200 g
• Potassium metabisulfite: 20 g
• Ammonium chloride: 50 g
• Water to make 1 L

I also use 10% white vinegar diluted to 1% with distilled water as a stop bath.

Apart from the specks, I’ve been pretty satisfied with the results. I’ve mainly been cross-processing C-41 film in it. The first time, I thought I just hadn’t been careful enough about dust, but after a few rolls and trying my best to create a dust-free environment for drying, the dots persist.

I’ve tried running my chemicals through coffee filters to remove any debris, but there was no improvement. I develop with constant agitation, use proper washes between steps, and finish with distilled water and Photo-Flo.

I’m not really sure what to try next or what could be causing this and how to fix this. I don’t think it’s dust, since even Digital ICE doesn’t really register it.

One think to maybe note is that I bought my CD-3 powder locally from a guy on auction website. It’s not exactly the same pure white as the CD-3 shown in the No Grain No Gains video, (although it was in vacuum sealed package) and when mixed, the solution is fairly purple. So I’m not sure whether it’s simply different or has degraded/expired. That said, it seems to develop the film just fine, and the colors also look respectable.

The attached photos are Fuji 200 (so basically Kodak Gold/ColorPlus) and last one is gold 200, scanned on a Plustek 7500i and inverted in NLP.

Pics and videos of the negatives: https://imgur.com/a/GXAyn9Y

Edit: Attached pictures and videos of negatives