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Fixing film with table salt?
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
erkie wrote:
Oreste wrote:
erkie wrote:
Farside wrote:
I would like to find a commonly available household chemical that can be used as a fixer, in case I ever need to know that.
After all, who thought of caffinol? Sure developing in tea and urine had been tried (and done successfully) decades ago in the PoW camps, but I simply can't recall what was used as fixer. Not that I'm ever likely to end up in one with a burning need to shoot film at great risk to my life, but it's one of those things that itch me and like an itch I occasionally feel the need to scratch it.
So yes, people here do like to try things and fiddle around; not all the answers are available off the shelf in neat little boxes.


I have read with interest a few discussions about this on a couple of forums. One of them was a caffenol forum f you wish to look into it. If I recall correctly they tried super saturated salt solutions and they believed they had some luck . I just have not tried it because of the relative ease of using a cheap powdered fixer when cost or convenience is an issue(although I tend to use an alkaline fixer mostly these days). Developing with something non traditional doesn't bother me but risking the future of my negatives to degradation because of incomplete fixing just doesn't feel right to me. I would like to wait and see how these negs look in a few years before I would try it.


I have a plan to start a divorce photography business.


Wink


Why not? Why be conventional? I would use glass wet plates too. Maybe have rats chew the edges of prints to give them a 'weathered' look. of course, tear-stains add that special touch.


PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Using salt is the height of stupidity to me, honestly, it's beyond stupid.

You go to the bother of using a nice camera with a good lens, picking your subjects, taking your time over shooting them, using a good film, then take the time to develop it only to undercut the whole process by using salt in the very last step.

Utterly pointless, farcical, stupid, just leaves me a bit speechless at the craziness of it.


PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
Using salt is the height of stupidity to me, honestly, it's beyond stupid.

You go to the bother of using a nice camera with a good lens, picking your subjects, taking your time over shooting them, using a good film, then take the time to develop it only to undercut the whole process by using salt in the very last step.

Utterly pointless, farcical, stupid, just leaves me a bit speechless at the craziness of it.



Without question.


PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well, I guess you pair won't be thinking outside the box any time soon, then.


PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Farside wrote:
Well, I guess you pair won't be thinking outside the box any time soon, then.


It has nothing to do with 'thinking outside the box'. We don't put transmission fluid in our radiators or potassium cyanide in our tea, either.

Our creativity is directed towards image-making, not fiddling with chemicals.


PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Oreste wrote:
Farside wrote:
Well, I guess you pair won't be thinking outside the box any time soon, then.


It has nothing to do with 'thinking outside the box'. We don't put transmission fluid in our radiators or potassium cyanide in our tea, either.

Our creativity is directed towards image-making, not fiddling with chemicals.

+1


PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think outside the box all the time, my fridge is full of unusual exotic film stock, I mostly shoot Kodak Vision2 colour movie film and develop it in a eastern european developer you can't buy in the UK, I have to import it via a friend. I use my own recipe of fixer made with sodium thiosulphate crystals from a lab supplies place.

Using salt as fixer is not worthwhile though, regardless of whether it is in or out of the box.


PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Really?
I suggest you have a look at this page, especially the post at the bottom, from Cronocrator.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/53495661@N00/discuss/72157627621888553/
There's a guy who's actually done it.
He does point out it takes a long time with salt and ammonia is nasty stuff.
However, it does answer the question posed right at the start of the thread - unlike one or two of the posters who responded; am I not right?


PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
If you think using salt is worthwhile, fine, but it's stupid to me, Fox Talbot discovered it was crap 160 years ago and everyone has used hypo ever since.


PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
The whole point was; does an alternative exist? And the answer is; yes.


PostPosted: Sun Sep 23, 2012 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think fixing with table salt isn't uninteresting or stupid.
You can get table salt everywhere over the counter everywhere in world.
Caffenol, Parodinal and table salt are available over the counter - thiosulphates or comercial fixers are not available everywhere for everyone!

From what I've seen and heards negs which were fixed with table salt were not as good as their sodium- or ammonium thiosulphate based fixer counterparts - but they were anyway still fully usable.

If we develope with coffee and painkillers, so why not fixing with table salt?

Last edited by ForenSeil on Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:47 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Sun Sep 23, 2012 7:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
So an alternative exists, but it isn't as good as real fixer.

I think we can we leave it at that.


PostPosted: Sun Sep 23, 2012 11:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Exactly so.
The reason I wanted to find out also, was that just in case I ever get snowed in and have a mountain of undeveloped film, if I run out of developer and fixer, I know I can go ahead with what's in the kitchen cupboard.
The other way around - a cupboard full of dev and fix, but no coffee for the winter, would be sheer hell.


PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Farside wrote:
Exactly so.
The reason I wanted to find out also, was that just in case I ever get snowed in and have a mountain of undeveloped film, if I run out of developer and fixer, I know I can go ahead with what's in the kitchen cupboard.
The other way around - a cupboard full of dev and fix, but no coffee for the winter, would be sheer hell.


I cannot imagine anyone who is a serious worker and developing his own film being unprepared with all suitable materials. The whole thing is ridiculous.


PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Oh for gawd's sake, go and buy a sense of humour.


PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
My conclusion from this tread , best to shoot with Leica M , develop it in pee or cafe and fix it with salt.
Foreinseil don't take it personally just kind of black humor. Laughing


PostPosted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
My conclusion is to drink Rodinal and sprinkle stop bath & fixer on my fish & chips.


PostPosted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
martinsmith99 wrote:
My conclusion is to drink Rodinal and sprinkle stop bath & fixer on my fish & chips.

Laughing Laughing
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