Stupid mistakes in the darkroom

[Fabian]

this is fun to read.

as i am only into black and white 35mm there is not too much.

the worst thing was: I loaded two rolls of film on two reels and put them in the drum. light on. everything worked out fine. except: there was an opened 125PX and a trix pushed to 2000 beside the loaded tank.
oh well. Of course I didn't know which one I had loaded first. Light out. one reel in a single drum each. Then I guessed and developed one. Turned out I developed the trix way too short. At least I knew for sure the 125PX was in the other drum.

Lost one film. Never happened again, till now. nobody ever did this?

[Confusion Circle]

1) Forgot to close the black plastic bag that the paper comes in. Fogged the edges of a brand new pack of 11x14 fibre paper.

2) poured in fixer instead of developer into my Patterson tank. Got a nice long piece of transparent plastic.

3) Left an exposed roll of HIE sitting on the counter and turned the light on. Fogged half the roll.

4) almost developed a roll of 220 Provia in B&W chemistry.

5) dropped my film onto the floor of the film dryer, and got dust and dirt on a wet roll of film. Got scratches after re-washing.

[Andy K]

I was making prints in my kitchen darkroom. Was exposing the final version, and opened the fridge for a beer...

[RH Designs]

Ok, here's the scenario. A friend's darkroom (whom I won't name to save embarrassment!) some years ago. Back to Cibachrome processing after a quick tea break. Pour the developer into the Jobo drum. Process for 3mins or whatever, pour out the dev. Only no dev comes out. All three of us are convinced that we did actually pour the stuff in. So in goes the rinse water, rinse 1min. Start to pour out the water. Nothing. Much scratching of heads. Same thing happens with the bleach. Seriously puzzled, we remove the end cap from the drum and there inside is the towel we had been drying the drum off with after processing the previous print. Much falling about laughing ...

[Neal]

I once discovered while developing film that Dektol does not make an effective stop bath. No excuses. A daylight tank and all the bottles properly and obviously labeled.

Neal Wydra

[alex.slaets@adeo.be]

After repeated tests I can confirm that only one side of photographic paper is light-sensitive.

[pesphoto]

Ever drop a roll of film in the dark while about to load it onto a reel and have it roll under your desk and have to go fish around on your hands and knees in the dark..............? Never happened to me

[DarkroomExperimente]

I was making prints in my kitchen darkroom. Was exposing the final version, and opened the fridge for a beer...

this is why one guy I know put a red lightbulb inside his darkroom fridge...I thought it was sooo cool

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Put an opened 100 sheet box of fibre paper on the light table and turned it on to look at negs. A couple of powerful halogen bulbs will fog paper!
Since then I have a smaller light table in the darkroom and I made a habit of sealing up the paper boxes before I mount the sheet on the easel.

Re: Darkroom fridge... Now there's a good idea! I've got a newly installed radio/cd player in there, now what else besides beer can a darkroom-phile need? A wine cooler? Fondue pot?

- Thomas

[pesphoto]

Re: ....., now what else besides beer can a darkroom-phile need? A wine cooler? Fondue pot?

- Thomas

Coffee pot