I recently saw a post over on usenet about processing P'roid Type 55 negatives in real darkroom chemistry (as opposed to the built chemistry packet followed by a sodium sulfite clearing/fixing bath.

Does anyone know first hand if this is true? And if so, can you relate your experiences, advantages (or disadvantages) for doing this, and establish some guidelines for experiementiing with this technique?

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), January 14, 1999

Answers

Sorry Ellis, no tips from me but... even if you could, why would you? The damn stuff is so slow, disassembly would be messy and problematic, Tri-x is cheaper, blah blah blah....what advantages do you anticipate? ...t

-- tom meyer (twm@meteor.com), January 15, 1999.

Type 55 is beautiful film- do not let anyone tell you different. I assume that you have called Polaroid. If you have not-they have a 800 # and are very willing to help- they even have a magazine on polaroid> perhaps you have seen it. Tearing Polaroid a part is always tricky> I am curious what your results will be. Remember that regular fixer will peel the emulsion right off. If you want a hard neg you first use sodium sulfate (2 min.) then reg fix w/ hardener (1min) then put into clean sodium sulfate (2 min.) wash as normal richardwarren@rcn.com

-- Richard (richardwarren@rcn.com), January 15, 1999.