Something Potentially Useful

Potentially useful to those who develop their own film that is.

Actually, when I began this blog I had plans to make it somewhat useful to other photographers, with some film and camera reviews and such. I realized though, that there are so many others who are so much better at reviews than I'll ever be, that I wouldn't really be contributing much. So that idea kind of went by the wayside.

Disclaimer: I'm almost certain that I first ran across these on Jim Gray's excellent and useful Down the Road blog, but I just can't find the link to the article.

In any case, I've been developing film so infrequently for the past few months that when I do, I often find that my developer is expired or nearly so. I thought I might try and do something to extend the life of my developers since the frig is currently off limits to me for such things.

I was looking for some kind of bottle or bag that the air could be easily excluded from and I found this Stop Loss Bag system. I bought the kit, which is $23.95 and includes 4 "bottles" which are heavy duty plastic bags strikingly similar to the water bags used for backpacking. The kit comes with a collapsible rubber funnel and a clip to sturdily hold the bottle clamped to a table (clamp not included). I was a little skeptical initially, but it works very nicely with really no fuss or mess at all.

I think a couple photos might be worth a few hundred words here.

I have high hopes that this system will extend the life of my developers a bit. I suspect that at least it won't exacerbate the situation. It was relatively cheap and seems really well thought out.

Possibly the one caveat is that the bags are made for wood finishes and could somehow be compromised by film developers, but most liquid developers come in plastic bottles these days, so I'm not terribly concerned.