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I finally saw my night shots go from orange soup to clean black skies after I switched to a different fixer
I shoot a lot of night stuff around Cleveland and for about 9 months my skies kept coming out this muddy orange brown color even on rolls I knew were fine. I blamed the film, then the lab, then my lens. Last week a guy at the camera shop asked what fixer I was using and told me my old one was probably exhausted, and I had been reusing the same batch for way too long. I mixed a fresh batch, fixed for 5 minutes instead of my usual 3, and the difference in the first roll was huge. Two shots from the same corner at 11pm look like different rolls. My shadows are actually black now and the streetlights stopped bleeding into everything. Has anyone else had fixer go bad and sneak up on them like that, or do you just dump it on a schedule?
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stellafisher6d ago
Reusing fixer too long is such a sneaky trap because the film still looks developed, it just slowly stops clearing. That orange brown stuff you saw is leftover silver not getting washed away, so your shadows go muddy and lights bleed. Now I just mix fresh every 6 to 8 rolls and do the leader test before a real shoot, drop a film leader in the fixer and see how fast it clears.
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