Two years of developing at home before I realized I was using fixer wrong the whole time

I've been developing my own black and white film for about 2 years now. Last week I ran out of fresh fixer and had to mix some from powder, and I actually read the instructions for the first time. Turns out I was supposed to agitate constantly for the first 30 seconds then every 30 seconds after that. I always just gave it a few shakes at the start and let it sit. My negatives always came out a little hazy and I thought it was just cheap film. Now they're crystal clear after one roll. Anyone else find out way later they were skipping a basic step like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

theawest12d ago

Yeah but fixer doesn't need constant agitation like developer does.

coleman.jade12d ago

Nah, fixer actually works fine with minimal agitation - the hazy negatives were probably just not fixing long enough overall. @theawest has the right idea, you were underfixing not underagitating.

nancy27512d ago

Wait, isn't this exactly what happened to me too? I did the same thing for like a year and a half where I just tossed the film in fixer and walked away for five minutes. Finally watched a real darkroom tutorial online and saw them agitating like crazy at the start, and I felt so dumb when my next batch came out perfectly clear instead of that weird milky look I always got. I always blamed my tap water or the film stock, but it was just me being lazy with the fixer.