Just learned I was loading my film into the tank backwards for 6 months

I've been developing my own black and white rolls since January and always wondered why my negatives came out kinda flat looking. Last week I was watching a YouTube video from some guy in the UK and he paused to show the reel orientation. I looked at my hands and realized I was feeding the film in so the emulsion side faced outward instead of inward toward the spiral. No wonder my developer wasn't hitting the right side evenly. Has anyone else made this bonehead mistake or am I the only one who missed that step in the manual?

2 comments

2 Comments

ivanlewis1mo ago

OH MAN, I feel this in my soul. @cameron763 is totally right that nobody tells you about this stuff until youve wasted half a pack of film. But actually, loading it backwards isnt the only thing that can go wrong. I used a steel tank for my first few rolls and I kept jamming the film into the spiral wrong side. Then I switched to a Paterson tank and STILL messed it up because I was rushing. One trick that helped me was to feel the film curl naturally toward the center, not fight it. And hey, at least your negatives are gonna look amazing now instead of like weird ghost photos.

cameron7631mo ago

Wait, you're telling me there are people who actually READ the manual? That's wild. I've been developing for two years now and I swear I just winged it based on some blurry forum post from 2007. But honestly, you're not alone - I did the EXACT same thing with my Paterson tank for like three months. The worst part was I kept thinking "man, this developer must be super expired" while I was pouring perfectly good chemicals over the BACK of the film. It's such a stupid little detail that nobody tells you about until you've already wasted a dozen rolls. At least now your negatives will actually look like real photographs instead of weird ghost images.