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Road ruts with Jobo



 
 
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  #11  
Old January 24th 04, 05:03 AM
Jean-David Beyer
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Default Road ruts with Jobo

Randy Stewart wrote:
"Tom Thackrey" wrote in message
om...

On 23-Jan-2004, (Michael Scarpitti) wrote:


Mechanical agitation that is invarying inevitably will be harder to
control than manual agitation using inversion in a standard tank. The
allure of mechanization is obvious, but I process exclusively by hand,
and never have uneven development.


Gee and I thought consistancy was the objective. I didn't realize that
varying agitation was part of the creative process. ;-

--
Tom Thackrey



Gee Tom, I don't think that agistation methods, apart from some extremes,
have anything to do with "the creative process" either, but then mechanical
drum processing of your film doesn't guarantee "consistency" which is worth
achieving, as this thread as demonstrated.

Mr. Sccarpitti's style does get very far with me, so I find it stange to
take his side on this point. However the inherent problems of constant
agistation of the type provided by Jobo,


What _are_ the _inherent problems_ of constant agitation? AFAIK, the
only problem is the contrast is higher, and that is completely
controlled by decreasing the development time or increasing the dilution
of the developer.

or which I dealt with for more
than a decade using a similar processer, are well documented and discussed
in The Film Developing Cookbook.


Why do I _never_ get uniformity problems with my Jobo CPE-2? If I were
getting uniformity problems, surely I could measure them with the
TD-901, and I do not see that.

Hand done, intermitant agitation is not as
convenient as a drum processor, but it does avoid the problems discussed in
this thread, and should yield marginally better negatives for most people.
It's just a question of whether your drum processor result are okay for you
and you put a premium on the convenience, in which case, keep on "rolling".

Randy Stewart





--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey
http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 11:00pm up 17 days, 10:26, 2 users, load average: 2.12, 2.21, 2.13

  #12  
Old January 24th 04, 05:21 AM
David Nebenzahl
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Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

On 1/23/2004 8:03 PM Jean-David Beyer spake thus:

Randy Stewart wrote:

"Tom Thackrey" wrote in message
om...

On 23-Jan-2004, (Michael Scarpitti) wrote:

Mechanical agitation that is invarying inevitably will be harder to
control than manual agitation using inversion in a standard tank. The
allure of mechanization is obvious, but I process exclusively by hand,
and never have uneven development.

Gee and I thought consistancy was the objective. I didn't realize that
varying agitation was part of the creative process. ;-


Gee Tom, I don't think that agistation methods, apart from some extremes,
have anything to do with "the creative process" either, but then mechanical
drum processing of your film doesn't guarantee "consistency" which is worth
achieving, as this thread as demonstrated.

Mr. Sccarpitti's style does [not] get very far with me, so I find it stange to
take his side on this point. However the inherent problems of constant
agistation of the type provided by Jobo,


What _are_ the _inherent problems_ of constant agitation? AFAIK, the
only problem is the contrast is higher, and that is completely
controlled by decreasing the development time or increasing the dilution
of the developer.


I'm guessing that the problems associated with constant, invariant agitation
in this device (Jobo) must have something to do with the interior geometry,
topology or hydrology of the gizmo, as I never have problems with my rotary
processor, which is the Beseler Unidrum (for 4x5 and 9x12). There must be
something inside the Jobo--some baffle or something else in the flow
stream--that causes standing-wave patterns, eddies if you will, that lead to
these "road ruts".


--
Focus: A very overrated feature.

- From Marcy Merrill's lexicon at Junk Store Cameras
(
http://merrillphoto.com/JunkStoreCameras.htm)

  #13  
Old January 24th 04, 05:29 AM
Brian Kosoff
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Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

Below I have posted a copy of an email that I sent today to Jobo. It has
many details regarding my processing and the level of experimentation that I
have gone through with them. Jobo has yet to reply:

I have processed everything from 35mm to 8x10² film, using methods

ranging from small tank (inversion), tray, large tank dip and dunk, large
tank nitrogen burst and now rotary processing. I can say with absolute
confidence that I have not gotten decent, even sheet film processing since I
switched from nitrogen burst to a Jobo rotary. I can also state that I have
not gotten even roll film development since I switched from small tank
inversion to a jobo rotary. I shoot landscapes and still lifes that have
large, extremely even, white backgrounds. The uneveness of development is
quite obvious in that environment.
I have experimented countless times in order to correct these

inadequacies. I have had a back and forth dialog with various members of
your technical assistance dept for several years, and have made alterations
to my methodology, as well as many experiments based on their advice. In
spite of all of these efforts, I still have, what your people describe as
³road ruts, on my roll film, and a combination of ³road ruts² and an effect
that can only be described as pouring a blob of developer onto the center of
un-agitated film and letting it sit there for a minute or two prior to
agitation. These results come from film exposed in my Rolleis, mamiyas and
Fujis. As well as readyloads, 4x5 and 8x10 sheet film in lisco holders, and
8x10 film exposed under the enlarger. I have been told by your tech people
that using kodak film with kodak developers is problematic. I have also
been told ( by 2 different techs) that I should turn the machine 90 degrees
to the earth¹s magentic field!!!!
Upon the further advice of your technical assistance people I have

measured the rpm of the processor and have processed roll film at 75rpm, 65
rpm and 50 rpm. I have used distilled water in my developers, distilled
water or tap water for my presoak when d-76 was the dev, no pre soak when
x-tol was the dev. My drums are perfectly level when in operation. I have
used chemical quantities at the recommended amounts, and at more and less
than the recommended amounts. I never process more than 4 rolls of 120
film at a time in a 2563 tank, using 4 reels. I use as much as 1000ml of
developer to do this. I have used d-76 1:1 (1000ml for 4 *120¹s), Xtol
(straight 1000ml for 4 rolls 120), xtol 1:1 (1000ml for 4 rolls of 120). On
the advice of your tech people I do not use stop bath, but use 4 rinses
prior to a 5 minute fix in kodak rapid fix. I have done all of this with
Tmax100, Ilford fp-4plus and Delta 100. I have done all of this with sheet
film, in 300x series tanks. The only difference being that your tech people
recommended 50 rpm as the speed for the 300x expert drums. I use distilled
water for presoaks, for developer and for photo flo. The photo flo is done
after the film is removed from the reels or drum and placed in a glass
beaker filled with the photo flo working solution.
All of my tanks and reels are completely clean, no contaminants

anywhere, as all of my prints are for sale in galleries, I run an archivally
oriented darkroom. There are no, sources of light in my darkroom save the
red light emitted from the jobo itself and the green glow from some gralab
timers. The entrance to the darkroom consists of entering a light tight room
first, with a light trap door, and then passing through a second light trap
door into the darkroom.
As a means of protecting my negatives I have what is probably the most

experienced B&W digital lab in the country, Bow Haus, produce 8x10 tmax100
copy negatives for me. They too have a jobo, they too can not get evenly
processed 8x10 film with it. They have tried sending their film to outside
labs who also use jobo, and they too have had the same problems. They have
not been able to find a single lab that processes 8x10 properly in a jobo.
They now process my 8x10 copy negs by hand in a tray. That has given them
the best results so far.



What more can I do? Is there something I have missed?

  #14  
Old January 24th 04, 11:15 AM
Ralf R. Radermacher
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Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

Brian Kosoff wrote:

I'm using a Jobo cpp-2 processor I am getting an uneveness in
development which jobo refers to as "road ruts" that is a linear uneveness
that runs the long length of the film, in the direction of the rotation.
It's dense on the edge, then lighter 1/3 of the way in, then denser, then
lighter then denser.


It seems to me that this is *the* inherent problem of rotary processing
and it isn't limited to Jobo machines. I'm having the same trouble with
a Mafina (http://www.laborfoto.de/V_50gb.htm) where the film is wound
around the outside of a large diameter drum (approx. 35 cm/14") and then
rotated through a shallow pan-like recipient holding the chemicals.

While I haven't noticed any of this with rollfilm, it can be really bad
with 35 mm. Usually, it doesn't show, but on low-contrast/high density
negatives, it is quite annoying. The area along the edges is
considerably denser than the rest. Sometimes, I even get to see the
perforation pattern as density modulation in the negative.

I'm attributing this mainly to turbulence caused by the perforation.

Hand agitation obviously isn't a viable alternative with C-41, let alone
E-6. Any other suggestions?

Ralf

--
Ralf R. Radermacher - DL9KCG - Köln/Cologne, Germany
private homepage: http://www.fotoralf.de
manual cameras and photo galleries - updated Apr. 11, 2003
Contarex - Kiev 60 - Horizon 202 - P6 mount lenses
  #15  
Old January 24th 04, 06:04 PM
Jean-David Beyer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 1/23/2004 8:03 PM Jean-David Beyer spake thus:

Randy Stewart wrote:




"Tom Thackrey" wrote in message
om...

On 23-Jan-2004, (Michael Scarpitti)
wrote:

Mechanical agitation that is invarying inevitably will be
harder to control than manual agitation using inversion in a
standard tank. The allure of mechanization is obvious, but I
process exclusively by hand, and never have uneven
development.


Gee and I thought consistancy was the objective. I didn't
realize that varying agitation was part of the creative
process. ;-


Gee Tom, I don't think that agistation methods, apart from some
extremes, have anything to do with "the creative process" either,
but then mechanical drum processing of your film doesn't
guarantee "consistency" which is worth achieving, as this thread
as demonstrated.

Mr. Sccarpitti's style does [not] get very far with me, so I find
it stange to take his side on this point. However the inherent
problems of constant agistation of the type provided by Jobo,



What _are_ the _inherent problems_ of constant agitation? AFAIK,
the only problem is the contrast is higher, and that is completely
controlled by decreasing the development time or increasing the
dilution of the developer.



I'm guessing that the problems associated with constant, invariant
agitation in this device (Jobo) must have something to do with the
interior geometry, topology or hydrology of the gizmo, as I never
have problems with my rotary processor, which is the Beseler Unidrum
(for 4x5 and 9x12). There must be something inside the Jobo--some
baffle or something else in the flow stream--that causes
standing-wave patterns, eddies if you will, that lead to these "road
ruts".


I disagree. If there were an _inherent_ problem to the Jobo processor
(more precisely, its tanks and | or reels), then _everyone_ would get
these problems, and I do not. Many people use them successfully, and
some even use their fancier reel-less tanks for negative processing with
success. I could certainly measure non-uniformities easily enough on
uniformly exposed negatives that I make when performing film
calibrations with my MacBeth TD-901 densitometer that reads to 0.001
density units on the high-sensitivity scale. And _I just do not get
those alleged nonuniformities_. Furthermore, I do not employ heroic
procedures to get this uniformity. I do keep the tank level with a
bubble level, but I am probably being too compulsive about that. I
prewet (B&W anyway), but as a practical matter, I doubt that has
anything to do with it, but I cannot be bothered to omit the pre-wet
because I would have to recalibrate and it is too much trouble.

The _only_ time I got what I might call road ruts was the stripe
parallel to the 5" edge when using the obsolete pre-2509N sheet film
reels. These have been discontinued a decade or two ago. By now, I would
have supposed people would have either upgraded their tanks and reels or
given up rotary negative processing.

It has come to my attention that some people attempt developping
negatives in print (paper) tanks. Maybe there is a problem doing that,
but if you use the wrong tanks, you are on your own.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey
http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 11:40am up 17 days, 23:05, 2 users, load average: 2.07, 2.13, 2.12

  #16  
Old January 24th 04, 06:21 PM
Nick Zentena
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Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

Jean-David Beyer wrote:

I disagree. If there were an _inherent_ problem to the Jobo processor
(more precisely, its tanks and | or reels), then _everyone_ would get
these problems, and I do not. Many people use them successfully, and


Me either. OTOH I haven't gone to the trouble of checking with a
densitometer. If I needed to use one to notice any problems I likely
wouldn't care about the difference.


It has come to my attention that some people attempt developping
negatives in print (paper) tanks. Maybe there is a problem doing that,
but if you use the wrong tanks, you are on your own.



The difference between the 2800 print drums and the 2500 film drums is the
lid and centre column.

Nick
  #17  
Old January 24th 04, 08:59 PM
Jean-David Beyer
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Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

Nick Zentena wrote:
Jean-David Beyer wrote:


I disagree. If there were an _inherent_ problem to the Jobo
processor (more precisely, its tanks and | or reels), then
_everyone_ would get these problems, and I do not. Many people use
them successfully, and



Me either. OTOH I haven't gone to the trouble of checking with a
densitometer. If I needed to use one to notice any problems I likely
wouldn't care about the difference.


With the obsolete pre-2509N reels, you sure did not need a densitometer!
I could see the non-uniformity around Zone V because the undesired
stripe was about 0.15 denser than the rest of the negatives. I attribute
that to the fact that the negatives tended to be closer together in the
center than at the edges (sheet film), but that may not have been the
explanation at all. It was true that the problem with the old reels
could be greatly reduced by using only 4 sheets in the 6-sheet reel. But
the 2509N reels hold the negatives somewhat better, and those clever
plastic plates tend to make the developer slosh in from the sides more
and less along the direction of rotation. I suspect that is really the
reason the results are so much better with the new reels, without proof.
I suppose I could try 6 sheets sometimes and leave out the plastic
plates and see if the problems recur. But I will probably never get
around to it.

I just used the densitometer when measuring film for calibration, and if
there were any systemic development variations over the film, the
densitometer would have seen them before my so-called calibrated-eyeball
would. ;-)

It has come to my attention that some people attempt developping
negatives in print (paper) tanks. Maybe there is a problem doing
that, but if you use the wrong tanks, you are on your own.



The difference between the 2800 print drums and the 2500 film drums
is the lid and centre column.

What reels do you use in the 2800 print drums? Or if you are not the
original poster, what reels do you suppose they use in their print drums?

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 2:50pm up 18 days, 2:15, 5 users, load average: 2.65, 2.38, 2.20

  #18  
Old January 24th 04, 10:02 PM
Nick Zentena
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Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

Jean-David Beyer wrote:

The difference between the 2800 print drums and the 2500 film drums
is the lid and centre column.

What reels do you use in the 2800 print drums? Or if you are not the
original poster, what reels do you suppose they use in their print drums?


I'm not the OP. The only 2800 tank I have is the largest one. I picked it
up cheap on a lark. It's big enough to make 16x20s and I can put the lid on
my smaller tanks. Anything that fits the 2500 tanks will fit the 2800s.
Going the other way I'm using 1500 film tanks to process 8x10 colour prints.
The one 1500 print lid I have lets me use the 1500 film tanks for prints.
I've seen some older looking tanks being sold on Ebay lately with 4x5 reels.
The tanks looked vintage. I didn't pay much attention but a number in the
4xxx range sort of sticks in my mind. With Ebay a lot of people jump to
conclusions. So it wouldn't suprise me if some buyers are thinking they are
getting the 2509N reels and the current tanks when in reality they're
getting something much older.

I think you mentioned using more then the min amount of chemicals.
I'm using a fair bit more. I don't know if that's enough to make a
difference but it might be.

Nick
  #19  
Old January 24th 04, 11:47 PM
Jean-David Beyer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

Nick Zentena wrote:

I think you mentioned using more then the min amount of chemicals.
I'm using a fair bit more. I don't know if that's enough to make a
difference but it might be.

Nope: I use whatever it says on the side of the tank. One tank holds one
2509N reel, the other one holds two reels.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 5:45pm up 18 days, 5:10, 6 users, load average: 2.36, 2.23, 2.11

  #20  
Old January 25th 04, 01:37 AM
David Nebenzahl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Road ruts with Jobo

On 1/24/2004 9:04 AM Jean-David Beyer spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 1/23/2004 8:03 PM Jean-David Beyer spake thus:
I'm guessing that the problems associated with constant, invariant
agitation in this device (Jobo) must have something to do with the
interior geometry, topology or hydrology of the gizmo, as I never
have problems with my rotary processor, which is the Beseler Unidrum
(for 4x5 and 9x12). There must be something inside the Jobo--some
baffle or something else in the flow stream--that causes
standing-wave patterns, eddies if you will, that lead to these "road
ruts".

I disagree. If there were an _inherent_ problem to the Jobo processor
(more precisely, its tanks and | or reels), then _everyone_ would get
these problems, and I do not. Many people use them successfully, and
some even use their fancier reel-less tanks for negative processing with
success. [...]

The _only_ time I got what I might call road ruts was the stripe
parallel to the 5" edge when using the obsolete pre-2509N sheet film
reels. These have been discontinued a decade or two ago. By now, I would
have supposed people would have either upgraded their tanks and reels or
given up rotary negative processing.


So you're saying that anyone who experiences problems such as those described
by the OP must be using these old reels? Do we know what kind of reels he's using?


--
Focus: A very overrated feature.

- From Marcy Merrill's lexicon at Junk Store Cameras
(http://merrillphoto.com/JunkStoreCameras.htm)

 




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