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#1
October 17th 04, 07:23 PM
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How many roll film tanks?
Hello All,
I have been studying Ansel Adams' three excellent photography books and trying to plan some things for a darkroom I am building. I was reading the "Roll Film Processing" section in "The Negative". Most places online indicate that one tank is used and chemicals are dumped out and replaced by the chemicals in the next step. Ansel's instructions seem to indicate a separate processing tank for each step. I think this is further clarified by the pictures in which each tank has a different letter on the front. I counted five as follows: 1. Pre-soak 2. Developer 3. Stop Bath 4. Fixer 5. Hypo clearing agent Being new at this I am trying to stay as true to Ansel's instructions/technique as possible as a starting point. I figure if I follow the instructions of one of the masters it will eliminate a lot of initial frustration. What are all of you doing? One tank or separate tanks? Anyone tried both and noticed a difference? It seems like chemical residue in the single tank scenario could play a part in affecting development. 
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#2
October 17th 04, 09:30 PM
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#3
October 18th 04, 12:02 AM
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I have lots of tanks and will often use multiple tanks when I have more than
a few rolls to process. I have four eight roll tanks, one is "dry" (and stays that way). The next three contain developer, stop and fixer. I load into the dry tank and replace the lid after each roll is loaded, reels are stacked on a lift rod--if someone would open the door I'd only loose the roll I am currently loading--it never happens--my family knows I'll sulk for weeks!! I only put seven rolls onto the lift rod--it's easier to grab the top of the rod that way. When all rolls are loaded--AND STILL IN THE DARK!--I lift the rods out of the dry holding tank and submerge into the developer tank. Lid goes on, timer starts, lights on and process by inversion for the developing time less one minute, lights off, lid off, lift the stack into the stop (weak acid stop for this method or you could plunge the stack into the film washer in the dark if you prefer a wash to an acid stop) LIGHTS STILL OFF, transfer to fixer and agitate with the lights off in Rapid Fix, after one last minute in the dark you could flip on the lights but I'm paranoid and always fix two minutes before putting on the lights. Continue fixing for the balance of the time and then rinse, treat film with wash aid and wash and dry. The dry tank can be used for HCA if that's all the film you have to process or make a tank from PVC for the HCA. When the film is in the washer flip off the lights and get the next batch loaded. Each batch of film gets fresh developer, stop bath, fix and HCA are reused. My method has you in the dark for loading time and a couple of minutes for stop bath and fix only, it also allows inversion agitation (impossible with an open tank--obviously), and you don't need to wait for tanks to fill or empty. Note that if you don't like to get wet I recommend a Kinderman tank for the developer, those caps fit the best of any I have tried, the rest of my tanks I bought used at camera swap meets. And if you like to load without suffering I recommend Hewes or Kinderman reels, too. Though I have a bunch of Omega reels that are pretty good, too. The other nice thing about metal reels is the short drying times, I towel mine off with paper towels then dry them quickly with a blow dryer. (It's still nice to have plenty of reels so you can keep cranking out the processing.) One last tip-film, reels and lift rod displace some of the volume in your tank. Don't fill the tank all the way with developer, use this process to determine how much developer you need. Fill the tank with water, add empty reels and rod, remove rod and reels and then measure the volume of the remaining water. Write this number down, it's the quantity of developer required for this method using your tank and reels. -- darkroommike ---------- "Bob Salomon" wrote in message ... In article , (Icius) wrote: Hello All, I have been studying Ansel Adams' three excellent photography books and trying to plan some things for a darkroom I am building. I was reading the "Roll Film Processing" section in "The Negative". Most places online indicate that one tank is used and chemicals are dumped out and replaced by the chemicals in the next step. Ansel's instructions seem to indicate a separate processing tank for each step. I think this is further clarified by the pictures in which each tank has a different letter on the front. I counted five as follows: 1. Pre-soak 2. Developer 3. Stop Bath 4. Fixer 5. Hypo clearing agent Being new at this I am trying to stay as true to Ansel's instructions/technique as possible as a starting point. I figure if I follow the instructions of one of the masters it will eliminate a lot of initial frustration. What are all of you doing? One tank or separate tanks? Anyone tried both and noticed a difference? It seems like chemical residue in the single tank scenario could play a part in affecting development. Want to do all the processing in the dark or in room light? If you follow Adams directions you will spend your time in the dark. If you process rolls the way the vast majority of workers have over the past 40 years, or so, you will only be in the dark when you load the film. Take your choice. Both methods work. One is prone to fewer lost rolls due to accidents like someone unwittingly opening a door at the wrong moment. -- To reply no_ HPMarketing Corp.
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#4
October 18th 04, 12:02 AM
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I have lots of tanks and will often use multiple tanks when I have more than
a few rolls to process. I have four eight roll tanks, one is "dry" (and stays that way). The next three contain developer, stop and fixer. I load into the dry tank and replace the lid after each roll is loaded, reels are stacked on a lift rod--if someone would open the door I'd only loose the roll I am currently loading--it never happens--my family knows I'll sulk for weeks!! I only put seven rolls onto the lift rod--it's easier to grab the top of the rod that way. When all rolls are loaded--AND STILL IN THE DARK!--I lift the rods out of the dry holding tank and submerge into the developer tank. Lid goes on, timer starts, lights on and process by inversion for the developing time less one minute, lights off, lid off, lift the stack into the stop (weak acid stop for this method or you could plunge the stack into the film washer in the dark if you prefer a wash to an acid stop) LIGHTS STILL OFF, transfer to fixer and agitate with the lights off in Rapid Fix, after one last minute in the dark you could flip on the lights but I'm paranoid and always fix two minutes before putting on the lights. Continue fixing for the balance of the time and then rinse, treat film with wash aid and wash and dry. The dry tank can be used for HCA if that's all the film you have to process or make a tank from PVC for the HCA. When the film is in the washer flip off the lights and get the next batch loaded. Each batch of film gets fresh developer, stop bath, fix and HCA are reused. My method has you in the dark for loading time and a couple of minutes for stop bath and fix only, it also allows inversion agitation (impossible with an open tank--obviously), and you don't need to wait for tanks to fill or empty. Note that if you don't like to get wet I recommend a Kinderman tank for the developer, those caps fit the best of any I have tried, the rest of my tanks I bought used at camera swap meets. And if you like to load without suffering I recommend Hewes or Kinderman reels, too. Though I have a bunch of Omega reels that are pretty good, too. The other nice thing about metal reels is the short drying times, I towel mine off with paper towels then dry them quickly with a blow dryer. (It's still nice to have plenty of reels so you can keep cranking out the processing.) One last tip-film, reels and lift rod displace some of the volume in your tank. Don't fill the tank all the way with developer, use this process to determine how much developer you need. Fill the tank with water, add empty reels and rod, remove rod and reels and then measure the volume of the remaining water. Write this number down, it's the quantity of developer required for this method using your tank and reels. -- darkroommike ---------- "Bob Salomon" wrote in message ... In article , (Icius) wrote: Hello All, I have been studying Ansel Adams' three excellent photography books and trying to plan some things for a darkroom I am building. I was reading the "Roll Film Processing" section in "The Negative". Most places online indicate that one tank is used and chemicals are dumped out and replaced by the chemicals in the next step. Ansel's instructions seem to indicate a separate processing tank for each step. I think this is further clarified by the pictures in which each tank has a different letter on the front. I counted five as follows: 1. Pre-soak 2. Developer 3. Stop Bath 4. Fixer 5. Hypo clearing agent Being new at this I am trying to stay as true to Ansel's instructions/technique as possible as a starting point. I figure if I follow the instructions of one of the masters it will eliminate a lot of initial frustration. What are all of you doing? One tank or separate tanks? Anyone tried both and noticed a difference? It seems like chemical residue in the single tank scenario could play a part in affecting development. Want to do all the processing in the dark or in room light? If you follow Adams directions you will spend your time in the dark. If you process rolls the way the vast majority of workers have over the past 40 years, or so, you will only be in the dark when you load the film. Take your choice. Both methods work. One is prone to fewer lost rolls due to accidents like someone unwittingly opening a door at the wrong moment. -- To reply no_ HPMarketing Corp.
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#5
October 17th 04, 11:51 PM
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#6
October 18th 04, 01:00 AM
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"Icius" wrote in message om... Hello All, I have been studying Ansel Adams' three excellent photography books and trying to plan some things for a darkroom I am building. I was reading the "Roll Film Processing" section in "The Negative". Most places online indicate that one tank is used and chemicals are dumped out and replaced by the chemicals in the next step. Ansel's instructions seem to indicate a separate processing tank for each step. I think this is further clarified by the pictures in which each tank has a different letter on the front. I counted five as follows: 1. Pre-soak 2. Developer 3. Stop Bath 4. Fixer 5. Hypo clearing agent Being new at this I am trying to stay as true to Ansel's instructions/technique as possible as a starting point. I figure if I follow the instructions of one of the masters it will eliminate a lot of initial frustration. What are all of you doing? One tank or separate tanks? Anyone tried both and noticed a difference? It seems like chemical residue in the single tank scenario could play a part in affecting development. I think Adams idea here was to avoid uneven development due to the time it takes to fill and empty the tank. Kodak also suggests filling the tank ahead of time and putting the loaded spool in it in the dark. I've worked both ways and find that if the developing time is reasonably long there is no significant difference between putting the film in first or putting the developer in first. The same wtih the stop bath. Certainly, the fill and dump times are much shorter if the lid can be taken off the tank, as it can in the dark. It is not necessary to use separate tanks, only that the dumping and filling be done in the dark so that the lid can be removed from the tank, but see the last paragraph. A couple of other things. I am not a believer in routine pre-soaking. Its helpful for some things. Mainly, it is used to even out the uptake of the developer by the film. The presoak saturates the emulsion so that the developer must displace the water by diffusion. This slows down the initial development and can eliminate some uneveness when the developer does not contact the film all at once. If the tank is filled first there is really no need for the presoak. I like to have film/developer combinations with developing times no shorter than about 8 minutes. This allows enough time at the beginning of development for the developer to soak into the emulsion evenly before much development happens. Presoaking affects mainly what is called the induction time of development, that is the time between the immersion of the film in the developer and the time the image begins to appear. It is the extension of this time that tends to even out development. The effect on overall development time will depend on several factors including the thickness of the emulsion and the type and pH of the developer. It is a factor which must be discovered by experiment, there is no formula for predicting it. The use of multiple tanks is common when processing large amounts of film. Nikor made tall tanks that took about eight rolls of 120 and double that of 35mm film. These are not really daylight tanks, the spools are on lifting rods and are transferred from one tank to another. Once in the tank the lights can be on and the tanks are agitated like the small ones by inversion. The lifting rods are very often missing when these tanks are sold. In short, presoaking or the use of a pre-filled tank is useful when development times are necessarily short but make diminishing difference as the development time is extended. There can be an effect on uniformity from the stop bath if it is poured in very slowly. However, because the film is already wet, and saturated by developer, the effect is much less than the effect of uneven application of developer. Fixing baths are used to completion so any uneveness in application is of no consequence. I recommend two bath fixing for both film and paper and a brief wash between fixing and wash aid, although the latter is really not necessary if the wash aid is not reused. -- --- Richard Knoppow Los Angeles, CA, USA
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#8
October 18th 04, 10:46 PM
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Lloyd Erlick-Usenet wrote
I develop either ten or twenty roll batches of 120-format film. I set up a line of tall cyclindrical ABS plastic tanks in my sink, and fill them with all the requisite solutions. Then I turn off the lights and slip my rolls out of their light tight tank, on the lifter, into the first solution. In the dark, and it's not only easy but pleasant. So, to each their own. Everyody works out a suitable method. IIRC your method of agitation is lift and lower. Could you expand on that? I'm not all that wedded to pouring in then pouring out. Dan
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#9
October 19th 04, 02:23 PM
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On 18 Oct 2004 14:46:02 -0700, (Dan
Quinn) wrote: Lloyd Erlick-Usenet wrote I develop either ten or twenty roll batches of 120-format film. I set up a line of tall cyclindrical ABS plastic tanks in my sink, and fill them with all the requisite solutions. Then I turn off the lights and slip my rolls out of their light tight tank, on the lifter, into the first solution. In the dark, and it's not only easy but pleasant. So, to each their own. Everyody works out a suitable method. IIRC your method of agitation is lift and lower. Could you expand on that? I'm not all that wedded to pouring in then pouring out. Dan oct1904 from Lloyd Erlick, Yes, I agitate the film by lift and lower. (I got divorced from pouring in then pouring out. The honeymoon didn't make it and there wasn't enough sex...) I develop ten 120 format rolls threaded onto five Jobo 1501 plastic reels that adjust for 35mm or 120 format. When I want to develop up to twenty rolls, I set up a second line of tanks beside the first. It adds surprisingly little work to the process, especially the part I do in the dark. When I 'built' my tanks (hard to call it building; I bought a length of four inch ABS drain pipe and cut it into roughly sixteen inch segments, and glued it all up with fittings to give me plain cylindrical tanks, open topped except for a few with four-inch screw-cap closures for fixer and as dry tanks to hold unprocessed film) I also made a couple of lifters from half or three-quarter inch plastic pipe (I used the kind designated CPVC, which needs a specific glue. I stuck a Tee fitting on the end, and voila, it became a reel lifter.) The length of the lifter must be carefully adjusted. It has to be long enough to project out of the solutions so it can be grasped easily to lift, but if you want to be able to turn the light on once the film is in the fixer, the fixer tank needs a closure. The lifter, if too long, can bind against the inside of the cover, and believe me, getting that cover to release can try the patience of a saint. But it's very easy to accomplish perfection in this regard. Too bad life isn't as easy as plastic pipe and a hacksaw. Anyway, lift and lower is simple in the dark, which is why I adopted it. My tanks are quite tall compared to the level of solution I need inside, so they have quite a bit of head room. This makes it easy to slide the rolls up and down. I simply lift and lower gently, two or three times each thirty seconds. It's easy to find a consistent method that works for the setup, so I can be consisitent from sesion to session no problem. Ten rolls require three liters to cover them on reels in my tanks. That's a fair bit of weight to be slinging around whwn pouring; I prefer to fill the tanks and arrange them in my sink. It's very easy, effortless, and non-error-prone to transfer my lifter full of rolls from tank to tank in the dark. I find working in the dark quiet and peaceful (it's only for less than half an hour, so it's hardly an issue). My processing sequence is simple. I load the film onto the reels and stack them on a lifter in a dry tank with a screw closure (light-tight). As much as forty-eight hours later I set up my line of tanks and run the film through them -- *[in the dark] -plain water pre-soak, -developer, -stop1, stop2, stop3, stop4 [all plain water stops], -fix1, *[white light] -fix2, -multiple rinse, -HCA1, -HCA2, -proper film wash, -hang in dustless place, -squirt distilled water down both surfaces of each hanging roll, -walk away. In each bath the rolls are lifted and lowered for agitation. I use six tanks without covers, plus two fixer tanks that close up air tight, so they are also fixer storage containers. I don't have to pour my fixer back and forth, just prepare, use and store in the tank. By the time fixing is complete, I've rinsed out the first tanks and used them to set up my hypo clear baths. I also have two closeable tanks that never have chemicals in them, for storing the rolls once they are loaded onto developing spirals. The pile of tanks to clean afterwards looks daunting, but of course nothing has dried in them so they rinse out clean pretty quickly. I've only felt duty bound to scrub them once in a while if they've gathered cobwebs. For some reason spiders loved them when I worked in a basement. The whole thing could conceivably be done in white light if the cylinders were appropriately covered (covers would have to permit lift and lower, perhaps this would mean double-height tanks and bag-style covers.) Frankly, I couldn't be bothered. The method works beautifully, no kinks or any difficulties ever. The worst downside is the bulk of multiple tanks to store. I feel the cheapness and ease for developing large numbers of rolls justify a cardboard carton under the bench to stash the things. At first I was used to daylight tanks, so I thought it might be a bit weird, but actually a few minutes of darkness hardly ruffle a darkroom worker, eh?? I see this has become my usual extended monologue. I've often thought describing what we do in the darkroom is a bit like describing how to tie shoelaces. Lots of words for a simple action. Basically it's a lot easier to develop film this way than it is to talk about! regards, --le ________________________________ Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto. voice: 416-686-0326 email: net: www.heylloyd.com ________________________________ ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---
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#10
October 19th 04, 11:34 PM
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Lloyd Erlick-Usenet Lloyd at @the-wire. dot com wrote
Lloyd Erlick-Usenet wrote I develop either ten or twenty roll batches of 120-format film. I set up a line of tall cyclindrical ABS plastic tanks in my sink, and fill them with all the requisite solutions. Then I turn off the lights and slip my rolls out of their light tight tank, on the lifter, into the first solution. In the dark, and it's not only easy but pleasant. So, to each their own. Everyody works out a suitable method. IIRC your method of agitation is lift and lower. Could you expand on that? I'm not all that wedded to pouring in then pouring out. Dan oct1904 from Lloyd Erlick, Yes, I agitate the film by lift and lower. (I got divorced from pouring in then pouring out. The honeymoon didn't make it and there wasn't enough sex...) Anyway, lift and lower is simple in the dark, which is why I adopted it. My tanks are quite tall compared to the level of solution I need inside, so they have quite a bit of head room. This makes it easy to slide the rolls up and down. I simply lift and lower gently, two or three times each thirty seconds. It's easy to find a consistent method that works for the setup, so I can be consisitent from sesion to session no problem. The five reels are lifted clear then lowered? Or are the five lifted within the solution then lowered? If they are lifted clear then I can see that bottom reel receiving a lot of travel within the solution and the top reel, little. If lifting within, additional top reel solution will be required, say, a reels worth. Is that the case? *[in the dark] -plain water pre-soak, -developer, -stop1, stop2, stop3, stop4 [all plain water stops], -fix1, *[white light] -fix2, -multiple rinse, -HCA1, -HCA2, -proper film wash, -hang in dustless place, -squirt distilled water down both surfaces of each hanging roll, -walk away. In each bath the rolls are lifted and lowered for agitation. I use six tanks without covers, plus two fixer tanks that close up air tight, so they are also fixer storage containers. I don't have to pour my fixer back and forth, just prepare, use and store in the tank. By the time fixing is complete, I've rinsed out the first tanks and used them to set up my hypo clear baths. All those stops and I'm not sure even one is necessary. In the begining all fixers were created acidic. To maintain that acid fix, an acid stop was created. But then there is a lot of Old Testement B&W film and paper processing being used. In years gone by I've lifted and lowered sheet film when tank processing. I've read that Bruce Barnbaum does also. Some darkroom workers fault the method. They think tray or rotary results yield less uneven development. Is that a problem with you? Dan
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