Which way do you prefer to develop your 4x5 sheet films

[alavergh]

I have the massive dev chart app on my iPad and it's nice, but I'm not brave enough to trust it. Does it shut off all other notifications? I don't want my tablet or phone to change and light up mid developing.

Personally, I use trays. Some of you seem to have missed that he doesn't want to spend extra on expensive jobo stuff but of course they asked what you prefer too so...oh well. I use a mixture of 5x7 and 8x10ish trays for processing 4x5. My water pre soak is 8x10. Dev, stop, and fix are smaller trays. The Perma wash and photo flo are in 8x10s. I wash by sitting in trays, 8x10, water, and every couple minutes I dump the water and refil. Then I dry on either small clips on a line/hanger or a plastic dish drain rack.

I use an old gralab timer that becomes pretty dim pretty fast. I develop on a folding table and I have my timer under the table. At the start, I have it covered with a dark towel and I estimate pre soak time.

[Flauvius]

Achor Hocking glass beer glass from WalMart, and a K-Mart kitchen timer: it has the biggest buttons on all kitchen timers I have seen and it does not have a LED to contend with.

With the top and plunger I made, from a plastic coffee can lid and a venetian blind rod, my tacho-method negatives are scratch free and the seim-stand agitation is perfect - every time. Just make sure to use an only plastic paint brush handle or a tooth brush handle between the glass and film so you can grab it when it comes time to remove it.

Steve Sherman is right, Pyrocat produces negatives with incredable accutance.

The real question should be: How much time are you willing to spend in the dark to develope a single sheet of film? My system takes about 50 minunets to develope a single sheet of film, but for me the end product is worth the time needed to produce "satin like" mid-tones and sutle highlights with detail to at least Zone 14.

Flauvius

[Roger Hesketh]

Expert drum, rotary base, Smiths laboratory stop clock and a glass of malt whisky.

[analoguey]

The very best tray for developing 4x5 film is a Pyrex glass bread pan. It is just smaller than 4 inches across at the bottom though wider than that at the top. The film will be held straight in a stack if you do multiple sheets and they will never touch the bottom so you can easily get a finger under the stack to rotate. I do emulsion down for multiple sheets and emulsion up if I do only one sheet. A liter of developer gives a luxurious volume in the bread pan. Buy it at a grocery store.
Dennis

I was tempted to try this but I don't really have a darkroom - will be using the bathroom, and the chance of breaking glass pans made me drop the idea.
Do you have them all lined up, in a sink?

[Light Guru]

+1 for massive dev app on the iPhone. I use the sounds, and have the phone upside down so there's no light. Now if only they'd develop a voice interface so rather than tapping the screen with your Pyrocatted gloves to go to the next timer stage you could say 'start stop', 'start fix' etc...

Like I said earlier I keep my phone on a shelf above my trays with the brightness turned all the way dawn and the app set to green display and it never affects my film.

You don't have to touch the screen ether to advance. Most people miss the settings of the app because they are not in the app but are accessed from the iPhone settings app built into the os. Simply turn on auto run timer and set how many seconds you want before the next timer starts.

[Light Guru]

I have the massive dev chart app on my iPad and it's nice, but I'm not brave enough to trust it. Does it shut off all other notifications? I don't want my tablet or phone to change and light up mid developing.

Simply turn on the do not disturb feature on the iPhone.

I personally use my previous iPhone as I don't want to risk my current one accidentally taking a bath in photo chemicals.

[Dan Dozer]

I shoot both 4 x 5 and 8 x 10 and want to keep my developing process the same for both types. I've decided on tray processing for all my film. In my earlier darkroom days, I tried the shuffle method for multiple sheets, but never really liked it. I process most of my film in PMK Pyro and need trays a little larger than the film size because of that (11 x 14 tray for 8 x 10 film). I made a slosher tray that fits into the same 11 x 14 tray that works great for 4 sheets of 4 x 5 film. Used a sheet of perforated plastic I got at Walmart in the crafts department for about $2 a sheet and some hot melt glue.

[Kevin J. Kolosky]

I like glass jars

[John Berry]

I used to use trays but use hangers now after switching to Pyrocat-p at high dilution, 1.5-1-200. Vertical as per SK's recommendation. If you are going to use trays I recommend flat bottom, as it keeps the neg from sticking to the bottom. DON"T use 5x7 for 4x5 as you are prone to overdeveloped edges, especially with continuous agitation, which I also recommend. When developing more than one at a time you want a tray large enough to rotate the negs 90 degrees each movement so you know when you have went through the whole stack ( if you go through the stack and count one less than you have in there, you have a couple stuck together. Don't think it can't happen.). I use a gray lab that doesn't glow. I made my own tanks out of clear 1/4" lexan, 3 for $40.00. Very useful when using NVG's. All my wet work is done in a 4x6 half bath.

[Nana Sousa Dias]

I use Jobo Expert Drums, 3005 (8x10"), 3006 (5x7") , 3010 (4x5") and a modified 3063 tank with wich I can develop up to 10 8x10" sheets with 1 liter of developer.
I find the Jobo expert tanks the most practical way for develop film sheets. My Jobo ATL 2 commited suicide but I keep using my Expert tanks with a board with 4 wheels and "animal" traction.