Getting ready to do E6 processing with a Jobo expert drum...

[Vaughn]

I have been using the 3005 and the 3006 Expert Drums for several years on a Unicolor motor base.

Several things about removing the lids:
1...Never stick your head over the top if using air pressure. Friend needed eye surgery due to this (using foot pump).
2...If using air pressure, fill as far as possible with water first. Water does not compress and less air/force will be needed to remove lid.
3...Don't stick the lids on so tight! Easy does it, and they'll come off easier and still not leak.
4...Don't use air pressure -- gently tap drum's lower edge of its lid on edge of table top etc, working around the lid, and gently lifting the lid off. Combined with #3, no damage is done to the drum.

My motor base turns the 3005 and 3006 drums at 15 RMP. I manually lift and switch the direction of the rotation of the drum every minute or so...the auto rotate feature switches direction before one full drum rotation with these larger diameter drums, so I disabled it.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Got next set of 10 done. It is interesting to see your mistakes, etc from 2-4 years ago for the first time. And to also see some development issues. Like I have a couple slides got these weird fat lighter wavy lines. Only in the sky. Won't know for sure what they are, but pretty sure was not there when I took the image.

I also noticed that when you over-expose slide (Provia100F so far), yes it is lighter density, but also becomes way magenta cast and in the super exposed areas can get a crispy yellow. Almost like it was over cooked.

They I have been exposing slides is to find the brightest and darkest areas of my scene, and take the average. I was doing this to avoid losing shadow detail. This seems to work okay, but also seems like it could be hit and miss, especially if you average wrong which I have been known to do. Will know better when I look at my notes.

What I am going to try to do next for determining exposure for my slides, is to still take the average, but back off by 1 stop. Ie, if brightest is ev 16 and darkest is ev 4, the avg is 10. So if you put ev 10 at middle gray (Zone V if you will) that means the brightest is 6 stops brighter or Zone 11 (blown out) and darkest is at Zone 1 (practically useless for a slide most of the time imho)

If scene permits, then I would use a reverse grad ND to tame bright. If I pull back one stop, still blow out highlights, and end up with darkest at Zone 0. Slide film just doesn't have enough latitude in stops to accommodate that scene.

I could expose for the brights and try to develop for the darks, but having never tried that would be an experiment in and of itself. Don't know if pulling a couple of stops will force the darks to be underdeveloped or what. Not much I can do about it now. A lot of these were taken years ago

Another bit of wisdom. Make sure to check the notch codes prior to loading for development. I had a Tmax100 in same film holder as Velvia100. You can guess what happened to the Tmax. Beautiful clear image

[Vaughn]

Steve, do you pre-wet the film before adding developer to the Expert Drum?
For B&W, Jobo recommends it...not sure about color, though. At 15 rpm, I think it does have a benefit getting the developer to well-wetted film a bit more evenly than dry film.

[Duolab123]

If you go to jobousa there's a document about expert tanks. Recommendation is 50 rpm. This is what I use with CPP3. I use 3005 to develop paper as well as (rarely) 8x10 film.

[Larry Gebhardt]

I use 50 rpm with expert drums for color, per Jobo’s recommendation.

Regarding opening the tanks with air, if you fill the tank to the top it creates a very low drama lift instead of pop with the foot pump. I wouldn’t use compressed air given the cost of the expert drums.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I will try the 50 rpm next set of 10. Yes, I prewet, but I forgot to do it for that batch and the next batch. The newest batch looks okay though. But looking at the development errors, it is obvious it was trapped air bubbles and the developer running down portions of the negative. It only takes an extra few seconds before full coverage to ruin the film.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I use 50 rpm withe expert drums for color, per Jobo’s recommendation.

Regarding opening the tanks with air, if you fill the tank to the top it creates a very low drama lift instead of pop withe foot pump. I wouldn’t use compressed air given the cost of the expert drums.

Agree. Gonna try the jobo foot pump.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Processed 40 sheets of slide film today. I love that thing. Looks lime I need to work on my exposure determination for slide film. Many come out a bit over exposed but useable.

[Gary Beasley]

I found when doing E4 and later E6 the color developer goes to completion and I could extend the time and get richer looking color. My hand developed slides always looked better than the ones I sent out to be machine processed. This should cover your question about diluting the color developer. Your apparent overexposure might be from the color developer being underdone. As the first developer is the critical one it should never be diluted more, timing is critical there unless you are pushing the film.

[ic-racer]

Fill the Expert drum all the way to the top with water. Then top removal with the pump is no big deal. The top just lifts up smoothly. Just press down on the pump with your hand, takes very little force.
The water will overflow out of the tank when the lid comes off, so do this in the sink.