Tray Development

[Terry Hull]

I use TMY 400 in both roll film and 4X5. With roll film it seems I have to aggressively agitate during development. I am considering tray development with 4X5 but can't see how I can aggressively agitate when using a tray. Is a 5X7 tray sufficient, or is an 8X10 preferable for 4X5? What kind of light bulb can I buy to develop by visual inspection, and are such bulbs available for normal sockets?

Thank you.

[Matt Miller]

You can develop 4x5 in a 5x7 tray without issues, though some prefer a larger tray. For developing by inspection, try a red safelight (very dim) for TMY. Green just doesn't work with this film for some reason. Red does though, I've used one with great success. Night vision goggles would be better though.

As far as agitation goes, I'll leave that to someone else. I've always had luck with constant shuffling of 6 or so sheets.

Which developer will you be using?

[Terry Hull]

I use D76

[CG]

I'm not sure aggressively agitated development is a winning strategy, unless it is development using a moderate amount of aggressive agitation. Were you having issues with less aggressive agitation?

[Dennis]

I always give this same advice. Get yourself a Pyrex glass bread pan. The kind made for baking a loaf of bread. It is the prefect size for processing 4x5 film. It is tapered towards the bottom so that the film doesn't ever lay right on the bottom. It leaves about a half inch for you to easily get your fingers under and easily take hold of a sheet of film whether in a stack or alone. The bread pan is about the same length as a 5x7 tray but just exactly the right width for 4x5 film and deep enough to hold a liter of developer.

[Terry Hull]

Thanks for the answers. CG-the aggressive agitation is recommended by some folks, seems to work for me. 3-4 complete inversions in 5 seconds.. Dennis-thanks for the tip, it makes a lot of sense to me.

[Lopez]

That's a dang good idea, Dennis. I'm going to have to try that.

I've been processing my own 4x5 sheet film for a few months and have found shuffling to be sufficient; just hold them so that you can feel the corners of each negative as though you were just barely fanning out a deck of cards. Then shuffle 'em. They make developing tanks, and I made the mistake of buying a cube-shaped one for a whole 50 dollars. It's a terrible thing that I would only use if I absolutely had to.

I like this forum, I think I'll stay.

[Doremus Scudder]

Immerse your films one-at-a-time (after fanning them out as described above) in roughly five-second intervals to ensure complete contact with the developer. Then shuffle through the stack rapidly once. That should be enough for "aggressive agitation."

Then begin your regular agitation scheme. For me, this is once through the stack every 30 seconds for the first half of the development time, once through every minute for the remainder.

Somewhere here I've posted my tray-developing technique in detail. A search on my posts should turn it up if you are interested.

Best,

Doremus Scudder

[Ben Calwell]

Dennis is right on the money with the Pyrex bread pans -- I've been using them for 4x5 film for more than 20 years.

[Maris Rusis]

I use a Rubbermaid washing up tray for sheet film development. It's a fraction over 8x10 size, sculpted bottom, rounded corners, and six inches (no splash, no spill) deep.

Agitation is a slippery variable so I decided on continuous agitation for all films. It also gives me something to do because some of those dark minutes and hours can seem to drag. The agitation sequence goes like this:

Slide the film quickly into the developer face up.

Lift the front edge of the tray until a wave of developer travels to the back. Lower the front edge and wait for the wave to return to the front. You can feel the wave because the tray sends the changing force to your finger tips.

Now do the same with the right edge of the tray, then the back edge, then the left edge, then return to the front. Keep going until the development time is up. If you are really fussy turn the tray through 180 degrees half way through development.

This system gives me perfect, even, scratch-free results for all films. The down-side is a one-sheet-at a-time system means time, tedium, and labour. But I don't care. Large format photography is playing for high stakes and I'm not going to carry a 4x5 or 8x10 all day and then botch film development because I was in a hurry.