Try not to laugh too hard, I've been away from 4x5 film for about 4 years so I'm a bit rusty. I just developed 14 sheets of 4x5 Kodak Tmax 400 iso film and I'd say about 10 of them came out with density fluctuations on the edges. Either the edges come out really white or the middle is dark and muddy. I have a few examples of this below. I'm wondering what could be the problem?
I'm using tank and hanger development which I have read can give uneven results but this is kind of ridiculous. A quick run threw of what I do is I put in 4 hangers at a time and make sure they're spaced so the film doesn't touch. I do 2 minute prewash, 9.5 minutes in diluted D76, 1 minute stop, 5 - 6 minute fix, 2 minute water wash, 2 minute fixer remover, and then 2 minutes in Photoflo.
UPDATE: AH HA! " Insufficient agitation in too small trays can cause the edge portion of the negative to develop more than the center, resulting in higher edge densities" - Ansel Adams. Too bad I didn't get the chance to read any of "The Negative" before I developed these. Still if anyone else has advice I'd love to hear it so I can avoid this type of thing in the future.
Also how should I be agitating? They never really taught me that in school. I've been just putting the hangers in the tank and lifting them up and down so the film stays under the solution at all times. However I looked at several how-to explanations that say to take the film hangers completely out of the solution and then back in slowly. I wasn't keeping a very accurate agitation cycle of 5 seconds every minute either, thats probably where I dropped the ball.
Attachment 47724
Attachment 47721
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