best tray design for sheet film

[otzi]

I would like to ask all the tray developing gurus if they have found in practice a preference for finger grooves or raised ridges on the bottom of their dev trays. This in regards scratching and or controlling the negatives.

otzi

[Mike Troxell]

What size negatives? If you are asking about 4x5 then the best thing I have found for tray developing is the Summitek Cradle.

[Paul Moshay]

I have found that trays with raised ridged work best for me. I process one sheet at at time, face up, and never get scratches on the film. I have, however, made sure that there are no sharp micro pimples on the molded ridges that would injure the film by using a piece of 600 grit emery paper on a flat board so as to block sand them and lightly touching the ribs, then polish them with #0000 steel wool. Works for me.

[Cesar Barreto]

I second raised ridges for 4x5 and 5x7. I also glued some stops so to divide the trays on five slots, each negative being alone on its own. This way I keep control of different development times, avoid scratchs and play safe on evenness.

[JohnnyV]

Trays with ridges work best.

Also if you have the room you might want to make a processing panel:

http://philbard.com/panel.html

[Mike Troxell]

"Also if you have the room you might want to make a processing panel"

The Summitek Cradle I mentioned is a processing panel like Johnny mentioned only it is a finished product sold by Summitek. I've been using one for several months on 4x5 and it works great..

www.summitek.com

BTW, has anyone here ever built a 16x20 processing panel for developing 4 8x10's at once? I've been thinking of trying one and would be interested in hearing anyones experiences with one they have built.

[Richard Wasserman]

Mike, I built a panel to hold 2 8x20's and it works great. I don't see any reason one for 8x10's wouldn't work equally well. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Brian Ellis]

I used both types of trays when I did 8x10 and they were equally adept at scratching negatives. I switched to BTZS tubes and they were terrific - no scratches ever, no standing around in the dark for ten or fifteen minutes, no chemical fumes. They are expensive but if you're only doing a couple negatives at a time the expense isn't too bad. Some people successfully make their own duplicates of the BTZS 4x5 tubes but I think 8x10 is harder. I tried for quite a while and never could successfully devise a method of quickly getting the top off while having it tight enough to keep the chemicals inside. I spent about $50 on this futile effort and could just about have bought a good BTZS tube from The View Camera Store for that price.

[Steve J Murray]

I like my trays that have smooth indented grooves instead of raised ridges. I have use both kinds. The smooth grooves allow your fingers to go under the sheet of film for lifting. I think mine are Patterson, but I'm not sure. At any rate, the tray bottom should be very smooth. I use 8x10 trays for a batch of 4x5 negs, say 2 to 6.

[Andre Noble]

Avoid raised dimples trays with emulsion side down development of sheet films. When the emulsion side rubs over those during agitation ever so lightly, they put a permanent streak over your sheet and subsequent prints. (From experience)