Best Fast (high output) Film Development Method?

[willwilson]

LF team, Hoping for some insights from those more experienced in 4x5 and 8x10 development techniques and equipment.

Goal is less time required. I have extremely limited time for photography and I want to spend it shooting and printing.

I currently develop with unicolor drums and motorized rollers. Cheap, works good, easy, but output is limited. It's challenging to run more than 3 drums and bases at once. I often find myself with 30 or more sheets to process at a time.

Should I just get a jobo and an expert drum.? Never had one, which one? Or something else? I am also ok with "it is what it is" opinions too. Thoughts?

Thanks, -=Will

Will Wilson
www.willwilson.com

[Michael R]

Jobo with Expert Drums (3010 for 4x5, 3005 for 8x10) is all I can think of for an off-the-shelf solution. It’s quite efficient for 4x5. For 8x10 I think a 3005 drum will do 5 sheets. Not sure you can do better unless you want to simply tray shuffle by hand in large trays, in which case you can potentially do more.

[Oren Grad]

Some people swear by tray shuffling, some people swear at it. The thing is, there's a non-negligible chance you'll need to spend a fair bit of time and film + chemicals debugging your technique to be confident that you will consistently achieve even development without mechanical damage, especially as you increase the number of sheets you want to process at one time.

At least in theory, you could use large deep tanks and film on hangers. That, too, will require debugging your technique.

The Expert drums offer a nice balance of increased productivity, excellent process control and consistency of results without imposing a potentially challenging learning period.

[willwilson]

Jobo it is...be an interesting project. Thanks guys.

[jnantz]

I do tray shuffling and shuffle anywhere between 20 and 45 sheets at a time, no uneven development, no micro abrasions/scratches.
ansco130 72ºF 1:6 for 7 mins, 8 1/2 if you are contact printing on silver chloride paper.
can't guarantee anything so YMMV

[Doremus Scudder]

I do tray shuffling and shuffle anywhere between 20 and 45 sheets at a time, no uneven development, no micro abrasions/scratches.
ansco130 72ºF 1:6 for 7 mins, 8 1/2 if you are contact printing on silver chloride paper.
can't guarantee anything so YMMV

20-45 sheets of film at one time in one tray?? You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din! Six to eight at time in a tray is all I can manage and still get through the stack once every 30 seconds. How often can you make it through a stack of 40 negatives in seven minutes? (Let's see, five seconds per flop time 40 = 200 seconds; seven minutes is 420 seconds; that means not even three times through the stack in an entire development cycle??)

Maybe I'm not understanding completely.

I tray develop, 6-8 per batch and can do five to ten batches comfortably in a day. That's 30 - 80 negatives in a day's work. I don't know if that's high-enough volume for the OP. Newspaper darkrooms used open tanks and nitrogen burst agitation. The time-consuming part was loading the film into hangers. Dip-and-dunk tanks with hangers can do quite a bit of volume too.

Best,

Doremus

[Bernice Loui]

That IS Impressive_!_

Tried tray processing years ago, just not good at this in any way.. Gave up, got a Jobo & Expert drum set up, the sheet film processing problems went away good.
Eventually, ended up with three expert drums allowing processing of 18 sheet per load with the Jobo running 6 sheet per drum load essentially constant. Hitch is to dry the drum for re-loading of sheet film as needed. IMO, 18 sheets of 5x7 or 13x18cm film is no small amount of sheet film.


Bernice



I do tray shuffling and shuffle anywhere between 20 and 45 sheets at a time, no uneven development, no micro abrasions/scratches.
ansco130 72ºF 1:6 for 7 mins, 8 1/2 if you are contact printing on silver chloride paper.
can't guarantee anything so YMMV

[jnantz]

20-45 sheets of film at one time in one tray?? You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din! Six to eight at time in a tray is all I can manage and still get through the stack once every 30 seconds. How often can you make it through a stack of 40 negatives in seven minutes? (Let's see, five seconds per flop time 40 = 200 seconds; seven minutes is 420 seconds; that means not even three times through the stack in an entire development cycle??)

Maybe I'm not understanding completely.

I tray develop, 6-8 per batch and can do five to ten batches comfortably in a day. That's 30 - 80 negatives in a day's work. I don't know if that's high-enough volume for the OP. Newspaper darkrooms used open tanks and nitrogen burst agitation. The time-consuming part was loading the film into hangers. Dip-and-dunk tanks with hangers can do quite a bit of volume too.

Best,

Doremus

Hi Doremus--
Tempered water bath, separate the film and count to make sure they are all unstuck... then I plop them in a tray and continuously count through the stack for 8 1/2 minutes. I'd post a video but it wouldn't help, it's pitch dark in there :). I went to shuffling after I had problems with deep tank ... I like dense film, sometimes I go for longer, or do split development ansco or d72 1:10 (72F or room temp depending on which one ) 5 mins continuous shuffling then another 5 mins in sumatranol with a 20cc/L of a130 or d72 .. can't complain about my results ... :)

[Andrew O'Neill]

I once did 25 sheets of 4x5 HP5 in two, 8x10 trays, both containing the developer. Out of one tray in to the other, and back again. Wear gloves! Majority of them were to get my normal development time, with a few N-1, and N+1. I was in a rush, so I just developed them in Pyrocat-HD for my N time, diluted 1+1+100, instead of my usual 1+1+50 for HP5. I skipped a pre-water bath, as I just don't do that with Ilford films. They all turned out well, and printed great. Must have been the Pyrocat-HD :) But.. I will never do that again, as I was sweating bullets!

[Alan9940]

Keep in mind that to use Expert Drums you'll need the higher-end manual processors like CPA-2, CPP-2, CPP-3. The 3005 drum will provide you even, beautiful development for 5 sheets of 8x10 every time given no mistakes made. I, also, use tanks & hangers for semi-stand type development using Pyrocat-HD. I can handle 6 sheets at one time with the tanks.

[Cor]

Keep in mind that to use Expert Drums you'll need the higher-end manual processors like CPA-2, CPP-2, CPP-3. The 3005 drum will provide you even, beautiful development for 5 sheets of 8x10 every time given no mistakes made. I, also, use tanks & hangers for semi-stand type development using Pyrocat-HD. I can handle 6 sheets at one time with the tanks.

I use a Simma roller in combination with a 3010 JOBO Expert Drum ( http://store.khbphotografix.com/Simma-Roller-Motor-Base-Agitator-for-Print-Processing-Drums.html )

Works very nice, no temperature control though, and filling and draining by hand..;-)..

good luck,

Cor

[Alan9940]

I use a Simma roller in combination with a 3010 JOBO Expert Drum ( http://store.khbphotografix.com/Simma-Roller-Motor-Base-Agitator-for-Print-Processing-Drums.html )

Works very nice, no temperature control though, and filling and draining by hand..;-)..

good luck,

Cor

Yes, I know Expert Drums can be run on various rollers, but the OP questioned if s/he should get a Jobo along with these drums. I just wanted to make sure that s/he knew you'd need a unit beyond the CPE2 to run Expert Drums.

[Tin Can]

I often load 4-4-UP, 4X5 hangers

So 16 at a time on Gas Burst

I have enough 4 up hangers to triple that to 48 by lifting racks in my bigger tanks

[willwilson]

Ok...bought a Jobo and expert drums. Thinking about converting my time and temps from unicolor drums to jobo 3005 3010. Any thoughts on ways to test dev times on my new setup? I've lost my old spark to excessively test thing like this and really want to just cut to the chase. I'm a realist though and understand there may be no shortcuts.

Here is what I used to do in unicolor drums on a unicolor auto roller base.

Delta 100 4x5 - Xtol at 72F
N+2, 1:1 dilution, 14m 15s
N+1, 1:1 dilution, 11m 45s
N, 1:1 dilution, 10m
N-1, 1:1 dilution, 8m 15s
N-2, 1:2 dilution, 11m
N-3, 1:2 dilution, 8m 15s

[Martin Aislabie]

For what it is worth, I went with a Jobo CPP and two Expert Drums.

I shoot 5x4 so I can get 20 sheets processed in a day, then allow the drums to dry out for a few hours and reload them for film developing the next morning.

If you want to process more sheets in a single day - buy more drums.

Processing film with a Jobo is very relaxing - so you could do a good few drums in a single day - it depends on how hard and how long you want to develop film each day.

Expert Drums produce lovely even development on your negatives.

The only thing you have to ensure is that the drum and lit are completely dry before you load the next batch of film.

If you go down this route - make sure your CPP has the lift arm - it makes things so much easier.

Good luck

Martin