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.

[CG]

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.

That doesn't sound so aggressive. I thought you were speaking of hard continuous agitation from start to finish or something like that.

[Terry Hull]

Anyone help me on the safelight bulb color and wattage for sight development?

[Gem Singer]

Terry,

There is an article on the www.michaelandpaula.com website that explains in detail how to develop film by inspection.

I suggest that you read it before wasting any film.

[LF-Oslo]

Thanks for the tip on the trays! It is years since I worked with trays, and some years since I developed anything... But now I am planning a trip through Europe, and would love to do 4X5 developing as I go along. Probably glass trays will be the easiest for me to clean and work with - as I will have a real challenge when it comes to dust and also stray lightning I guess...

Any tips on traveling and developing in trays?

[Dennis]

For packing and traveling I would think that plastic photo trays would be the most practical due to weight and bulk.

I have had good luck using motel bathrooms as darkrooms for changing film. There is usually no window in a motel bathroom. They usually provide a small ironing board that you can take into the bathroom for a work table. Use your dark cloth and some towels to stop the door from letting in light, a roll of tape is helpful. Shut the drapes in the room first. If you are going to process film that way on the ironing board it might be a good idea to carry a piece of plastic along with you. A roll of wire and some alligator clips to string on it and some duct tape to tape it up in the shower for drying. Don't forget film sleeves.

[Doremus Scudder]

My traveling 4x5 tray-development kit:

~Five 5x7 trays (I like the deep Paterson trays)
~Small bottles of developer (PMK, so 2 bottles there), stop, fix and wetting agent.
~One 500ml graduate, one 50ml graduate, two syringes in 10 and 20 ml size.
~One small darkroom thermometer, plastic and supposedly unbreakable.
~One generic sink stopper
~A homemade washer that holds 10 sheets (plastic container with bamboo skewer dividers and holes drilled in the bottom corners; it sits in the sink, water flows in at the top)
~A bag of wooden clothespins along with 10 feet or so of fishing line to hang them from
~Negative sleeves and binder
~A couple of cotton dishtowels

All this fits in a 12-inch cubic cardboard box.

Processing is like this:
~Darkproof the hotel bathroom (usually towels under the door, but on occasion I've hung a sleeping bag over the outside of the door; I try to find a hotel bathroom with no windows).
~Run the shower a while to kill dust.
~Fill sink with tempered water (here's where the stopper and the thermometer come in).
~Mix stop and fix and put in trays (I rinse the graduates between solutions in the tub).
~Fill pre-soak tray and then mix developer (I usually use the sink counter and a chair, but the ironing board seems like a good trick too).
~Lay out the filmholders for unloading (if not already unloaded and in boxes).
~Mix developer (syringes used for measuring here), fill developer tray and give the graduates a final rinse.
~Turn out lights and go; development as usual. Chemicals are disposed of down the drain (I try to use dilute fix one-shot, so at this low volume, don't worry about dumping it).

When finished fixing, I transfer the negatives to the sink for a quick rinse then to tray 5 for holding. I usually try to develop batches that add up to 10 or fewer negatives and then transfer them to the homemade (10 neg capacity) washer. This sits in the sink with water running in the top, exiting through the holes in the bottom and then out the sink overflow. Rate and temperature of the wash water are critical and take some monitoring usually.

After washing, the negs go into the wetting agent (I usually pick up some distilled water for this step at a local supermarket) and are hung from the clothespins which are strung on the fishing line between something (shower head and curtain rod, or two opposing towel racks or some improvised set up, e.g., thumbtacks in the side of the door frame, etc.)

I can string up about 20 negs, i.e., two batches. If I process in the evening, the negs are dry the next morning. They then go into plastic sleeves and into the binder. Everything is dried and packed for the next time.

Hope this helps,

Best,

Doremus Scudder

[scott_6029]

I use 5x7 trays for 4x5 and constant shuffle, from bottom to top. Get a tray with raised grooves on the bottom so you can get your fingers underneath the film in order to shuffle. Get a kodak like safe light - best find it on the web, like ebay. this would work. It uses a 'christmas tree like bulb' ?


http://cgi.ebay.com/Prinz-model-559-Dark-Room-Safe-Light_W0QQitemZ180355449858QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item29fe05c402&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72:570|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:0|293:1|294:50

[Merg Ross]

My traveling 4x5 tray-development kit:

~Five 5x7 trays (I like the deep Paterson trays)
~Small bottles of developer (PMK, so 2 bottles there), stop, fix and wetting agent.
~One 500ml graduate, one 50ml graduate, two syringes in 10 and 20 ml size.
~One small darkroom thermometer, plastic and supposedly unbreakable.
~One generic sink stopper
~A homemade washer that holds 10 sheets (plastic container with bamboo skewer dividers and holes drilled in the bottom corners; it sits in the sink, water flows in at the top)
~A bag of wooden clothespins along with 10 feet or so of fishing line to hang them from
~Negative sleeves and binder
~A couple of cotton dishtowels

All this fits in a 12-inch cubic cardboard box.

Processing is like this:
~Darkproof the hotel bathroom (usually towels under the door, but on occasion I've hung a sleeping bag over the outside of the door; I try to find a hotel bathroom with no windows).
~Run the shower a while to kill dust.
~Fill sink with tempered water (here's where the stopper and the thermometer come in).
~Mix stop and fix and put in trays (I rinse the graduates between solutions in the tub).
~Fill pre-soak tray and then mix developer (I usually use the sink counter and a chair, but the ironing board seems like a good trick too).
~Lay out the filmholders for unloading (if not already unloaded and in boxes).
~Mix developer (syringes used for measuring here), fill developer tray and give the graduates a final rinse.
~Turn out lights and go; development as usual. Chemicals are disposed of down the drain (I try to use dilute fix one-shot, so at this low volume, don't worry about dumping it).

When finished fixing, I transfer the negatives to the sink for a quick rinse then to tray 5 for holding. I usually try to develop batches that add up to 10 or fewer negatives and then transfer them to the homemade (10 neg capacity) washer. This sits in the sink with water running in the top, exiting through the holes in the bottom and then out the sink overflow. Rate and temperature of the wash water are critical and take some monitoring usually.

After washing, the negs go into the wetting agent (I usually pick up some distilled water for this step at a local supermarket) and are hung from the clothespins which are strung on the fishing line between something (shower head and curtain rod, or two opposing towel racks or some improvised set up, e.g., thumbtacks in the side of the door frame, etc.)

I can string up about 20 negs, i.e., two batches. If I process in the evening, the negs are dry the next morning. They then go into plastic sleeves and into the binder. Everything is dried and packed for the next time.

Hope this helps,

Best,

Doremus Scudder

Sounds like a good system for the road.

Doremus, your work is stunning! Bravo!

Best,
Merg

[Doremus Scudder]

Merg,

Thank you for the compliment, and allow me to return it. Your work is stunning and an inspiration.

Now that I've completed my nearly seven-year stint commuting between my teaching jobs in Europe and my doctoral work and university teaching in Oregon, I'll be spending al lot more time printing a backlog of negatives and shooting more, as well as doing more marketing. Time to get the portfolios ready!

Best,

Doremus Scudder

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks for the tip on the trays! It is years since I worked with trays, and some years since I developed anything... But now I am planning a trip through Europe, and would love to do 4X5 developing as I go along. Probably glass trays will be the easiest for me to clean and work with - as I will have a real challenge when it comes to dust and also stray lightning I guess...

Any tips on traveling and developing in trays?

I'd suggest not using glass trays. Paterson and other similar plastic trays are inexpensive, don't break, and usually have recessed areas running the length of the bottom that help prevent a sheet of film from sticking to the tray (or at least make it easier to lift the film off the bottom if it does stick). Getting a sheet of film that's stuck to the bottom of a flat-bottomed tray can be difficult and possibly damaging to the film.

[LF-Oslo]

Thanks a lot - and your regime seems to be simple and flexible Doremus!

I will be travelling by car, so I will not have much restrictions on weight. What will be the main problems I suppose, is getting everything dark - and to combat dust...

As it is a camper, I will be able to make some arrangements of course. Seems like it will be too little time to make a perfect arrangement this time around, so I will probably leave it at refilling my film holders...

[jason1388]

develop emulsion up and use either the palm of your hand or your fingerprints to gently rub each negative as you pull them from the bottom to the top to agitate aggressively. never seen a scratch on my negatives from this and does a very even developing job on my Tri-x 320 prints

[William McEwen]

Yes, emulsion side up at all times.

Also -- I didn't see it mentioned here, but I always start with a water bath.

Trays lined up this way, left to right:

Water bath (distilled water)
Developer
Acetic Acid
Fixer

The water bath gets the negs ready for the developer. I go through the stack at least once to make sure they are all fully wet and none are sticking together. Next, when they hit the developer, each sheet will be immediately saturated evenly with developer.