HC-110 + Tr-Xi Pan 320 dilutions and times

[ryanmills]

Bit of a sanity check as I am rather new to darkroom work. Going to take a stab at HC-110 + TriX 320 for 4x5 sheets in a Patterson 5x7 tray. 4 at a time to start with the normal shuffle.

I was going to use the times from: http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/

I'm planning for 75 degrees using dilution E, in my case since i'm doing it in trays I was going to start with 1000ml in the tray so with a ratio of 1:47 I believe that means I need 21.2ml of of concentrate add to 1000ml of water. Dev time would still be 5 mins, agitating 5 seconds every 30 seconds. That sound right?

[jayabbas]

Dilution ratio is spot on. Sounds like you are ready to shuffle. Unscientifically we used to presoak ( actually a dunk in water with 5-10 drops of Photoflo per 1000 ml ) . This helped immensely in avoiding airbell type pinhole defects that can happen when dry film is immersed in the developer and initial agitation fails to dislodge some sort of " crapola". A very rare problem in tray shuffling , but "Photoflo" helps avoid minor shuffle scratching on that thar soft emulsion.

[Kevin Crisp]

Not sure what you mean on agitation. You are going to go through the stack once every 30 seconds, and antipate it would take you 5 seconds to do that?

[ryanmills]

I forgot to ask about that. With tri-x and hc-110 should I presoak? I do have a bunch of photoflo, your saying to use in the prewash? Do I still just need a drop or so for 1000ml? I have never really read how much to use, i just see people put a tiny drop in.

Dilution ratio is spot on. Sounds like you are ready to shuffle. Unscientifically we used to presoak ( actually a dunk in water with 5-10 drops of Photoflo per 1000 ml ) . This helped immensely in avoiding airbell type pinhole defects that can happen when dry film is immersed in the developer and initial agitation fails to dislodge some sort of " crapola". A very rare problem in tray shuffling , but "Photoflo" helps avoid minor shuffle scratching on that thar soft emulsion.

[jayabbas]

All we would do would be to dunk the film sheet in a vertical tank of 1000 ml or so of water with 5 to ten drops of "Photoflo" 600 . All you are looking for is that your sheet of film is ready to take the developer that you are introducing to the surface of the Per say , we did not soak but we let it " get wet" . If you have ever done roll film tank process you might remember " a sharp rap on the tank after filling with developer will help dislodge air bubble " hangerons" .

[ryanmills]

Ok so just a quick dip then into the dev? I was reading about Jock Sturges shuffling 16 8x10's at a time. and using tons of photoflow to avoid scratches. I guess he must have been doing that in the presoak. Does anyone know if adding a lot in the presoak would effect dev time at all?

All we would do would be to dunk the film sheet in a vertical tank of 1000 ml or so of water with 5 to ten drops of "Photoflo" 600 . All you are looking for is that your sheet of film is ready to take the developer that you are introducing to the surface of the Per say , we did not soak but we let it " get wet" . If you have ever done roll film tank process you might remember " a sharp rap on the tank after filling with developer will help dislodge air bubble " hangerons" .

[jayabbas]

Ok so just a quick dip then into the dev? I was reading about Jock Sturges shuffling 16 8x10's at a time. and using tons of photoflow to avoid scratches. I guess he must have been doing that in the presoak. Does anyone know if adding a lot in the presoak would effect dev time at all?

You are not doing 8x10 or are you ? 45 is a different animal than 810. Hone in on 4x5. All you are looking for when using " Photo flo" is to break surface tension on the actual surface of the film to allow the developer to to diffuse into the layers that love the developer. It's just a surfactant that allows the developer agent to get everywhere quickly and efficiently. I think of it as a primer when you paint a car. Everything is even so that when you apply the good stuff it will take it evenly and without problems.

[Peter Lewin]

Ryan: There are a few things going on in this thread. First, there is a long thread on pre-soaking somewhere else in this sub-forum, where ultimately half of us believe in pre-soaking, and half of us don't. Because I normally use PMK, and Hutchings (the inventor and guru of PMK) says to pre-soak, I do. So when I process Tri-X in HC-110, I still pre-soak, just following the same routine I'm used to. Seems to work fine. I've never heard of using Photoflo in the pre-soak, just a bit of Kodalk. Which of course doesn't say it isn't a good idea, just something I've never come across before. But in a real pre-soak, as I do, you place the sheets in the pre-soak tray one by one, then shuffle through the stack periodically (this isn't agitation, you just want the emulsion to soak up water evenly), they stay in the pre-soak tray a couple of minutes, then get transferred to the developer tray. Again a variation in approaches: some people transfer the sheets one by one, I just pick up the entire stack and move it over, and give it one quick shuffle before setting into the proper timing routine (see next paragraph).

However, Kevin's question seems more important: what do you mean by 5 minutes of agitation every 30 seconds? In shuffle processing, the agitation for each sheet is when you move that sheet from the bottom of the stack to the top. So with 4 sheets and desiring agitation each 30 seconds, you would move the bottom sheet to the top every 7 seconds. That means you would work your way through the 4 sheet stack once every 28 seconds, and each negative is being agitated once every 28 seconds (i.e. each sheet is getting agitation as close to every 30 seconds as the math allows, in reality it isn't that precise, but the idea is to get through the stack once in each 30 second period). With PMK, which suggests agitation at 15 second intervals, you would re-calculate, and to get through the stack each 15 seconds, you would move the bottom negative every 4 seconds (so 4 sheets, 16 second agitation, close enough).

Happily, once you get the hang of it, you don't need all these words...

[jayabbas]

Ryan: There are a few things going on in this thread. First, there is a long thread on pre-soaking somewhere else in this sub-forum, where ultimately half of us believe in pre-soaking, and half of us don't. Because I normally use PMK, and Hutchings (the inventor and guru of PMK) says to pre-soak, I do. So when I process Tri-X in HC-110, I still pre-soak, just following the same routine I'm used to. Seems to work fine. I've never heard of using Photoflo in the pre-soak, just a bit of Kodalk. Which of course doesn't say it isn't a good idea, just something I've never come across before. But in a real pre-soak, as I do, you place the sheets in the pre-soak tray one by one, then shuffle through the stack periodically (this isn't agitation, you just want the emulsion to soak up water evenly), they stay in the pre-soak tray a couple of minutes, then get transferred to the developer tray. Again a variation in approaches: some people transfer the sheets one by one, I just pick up the entire stack and move it over, and give it one quick shuffle before setting into the proper timing routine (see next paragraph).

However, Kevin's question seems more important: what do you mean by 5 minutes of agitation every 30 seconds? In shuffle processing, the agitation for each sheet is when you move that sheet from the bottom of the stack to the top. So with 4 sheets and desiring agitation each 30 seconds, you would move the bottom sheet to the top every 7 seconds. That means you would work your way through the 4 sheet stack once every 28 seconds, and each negative is being agitated once every 28 seconds (i.e. each sheet is getting agitation as close to every 30 seconds as the math allows, in reality it isn't that precise, but the idea is to get through the stack once in each 30 second period). With PMK, which suggests agitation at 15 second intervals, you would re-calculate, and to get through the stack each 15 seconds, you would move the bottom negative every 4 seconds (so 4 sheets, 16 second agitation, close enough).

Happily, once you get the hang of it, you don't need all these words...

[jayabbas]

Yes, as Peter states that once you get the hang of the whole game , these words will not be needed. My take has always been to make the process work for you , you must look at your total unique set of circumstances and tweak them after a bit of practice. Optochemical processes have never been set in stone and this is what makes it like heaven & hell --- heaven when you hit the bell and hell when you struggle . I wish you well at hitting the bell.