And did you see the price for the 4x5 steel tank?

[Vick Ko]

And did you see the price for the 4x5 steel tank?

Item 120078214462, at $152 with 30 minutes left.

Is it time to get some Chinese fab shop making this item? It can't be that hard.

...Vick

[David A. Goldfarb]

That's not too surprising. I think I paid around $130 for mine a few years ago.

The stainless steel cage has over 100 spot welds. I once e-mailed Hewes to see if they would ever consider manufacturing such a thing, and they didn't seem interested. Even with cheap labor, I think it would be a costly item.

[reellis67]

I often wonder if these are being driven up by people new to film who are used to tanks for developing small format films, and who have recently gotten a 4x5 camera. I've used every method BUT these tanks to develop sheet film and never had any problems with any of them, but I can remember learning to develop sheet film and thinking that I needed a daylight tank.

- Randy

[Vick Ko]

Yes, can anyone confirm that this tank works?

Vick

[David A. Goldfarb]

Yes, it's a very handy thing. I also develop with trays and with deep tanks and hangers, depending on what I have to do and what the format is, but the Nikor tank works quite well. You can invert it just like a rollfilm tank and use it with the lights on. It can hold 12 4x5" or smaller sheets when properly adjusted and loaded.

[walter23]

I'm using the unicolor uniroller / unidrum method mentioned on the front page of this site, and I'm very happy with it. It's really easy to load and I can just turn on the roller machine and finish washing up and hanging my last batch or whatever while I'm waiting. I bought the unidrum and roller (plus some other misc items) in an ebay auction for $70 plus shipping, which might even be a bit expensive for this item, but I don't see it listed that often.

I've not stretched it to see how far the chemistry will go, but so far I've been doing four sheets for each 150 ml of 1:1 ID-11 (and 150ml of 1:4 ilford rapid fixer). They go in two sheets at a time and I use the same chemistry twice. I have yet to devise a good divider that doesn't cause the sheets to overlap during processing, so it takes about 25 minutes to do four sheets (11 mins develop + 4 mins fix each). The divider that came with the roller doesn't stay in place.

Anyway it's far nicer than tray processing, uses much less chemistry, and I can do it in daylight which is a big bonus because I don't have a real darkroom.

[Bill_1856]

I paid $130 for my Nikor CF tank about 5-6 years ago on ebay.

[Chuck Pere]

I like that it can be adjusted to take 2 1/4x3 1/4 or 9x12cm sheets. It also works good for any low agitation or stand process. And it appears to be holding or even increasing its value.

[gregstidham]

I spent around $50 on ebay for my Combi tank from Sweden. It only develops 6 sheets at a time. I've had good luck with it.

I don't see a problem with spending $150 or even more on a good quality tank if it works well. I spend $1000's to go out and make the photos. My experience with cheap labor tools is they break when I need them to work. I've used cheap stainless 35mm reels and they never last very long and don't perform well. I also have some much more expensive 35mm reels that are still a pleasure to use after 20 years.

[Nick_3536]

Lets be honest Ebay prices have no link to reality.

If somebody wants something bad enough it'll sell for far more then other venues.

I watched some common negative carriers last week sell for more then complete 4x5 enlargers.

I've watched people pay $200+ for a 70mm bulk loader. Weeks after I paid $1.

I've seen people pay more for used,damaged tanks then the brand new price.

Do any of these things make sense? Maybe the 70mm loader which you can't buy new. But the others are either bidding fever or other issues.