Best B & W film and developer for 4 x 5 newbie? Tank? Tray?

[StoneNYC]

That's about it except I don't wait 30 seconds between sheets, I just put them in as fast as I reasonably can and same for when I take them out. I don't even keep track of which sheet is what. With 10min or more development times I don't care.

I also pre-soak in the same tray that becomes my "stop" water.

I never wear gloves.

I did a long stint with 4x5 hangers. No scratches, but occasional uneven edges. I never learned the magic agitation formula for perfect evenness. 90% of the time, sure. But never licked it. Tray causes scratches when I screw up. But tanks caused unevenness even when I didn't screw up. I was halfway through designing a nitrogen-burst agitation system when I developed a few batches in trays and decided to stick with that. Side benefits are less chemistry volume, same trays I use for printing, but you still need some system for washing.

Wear gloves!!!!!

That's all...

[Harold_4074]

This should set some kind of lower bound to the sophistication of developing equipment---a two-hanger sheet film tank. It was made in about an hour using only a table saw (with an unsuitable blade), utility knife, square and sanding block. The traditional way to assemble acrylic is to solvent-weld with ethylene dichloride, but that takes pretty well-fitted joints, so I used a filled two-part acrylic from the building supply store. The curved lines are where I had pinhole leaks at first; I fixed them by carving out the joint a bit and caulking with more adhesive.



This tank is sized for 5x7 and one liter of working solution; my small 4x5 tanks hold up to six hangers, but I always use four and the same one-liter quantity of developer. Similarly, a single 8x10 sheet goes into one liter of developer in a tray, so the film-area-to-developer ratio is either 70 or 80 square inches per liter.

With a one-shot developer and alkaline fixer, the process could hardly be much simpler: fill the tank before turning out the lights, develop with the ANSI-standard lift/tilt/lower agitation, and dump the developer before filling with a plain water stop bath (sloppiness is OK here; it's just water). After dumping the stop, fill the tank from a one-liter bottle or beaker of fixer, and after a couple of minutes the lights can be turned on. Washing can be done in the tank, or in a different container; just be sure that the tops of the hangers get washed as well.

(I have discovered a subtle advantage to tanks that I don't think has been mentioned in this thread: the smaller surface area leads to less evaporative cooling if the relative humidity is low. In tray development, if I re-use the stop bath water for a second sheet, I can easily feel the difference between it and the developer just mixed from 68 degree tempered water. And this is in a darkroom that is within a degree or so of 68F!)

[ataim]

You can roll the Jobo tank in a sink full of water and use only 270mL, as per Jobo's recommendation.

Nancy, to sart, buy any Kodak or Ilford offering, there is less chance of getting a bad batch of film that way.
Then buy a normal developer like D-76, HC-110 or the comparable Ilford developers.
Develop according to manufacturer's recommendation, or try Massive Development Chart: http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php
If you're unhappy with the results, make the necessary changes in exposure and/or development.
It's a fun process, but it's still a process.

Best answer yet.

[Bruce Watson]

I haven't hand developed film for a few decades, and back then I was using 35mm film and Paterson reels in tank. Suggestions?

Including the thread title, you're asking a four part question: Film, Developer, Tank, Tray? Or maybe a three part question: Film, Developer, Development method?

There are so many development methods and I've used so few of them that I don't feel qualified to extend much of an opinion on those, so I won't. I'll talk a bit about films and developers though.

The bottom line on films and developers is, they all work, and they all work pretty well. For getting your feet wet (as it were) pick something cheap and plentiful. An old "standard" like Tri-X in D76 with tray processing for example.

Once you get past the newbie stage, you'll likely pick a film and developer and use them for most everything so you can learn their strengths and weaknesses. Just be forewarned that there is no "magic bullet".

For 5x4, I recommend modern fast emulsions. Why? Two reasons mostly. First, grain isn't much of a problem with LF -- a 10x enlargement makes a 50 x 40 inch print, and at less than 12x enlargement most films make grainless or nearly grainless prints. It's not the 1970s anymore. But reciprocity failure is a problem, especially with the apertures you'll be using in 5x4, where you'll shoot a lot at f/22 and smaller, which implies slow shutter speeds. And modern T-grain films have considerably better reciprocity characteristics than the "normal" cubic grain films.

Why does this matter? Well, say you're making a photograph of a rock in a stream. Say the light is full direct light, casting a nice hard shadow. The front of this rock is pretty cool, and the patterns work well with the curve of the rock at the water line where the patterns fold back away from you. And you want to hold that pattern in your shadow detail.

So you meter and set your exposure. Say you have to shoot at 1/8 at f/32 to get the DOF you want. You develop your film and get what looks like a perfect negative. You put it on the light table, whip out a loupe, and find that where you thought you were holding shadow detail on the rock at the water line, it's gone clear. In the print, it's gone to a featureless black. Makes a good print, but not that special print you thought you had.

So you go back and try again. And again. And again. Yes, this is a true story. Took me quite a while to figure out what I was doing wrong. And what was wrong, was my Tri-X was going into reciprocity failure in those shadows.

Once I finally figured it out, I had to test it. So I bought some TMY (Tmax 400). Exposed it exactly as I had the Tri-X. Exactly the same method (having first established my personal EI (exposure index) and my "N" development time). First try, out popped those elusive shadow details. Made an outstanding print. And I still have the partially used box of Tri-X I was using at the time, because I switched to TMY right then.

All that I'd been doing was right, except I was expecting that a 1/8 second exposure wouldn't put me in reciprocity failure. And for the vast majority of the negative, it wasn't. But for that little bit of the negative that I was especially interested in, it was. Not enough photons to make a reasonable latent image. Sigh....

So... any of the modern films, Acros, Delta, or Tmax will do fine from that point of view.

As for the other elusive point I was trying to make, I've found in LF I tend to always want speed. Shooting at 1/8 second a lot, the breeze turns into a challenge. But to shoot a slower film, I'd be trading that 1/8 for 1/2 which would be far worse.

Me? I've been using TMY as my only B&W film for years now. I found XTOL to be excellent with it. I used XTOL for many years; I've never had an "XTOL failure". Mix XTOL with steam distilled water and you should be fine -- XTOL isn't fond of dissolved iron in some tap waters. I store it in old wine bottles with VacuVin stoppers and had XTOL stock last for 12 months. Dilute it when you use it and use it "one shot".

But really, all the films and most of the developers are pretty well tested out and fairly well known and understood. It all works, and it all works pretty darn well. Hard to go wrong. Pick one and go.

[Serge S]

I don't know about you, but the MOD54 has been a total nightmare for me. I have much better luck with a Unicolor Print drum. I can get four 4x5 sheets developed without worrying about whether or not they stayed in the slots.

Was that with the older version of theMOD54? Just wondering as I was thinking of ordering one to try as I already have the Patterson tank.

Thanks

Serge

[Leigh]

You can roll the Jobo tank in a sink full of water and use only 270mL, as per Jobo's recommendation.

Jobo's recommendation of 270mL is based on the tank being held accurately LEVEL.

How do you plan to do that in a sink full of water?

- Leigh

[StoneNYC]

Was that with the older version of theMOD54? Just wondering as I was thinking of ordering one to try as I already have the Patterson tank.

Thanks

Serge

Same question I had, I've never had film falling out or uneven dev with the mod54 second version.

[Ari]

Jobo's recommendation of 270mL is based on the tank being held accurately LEVEL.

How do you plan to do that in a sink full of water?

- Leigh

Re: keeping it level...

In this instance, I chose to disregard that particular recommendation; I found that the irregular, erratic action of combined spinning and bobbing in water to be beneficial to evenness of development.

Necessity forced me to try the water bath, as I developed a cramp in my arm from endless hours of rolling on a hard countertop (I was processing 50 sheets every other day).

I found it to be a good method, though the stern Teutonic engineers at Jobo may sneer in my general direction.

I ended up buying a Simmons base, which actually uses the same principle, though it does so in a much milder fashion.

[Michael Cienfuegos]

Was that with the older version of theMOD54? Just wondering as I was thinking of ordering one to try as I already have the Patterson tank.

Thanks

Serge

I have the older version.

m

[Bill Kelleher]

Tell it the red sox are better