Originally Posted by
Drew Wiley
I do it all the time. First of all, don't try nearly as many sheets at a time. Gosh, did you win the lottery to be able to shoot that much film at a time? Even with 4x5 twenty sheets sounds ridiculous for consistent results. Use an oversized tray. For 8x10 film I use an 11x14 dimple-bottomed stainless tray in a larger water jacket. Nominal 8x10 trays are adequate for the other solutions, though not if they're cramped. The stack is shuffled through every 30 sec, emulsion up. Each time the stack is also rotated 90 degrees, so that each direction comes out the same overall. And I also rotate one more sheet than the total number in the stack, so that the same one won't be always on the top. If it's really critical work, like high-contrast color separation negatives, I never do more than four sheets at a time. Why are you in such a hurry? Lots of things can go wrong if you have too many sheets in the stack - air bubbles, agitation streaks, scratches. My apologies if I'm a sniper and not a machine-gunner. I'm interested in the quality, not the quantity. Just how many of these things are you going to have time to
print anyway?
Bookmarks