Topic: Trays v Upright processors

[Miles]

The builders are in and the bathroom in the loft is coming on ... The byproduct of this is my darkroom  

I'm not going to be able to have a lovely huge long sink, but I will have a walk in wet cupboard with a sink in with the enlarger in the main (spare) bedroom.

Soooooo ... I was thinking, anyone used those Nova upright processor things ?

Any good, as would work a treat spacewise for me and cool if the chems keep well in there too.

Or am I barking ?

[LT]

they are superb if you are limited on space.  And the chems keep for ages too as there is limited exposure to the air.  Well worth getting I'd say in your circumstances.

the only drawback I think are you can't see the print developing as well as in a tray so can't pick up on any immediately obvious flaws during development. 

[Miles]

Sold.

I thank you Mr. Taylor.

[DS]

I've got a Nova processor- It's great. As leon says the chems keep for ages and it saves on space. The only other thing is it took me a while to get prints to develop evenly- there's a knack to the agitation that I struggle to describe.

If you get a second hand one make sure the clips for holding the prints come with.

[Francois]

And as an added bonus I heard they smell a lot less than regular trays. And not having to drain them all the time (they have floating lids) is quite handy when you just want one or two prints.

[Wensleydale Blue]

Miles

I've only ever used one of these for developing (tiny darkroom) and I must agree with Leon and the other posters that its a fantastic boon for the small darkroom space and does have all of positives that have been described.  However, as Leon notes it's one great disbenefit (only found out that such a word exists this morning at work so its great to be able to use it so quickly ) is that you can't see the print develop very well so its neigh on useless if you want to do stuff like lith printing where you need greater control over the development of the image so as to be able to snatch it from the chemicals at the critical moment.  For normal sorts of devleoping its really the bee's knees though and I can't imaging using any other method now.  Oh yes, and as DS notes, make sure you get the clips with the unit if you buy secondhand as they are expensive to buy indvidually and don't seem to come up very often on auction sites.

Graham

[Miles]

Thanks All.

I've been given sets of tray of various sizes so if getting a bit "fancy Dan" with alt processes I can use them.  I'm sold on the everready appeal of just doing a few prints and the more expensive ones control the temp etc.

The drama queen in me wants to use trays though, as I'll obviously want to reenact famous movie darkroom scenes seeing murderers' faces appear on the prints that the Private Detective that drinks all my coffee will know doubt bring around once the room is finished.

Maybe I'm leaping ahead a little ...

[Wensleydale Blue]

Miles

I had the same aspirations but the upturned collar of the raincoat and the trilbee hat defintely get in the way of good printing