Topic: Daylight developing tanks

[Jack Johnson]

The 6x9 thread has my head spinning. I have a zillion 2x3 sheet film holders (sorry, Leonore!) and just found that I can buy a 50-pack of 100 ASA Arista EDU for about $32 USD, which is a little more expensive per shot than just shooting the same film in 120, but then I wouldn't have to wait or sweat shooting the whole roll.

As a result, I've been looking at daylight developing tanks. There are a bunch of cool options for 4x5 and up, but these little sheets may be trickier. For the good of the order, I thought I'd share the obsession fun.

Look at that beauty, for plates though.

Honeywell-Nikor cut film tank, for 4x5. Love that design, was hoping they did the same for 2x3 in like a 120-reel size, but no luck, it looks like this:

If you haven't seen Leon with his Paterson Orbital in one of the early Filmwasters videos, that thing is slick, too:

Does anyone have anything they love, use, made, or buried, for any size sheet film?

[Sandeha Lynch]

Jack, that first one, I reckon you could fill it with rum and stick it on a handy shelf above you, maybe with another little silver tap at the end of a long hose.  And not move till it's empty.

If I'm just doing a single sheet, (rarely) I have a lightproof dev tube made from ABS plumbing materials, much the same as the BTZS design but a home-mader.

Mostly though, I use my Ilford 8x10 print drum on a roller.  You can see from the pics how it's adapted to hold four sheets of 4x5 by taking two gripper edges of some electrical ducting and gluing them in place.  When I shot 5x7 it would take two of those, and a single sheet of Whole Plate film just the same.  I've been using this one for some ten years now.



Some lid or other provided the spacer that hangs half way down to prevent overlapping.

[Jack Johnson]

Nice! I've seen homemade tubes for print developing and hadn't thought of that for sheet film. I like your modifications! Especially clever with the lid.

[Jack Johnson]

Hey, I just found out that Nikor tank is adjustable.

[Francois]

And there's also the infamous Combiplan.

And the strangest yet (and that I have in my stuff) is the FR Corporation Cut Film Pack Developing tank.
This thing is a monster! It uses a ton of chemistry (a full gallon from memory), can hold more film than you can care about processing in one shot and is completely adjustable for just about any format under the sun.

[Sandeha Lynch]

Regarding the tubes, this was originally hosted under the name "brontube".  At some point I guessed it might get lost (the site has since gone) so I saved the sketch.



You just need the size of pipe that you can slide a 4x5 sheet into vertically without the edges touching.  The patches of rubber are securely glued into each connector.  It's handy for a single sheet, taking just 150ml of fluid.

[Francois]

Oh yeah! I remember seeing this thing a long time ago on Geocities or something...

I might have to think about making some as the tanks I have are not exactly convenient for short batches.

[limr]

Haven't been around in a few days and I just saw this. No worries, Jack I got some extra holders from Terry and I have yet to learn how to use the camera, so I'll be keeping an eye on you to see how you manage 

I bought this tank: http://www.adorama.com/dkty45.html
Haven't used it yet, so I can't speak to its usefulness or quirks. It's 4x5 but adjustable to 2x3.

[16mman]

I recently developed some black and white 4x5 film in New55's R5 Monoboth in a glass food tray that I just slipped into my changing back. It actually worked!

[Jack Johnson]

I couldn't take it anymore. I just bought 50 sheets of Fomapan / Arista EDU 400 in 2.25" x 3.25".

I still don't know how I'm going to develop it yet. Maybe taco method for now, or BTZS tubes. The last couple of Nikor tanks were running near $200 USD each on eBay.

I like the idea of R5 in a tray!

[Late Developer]

I stumbled across this earlier.  Wouldn't mind getting one for 35mm and one for 120:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbGmr8bfb7M

However, here's an interesting concept for a similar gadget with interchangeable options for 35mm and 120:

http://www.ars-imago.com/lab-box/

I've put my name down for details of the latter as the one bit of processing that I really hate (and always have) is the fiddling around blindly in the hope that I can get the film onto the spool.

[jojonas~]

that lab-box from italy looks promising. THey were at photokina too I think