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120 film dev - capacity?

Sim2

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Hallo,

I use Paterson tanks and reels to dev with ID11 at 1:1. The chemicals needed are 500ml per 120 roll. The same amount is needed for a 220 roll.

If one roll of 120 is dev'd in 500ml of dev, can this be put aside to dev another roll of 120 straight after (i.e. not stored)? The amount of film dev'd is the same as one roll of 220.

Thinking theoretically here but could be a thought if two films rated differently.

Odd thought this but any considerations?

Sim2.
 
I've done it successfully,save your fix too.I've also done it about 24 hours later,you don't wanna do that !
 
I think you will find that the correct answer is "it depends." If your intention is to re-use developer, you might consider adopting a soup which allows replenishment.
 
Hmm. Perhaps I may not have been totally clear.

I do not intend to "reuse" the dev in a traditional sense - if I was I would use for example stock ID11 with the correct increase in dev times for each additional roll developed after the initial one.

A single 220 roll takes 500ml of dev in a Paterson tank (in this instance I am using ID11 at 1:1).
A single 120 roll takes 500ml of dev.

In theory, the 120 roll only "uses up" half the amount of dev as the 220 roll, therefore, any reason why two rolls of 120 cannot be dev'd, one after the other in the same 500ml of dev at 1:1?

Sim2.
 
For Fresh Each Roll 1:3 or 1:5 or ?

Sim2 said:
I use Paterson tanks and reels to dev with ID11 at 1:1.
The chemicals needed are 500ml per 120 roll. The same
amount is needed for a 220 roll. Sim2.
Click to expand...

Or you might try it at 1:3 and have fresh each roll. For
that matter 1:5 would likely do. The more dilute the
greater the development time. Dan
 
You could always load two 120 rolls onto the reel. This is very effective to keep costs and waste down.
 
One of the companies should offer a tank specifically for 120 not 220 if there isn't already one out there. That way we could conserve.
 
You probably can get away with it, but IMO it's just not worth the risk. Diluted developers like D-76, XTOL, HC-110, and others are best used 1 shot. When you get down to it, they are really quite inexpensive in the scheme of things. Let's take a look at D-76. Figure that it costs about $6 US to make a gallon of full strength stock solution. That's enough for 16 rolls of film if you use 250 ml per roll, or in monetary terms, about $.38 per roll. So what are you trying to save, 38 cents? How much did that roll of film cost? Probably about 10 times more than 8 oz. of developer. How much did you spend on ancillary expenses for your day out shooting the film?

Eight ounces of stock D-76 has enough capacity to fully develop 2 120 or a single 220 roll of film, and you could stack two 120 films on a plastic reel. I've tried it, and it works. But it's too easy to screw up loading two rolls on a single reel, and you can wind up with two damaged films.
 
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I think you might end up with thin development.

The proper amount of developer (straight) to develop one roll of 120 (80 sq. in.) is 250ml. If you process 1+1, then 500ml of solution.

A roll of 220 will need 500ml of 1+0 (straight) solution to develop 160 sq. in. of film. If you want to process it in 1+1 solution you will need a tank that will hold 1 liter.

Less than these amounts will possibly lead to underdeveloped film.

Steve Anchell of Darkroom Cookbook says 350ml of straight developer is proper for 80 sq. in. of film.

I think this is what you were asking.

I had to learn the hard way, ended up with negs that were underdeveloped!
 
fschifano said:
So what are you trying to save, 38 cents? H
Click to expand...

LOL!

That is so true!

There is a part of me that doesn't like throwing away chems that still might have life in them but out of all the costs involved, the dev is probably the least.

Was more of a theoretical question on a dull monday evening than a "new route to follow"; to tuck the answer away until it is useful one day.

Ta for all the considerations though.
 
Your results will not match. For optimal consistency, use a one-shot developer like rodinal.
 

All due respect to Mr. Anchell, but my experience dictates otherwise. I've used as little as 125 ml. of stock D-76 diluted 1+1 to fully develop a roll of 80 square inches. The caveat, and this is documented in Kodak's own literature, is to add 10% to the development time to compensate for exhaustion. I've used as little as 100 ml. of XTOL, diluted 1+3, using the same adjustment to the development time, to accomplish the same thing. Now, do I make a normal practice of this? No, because that is cutting things a little too close to the edge for me. If a roll of requires more than an average amount of the silver halides be reduced, the amount of developer may very well be insufficient to deliver a satisfactory result. There is nothing wrong with using too much developer; but Mr. Anchell is recommending a very wide margin of safety, one that is impractical when using a tank of limited volume. How do you get 350 ml of stock D-76 plus 350 ml. of water into a tank with a capacity of 600 ml. or less? If we were to take his advice to heart, we'd all be using huge tanks to develop a single roll of film with only modestly dilute developer.
 
add 10% time
 

This has cuased me a bit of confusion and some thought.

The figure I used of 500ml to dev a roll of 120 film is the amount of liquid that the Paterson tank states is needed for a roll of 120 - I presume that this is the amount needed to cover a 120 spiral in their tanks. Similarly, they state 300ml for a roll of 35mm.

Although the square footage of film is not exact, a roll of 35mm (36exp) covers a similar area to a roll of 120 when making a contact print on 10x8 – tI am thinking that the area coverd by 35mm/36 exp is very similar to that covered by one 120 roll, yet on use less dev than the other or one uses more dev than the other depending on how you look at it.

A 220 roll in a Paterson tank is said to need the same volume of liquid as the 120 roll. Again, presumably to cover the spiral. If the 300ml per 120 roll is correct then a 200 roll would require 600ml and surely this would have been found out/established and made apparent by Paterson in their "instructions for use"?

I am not tying to disagree with what has been said, merely question its logic in light of my evidence.

The times given by Ilford for dev'ing film in ID11 (and other devs) give increased times when diluting the dev e.g. 8 mins stock, 11 mins 1:1. There is no mention of increasing the volume of dev, e.g. for 1:1 dilution keeping the 500ml stock solution and adding 500ml of water making 1000ml to cover a spiral that is covered by 500ml. My understanding is that the stock solution can be diluted to whatever you want providing the time is increased and Ilford provide guidtimes for 1:1 and 1:3 dilutions - times for other dilutions must be established independently of Ilford.

Whilst I can see and accept that there must be a minimum amount of dev to cover a film in a spiral and there must be a minimum amount of dev to properly develop a film in the stated time, when there is no time or volume difference stated between a 220 film and a 120 film, as the 120 film is half the length of a 220 film, theoretically, it has only exhausted half of the dev volume, so a second roll of 120 could be dev'd in the same developer without any disaster - it matters not to the dev whether the "second" roll of 120 is actually the second part of a 220 roll, is spooled onto the same spiral as the initial 120 or is put in the dev after the first 120 roll has been dev'd.

If 300ml of dev is required to properly dev a 120 roll, then that is fine when using 500ml of stock but in this case should one assume that the maufacturers (Ilford) have taken into account that on a 1:1 dilution only 250ml of dev exists in the 500ml of working solution, would this not imply that even with an extended dev time there is not enough dev to properly develop all of the roll of film? If this is the case, then why hasn't Paterson (as it is their tanks) or Ilford (as it is their film) added an addendum to dilute dev times and volumes to take this into account? Ilford has an addendum to the times for rotary processing.

A bit theoretical I know, but if it turns out that I need 100ml more of diluted solution in the tank for a single roll at 1:1, I would rather know for sure now than later.

Slightly bemused and sorry for the lenght of post/explanation.

Sim2.
 
500 ml of developer may behave differently when used for the first 120 roll than when it is used for the second 120 roll, because after one roll, the developer is partially exhausted.

With one 220 roll, the entire roll is exposed to the same developer, and will exhaust it evenly.

I would dilute the developer 1:1 and then develop each 120 roll in the diluted stock, if I wanted the 500ml of developer to develop two separate 120 rolls to the same result.

Matt
 
Sim2 Your logic looks sound to me. I'd give it a go. A Jobo tank needs only 485mls and will take 2x120 film on the one reel. With a Paterson there is an extra 15mls of liquid as well. If I were a belt and braces person and assuming that the Paterson reel cannot be divided to accept two 120s at once then I might want to be sure that my second 120 only had negs that I could shoot again.

At very worst you'll end up with a second 120 film that has negs that might need slight printing modification but I cannot see the second set of negs being unprintable and I'd expect the second set to be no different from the first.

pentaxuser
 
 
Sim2,

A roll of 120 and a 36 ex. of 135 are 80 sq. in. each. A roll of 220 is 160 sq. in.

The roll of 120 and the 36 ex. of 135 should have 250ml of stock solution to develop fully. If you go to 1+1 dilution then you still need the 250ml of stock plus 250ml of H2O.

Paterson's numbers on the bottom of the tank are the required volume of chemical to completely cover the roll. They can't possibly anticipate what chems you are using and what dilutions you might like.

To try and save time and energy I used to use the Paterson 5 roll tank and once wasn't careful about making sure I had the necessary 1.25 liters of stock in the dilutions and spoiled five rolls of film I had taken of wind surfers in the Columbia Gorge for a magazine article. They were thin and the prints were muddy unless I printed on 4 or 5 grade paper then they were too contrasty, no detail in the shadows. I had to re-shoot, lesson learned.

We spend big $$$ on equipment and it escapes me why some fret over a few extra cents in developer consumption. As a professional I, and surely most other professionals, would not jeopardize the success of a paying job to save a few cents. The logic of some of the discussions here totally escapes me! It tells me they aren't really serious about the quality of their work.
 
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Don't Confuse

Sim2 said:
I use Paterson tanks and reels to dev with ID11
at 1:1. The chemicals needed are 500ml per 120
roll. The same amount is needed for a 220 roll.
Click to expand...

Don't confuse the amount of chemistry needed with
solution volume. You're above example demonstrates
a need for 125 ml of stock per 120 roll. That amount
with a 500ml solution volume is a 1:3 dilution; not
at all unheard of.

At higher dilutions simply increase development time.
I am quit sure a dilution of even 1:5 will work quite
well given time. Make the most of your chemistry
as I do, e.g. D-23 at a 1:7 dilution. More should
think beyond the few pennies charge when
good chemistry is down the drain. Dan
 

Well, I don't know about that. Those old lab rats must have known something that's unfortunately fallen by the wayside. I've known a couple over the years and damned if they weren't right on the money far more often than not, and I've seen it in other professions too. When I worked as a systems programmer, we'd set up all these elaborate tests and procedures for operations to follow when new software was ready to come online. Came time to put things into production, within a week, operations had effectively re-written all the procedures, and often streamlined them. So yeah, the guys who are in the trenches, doing this stuff day in and day out, know a thing or two about how to get the job done efficiently and without sacrificing quality.
 
There are some interesting replies to this query, some helpful to the thought process others, well perhaps drifting off topic?


If my posts were read and understood, it would be seen that there is an acceptance that the volume required for a Paterson tank, for instance, was merely the required volume of liquid to cover a film spiral in that tank. It is during this discussion that minimum volumes of developer for a square footage of film was raised. I am interested in this as a concept/fact and trying to explore this facet of knowledge.

Just because I know something, or think I know something does not, should not and will not stop me from exploring the validity of the knowledge or questioning my assumptions.


Anscojohn said:
Granted, these guys made their living doing photography and were not Artistes so I guess we more modern folk who know better can take their experience with a grain of salt.
Click to expand...

As someone who has, in the past, worked in a press darkroom I can attest to the truth of this. We did have ID11 and Microphen that had been "well worn in" to turn a phrase, much more than the recommended usage - but as we were printing everyday from the negs there was a "feel" for how the negs were turning out and a "feel" for extending dev times etc, also ultimate quality was not the primary concern at the time. We also had the advantage of knowing the light set-ups at particular stadiums and would "tweak" times depending upon where the films were shot irrespective of what the films were rated at.


Hmm. Most professionals that I know realise that there is a finite return available from any job and raising ones costs merely eats into potential profit. This would include chemistry usage. In the press lab we were instructed/taught and had to make the best use of all chemistry and papers, using to the point of exhaustion. We could have used fresh everytime but the costs would have affected the profits, our pay etc. Using an industry term, we had to "sweat the assets." The fine art worker may be able to justify using fresh each time for maximum potential quality but there are also many professionals and amateurs who like to or need to make the best use of the materials at their disposal.

It may be a slight misnomer to lump the investment on equipment with the costs of processing etc. Generally, the thousands spent on equipment is a very considered spend i.e it has either been saved for or budgeted with a loan or a small investment has been enabled by purchasing secondhand equipment rather than new. This spend can be regarded as a fixed investment and is easy to budget for. The spend on films, chemicals, papers etc can be viewed as a variable cost or spend that is dependent on the volume of usage and independent of the cost of equipment. someone may spend thousands on new equipment but shoot little whilst others may spend little on equipment (from choice or circumstance) but be spending proportionately more on variables such as film and chems.

Some people can be very serious about the potential quality of their work whilst wishing to get maximum return from consumables - "sweating the assets". Seeking to get value for money (for whatever reason) should not be confused with not caring about the quality of work.


It is fair to say that I have learnt from this - notably the correlation between the amount of stock chemical needed to properly process an area of film - irrespective of what vessel is used. This could mean that it is not possible to dev a 10x8 sheet film in any less than 250ml of stock dev? It is feasible (for whatever reason) to process 2 rolls of 120 in the same volume as 1 roll of 120 in Paterson tank. Although I was not questioning the truth of increasing dev times when diluting stock solutions, the queries that have been raised about this have been, interesting, but perhaps not explained sufficiently to alter what I currently believe to be correct.

Thanks for the replies even the slightly off-topic ones have been thought about. The differences in approach to the same subject have been quite illuminating.

More thoughts welcomed......

Sim2.
 
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