Another hair brained idea

[Donald Miller]

I have been considering designing and developing a batch type slot processor for silver papers. This would allow processing of six to twelve prints at one time.

Beyond actual loading and removal of the prints, all other steps(developer, stop, and fix) would be automated with provision, if wanted, for an archival wash. This would work with fiber based paper. Would there be any interest in something like this?

 

[noseoil]

Donald, an interseting idea. Not quite sure the market place would sustain this type of processor over time. While it would certainly help with development, what type of price range did you have in mind? It seems to me there would be a limited market with the B&W crowd, since so many are already doing their own printing and equipment costs are still dropping on many items. It would take a fair volume of printing to recover the cost of the machine, then turn a profit on the labor saved in developing time. I'm sure there would be a threshold, a point at which a given volume of work would justify the expenditure of the capital, but I would like to hear more about a price. Will be curious to see how others respond to this thread. Best, tim

 

[Bob Carnie]

Donald

I recently requested a technician to design a dip and dunk processor that would process 30x40inch sheets of fibre paper as well as being suitable to process large sheets of FP4 from my Lambda Exposing Unit.
Basically a supersized Refrima or Jobo Technolab. Dip and Dunk.
I have 16ft ceilings so height restrictions are not a problem as well I have an aquarium manufacturer making me a 32x44inch vertical slot archival washer for these big prints and films.
This is not a pipe dream , the cost is approx $120K US and I am considering this for my workflow as we are extremely busy with the Lambda Ilford fibre prints and we are going to have Mark Nelson Sandy King do a workshop here for enlarged digi negs to platinum print and while they are here we will try to Beta test the FP4 film to enlarged negs off the Lambda.
We are about 1 1/2 years away from installing the beast hear*money* but the plans and design are already finished and two very competent technicans are onboard to install and gaurentee that the machine will do what I think it can.
What you may want to consider. if your print size is 16 inch or smaller at the smallest dimension, is to find a used E6 machine that does handle that size , adapt the hangers and then put in your chemistry of choice.

 

[Donald Miller]

Donald

I recently requested a technician to design a dip and dunk processor that would process 30x40inch sheets of fibre paper as well as being suitable to process large sheets of FP4 from my Lambda Exposing Unit.
Basically a supersized Refrima or Jobo Technolab. Dip and Dunk.
I have 16ft ceilings so height restrictions are not a problem as well I have an aquarium manufacturer making me a 32x44inch vertical slot archival washer for these big prints and films.
This is not a pipe dream , the cost is approx $120K US and I am considering this for my workflow as we are extremely busy with the Lambda Ilford fibre prints and we are going to have Mark Nelson Sandy King do a workshop here for enlarged digi negs to platinum print and while they are here we will try to Beta test the FP4 film to enlarged negs off the Lambda.
We are about 1 1/2 years away from installing the beast hear*money* but the plans and design are already finished and two very competent technicans are onboard to install and gaurentee that the machine will do what I think it can.
What you may want to consider. if your print size is 16 inch or smaller at the smallest dimension, is to find a used E6 machine that does handle that size , adapt the hangers and then put in your chemistry of choice.

Bob,

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I think that you are heading in the same direction that I envision and the input on a used E6 machine certainly makes sense.

Thanks again.

 

[Jim Chinn]

I think if you had something that could be used for both paper and ULF film their would be interest. I looked into having a 4 slot manual tank processor made from stainless. The tanks would have drain plugs and a sloped bottoms to facilitate draining and a fitted lid. IIRC the cost was going to be about $350-$400 to make something to accept film or paper up to 20x24. Mind you that was the cost just for materials and welding. Once you get into electical systems, pumps, timers, etc, you would probably have to sell it for 5 times that much.
I doubt there would be more then a handful of commercial clients in North America that would be interested. But there are a lot of folks with deep pockets who continue to buy new ULF cameras or want to work with ULF negatives for contact printing. I suspect a market may be found there.

 

[George Collier]

As a serious but low volume printer (I try to print 3-4 times a month - all afternoon on 3-4 images) I would consider this only for larger sizes, after the "recipe" was well established doing 8x10's one at a time. My feeling is, though, that it would probably not be worth it, for me. Also, I like to watch it come up in the tray, reaffirming all the work done up to that point.
Neat idea, though!

 

[Bob Carnie]

As a serious but low volume printer (I try to print 3-4 times a month - all afternoon on 3-4 images) I would consider this only for larger sizes, after the "recipe" was well established doing 8x10's one at a time. My feeling is, though, that it would probably not be worth it, for me. Also, I like to watch it come up in the tray, reaffirming all the work done up to that point.
Neat idea, though!

One of the deciding factors for an automated process is due to the large size of the paper coming off the Lambda , as well a critical factor is the new Ilford digital fibre base paper is red sensitive , which requires total darkness for development.
I too love looking at prints emerging in the tray and making mental notes depending on how different areas of the image emerge.
Year 2006-2007 this paper is destined to very few lambda labs in the world. I do think with education at the school level with these devices present on site and the advances of digital enlargers you will find more and more styles of panchromatic fiber paper coming to the market and tray processing may indeed become cumbersome for this paper and as well for ULFormat film processing being exposed on these same devices for alternative printing techniques.
Right now I am preparing to produce Lambda 16x20 black and white negative film for platinum printing at a workshop later this fall.
I see this as a very small, niche market, where people like Donald may be able to capture a market for a automated processor.
Hostert, has just produced three 50inch fibre base black and white processors to be used for this new Ilford Paper and if Jobo had stayed in the Market long enough with their autoprocessors I believe they would also be ready to ride the equipment wave that is coming for small to medium sized darkrooms all over the world.

 

[timeUnit]

One of the deciding factors for an automated process is due to the large size of the paper coming off the Lambda , as well a critical factor is the new Ilford digital fibre base paper is red sensitive , which requires total darkness for development.

This digital fibre paper you're talking about, is it black/white or color? If BW, why red sensitive? For increased speed?

 

[keithwms]

So, Donald, I had similar thought, I figured I could just use a peristaltic pump and a simple multicompartment print washer and keep the chems flowing, but to go form one chem to the next, there would have to be a brief period of water purging and I am not sure that is good, it would seem that just manually transferring the prints from one compartment to the next would be more time- and cost-effective.

One of the deciding factors for an automated process is due to the large size of the paper coming off the Lambda , as well a critical factor is the new Ilford digital fibre base paper is red sensitive , which requires total darkness for development.

I am trying to get my hands on a reasonably small quantity of their RC digital stuff to play with. so far Ilford only offers enormous rolls. If anybody has any tips I'd be interested, I need a panchromatic b&w paper for a project I am working on.

 

[Bob Carnie]

This digital fibre paper you're talking about, is it black/white or color? If BW, why red sensitive? For increased speed?

This paper is primaraly targeted to young users with their digital cameras. The extra red sensitivity allows us to print in RGB without converting to greyscale. This benifits a better tonal separation of colours that are close to one another. Much like the benifits recieved from panalure and colour negatives over printing colour neg onto regular black and white paper.
My experience with this paper tells me that from digital capture the results are very good indeed, as well from scanned black and white negatives and historical photographic prints.
We have only used a few rolls of this material and have 10 more rolls on order. The last couple of years we were using Agfa fibre paper which did not have this extra red sensitivety.
All of the benifits of this paper as well how it handles toning and all the different applications we can try is still to be determined.
I think after the winter of heavy printing and experimentation we will have a better knowlege of its characteristics. We are also using the digital rc version and I am hoping that I can experiment and test with this paper and expect the same kind of results with the fibre version

 

[timeUnit]

Hmm. Cannot help thinking what a fibre based panchromatic BW paper will do to us "traditional" photographers... A digitally captured, digitally postprocessed, "digitally" printed, fibre based print, with the possibility to tone/bleach/edit in a traditional fashion...

The question "why analogue" has lost yet another answer...

OTOH, if a product like this catches on it means more to do for Ilford and other manufacturers of traditional photographic material, and that could help keep prices down on film stock too.

And, the possibility fo someone like me to get traditional prints in HUGE sizes might have increased a good bit. How wide are the rolls?

 

[Bob Carnie]

I would not worry too much as to the effect on traditional printing. First off this paper is only limited to a select few labs world wide that can show the commitment to black and white photography in general... Metro Imaging in London, Picto Lab in France, Lamont Imaging in New York and Elevator in Toronto as of this date.
Each lab has a major commitment to analogue black and white photography first and formemost and as well have invested in devices to convert the digital world to traditional materials. Ie. fp4 film to alternative printing> digital capture to cibachrome, fuji crystal archive, black and white fibre and rc paper.
The immediate paper is this panchromatic version, but I can assure you other emulsions work on the Lambda devices that analogue printers use on a daily basis.
This will allow the savvy manufactures like Harmon to continue with chemical wet based substrates because the demand will be there. As stated earlier in this thread these devices are not long from being in the colleges*Emily Carr * in Vancouver Canada to my knowledge has a Light Jet digital exposing device that will work with these new papers. As this product becomes more mainstream the emulsions may vary and be of use to the Analogue Printer.

Hmm. Cannot help thinking what a fibre based panchromatic BW paper will do to us "traditional" photographers... A digitally captured, digitally postprocessed, "digitally" printed, fibre based print, with the possibility to tone/bleach/edit in a traditional fashion...

The question "why analogue" has lost yet another answer...

OTOH, if a product like this catches on it means more to do for Ilford and other manufacturers of traditional photographic material, and that could help keep prices down on film stock too.

And, the possibility fo someone like me to get traditional prints in HUGE sizes might have increased a good bit. How wide are the rolls?

 

[Bob Carnie]

Roll sizes are 20inch, 30 inch and 50 inch sizes