Developing Tanks

[marcusverger]

I hope this is the correct place for this post...

Developing tanks (such as Paterson), these days, usually accept/take 35mm, 127, 120 (& 116 !) roll film.

For the older, now obsolete & larger roll films (such as no.118, 119, 115 etc.) - were these ever developed in an equivalent tank, or were they 'Plate Developed' as such??

What similar tanks were available, if at all??

Thanks,

Marcus

 

[mshchem]

I hope this is the correct place for this post...

Developing tanks (such as Paterson), these days, usually accept/take 35mm, 127, 120 (& 116 !) roll film.

For the older, now obsolete & larger roll films (such as no.118, 119, 115 etc.) - were these ever developed in an equivalent tank, or were they 'Plate Developed' as such??

What similar tanks were available, if at all??

Thanks,

Marcus

There were all sorts of adjustable tanks. I have my Dad's old Elkay tank made from Bakelite (phenolic resin) tank. Nikor made very hard to find reels for these odd sizes.

 

[Hunter_Compton]

The heyday of the large film formats was from about 1895 to 1935. It wasn't until the 1930s that miniature film formats became more common, which coincided with the increased use of enlargers as opposed to contact prints.

During this period, films were almost exclusively orthochromatic, so they could be developed in trays under a red safelight by seesawing the film though the trays of chemicals.

Film tanks were available, but added cost to the photographers outfit. The primary advantage of tank development was that it could be done in daylight without a darkroom or tent to put the film in the tank.

One popular example was the Kodak film tank, which used a 3-5" wide black apron instead of a reel. The film was placed in a light tight wooden box and wound onto the apron, which could then be taken out and put in the tank of chemicals. An interesting note about this method is that the film was developed with the backing paper in place, so the film itself had a paper tail so that the exposed film could be partially unwound and the trailing side of the film taped to the backing paper without actually exposing the film itself.

 

[spark]

FR made an adjustable reel tank that could hold 116/616 size film. They show up on the “bay” place a lot. They are very similar to the Yankee and Anscomatic tanks except they are taller for the bigger film. The reel adjusts for 116, 120, 127, and 35mm sizes

 

[marcusverger]

Thanks, guys! Appreciate your replies.....

 

[Disconnekt]

For 616/116 film, I found a workaround on youtube using a 2-reel tank: