E-6 Tray development

Does anyone have experience with E-6 tray development? I am able to control temperature very well but I need to know about agitation. Also, if I use a liter of developer, will I be able to develop four sheets of 4x5 consecutively without loss of strength?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Best, Fred

4x5 can easily be done in an 8x10 tray. Slip one edge in and push/slide to submerge. Agitation is lifting two adjacent sides 1/2 to 1 inch and lower. Start with top and right. At 15 sec mark, do bottom and left.

I have no idea how to keep time unless you use an audible timer. Cover tray so as not to expose. E6 is a long process, around 45 min for the 6 step. 3 step kits with blix give dull colors. do not use. Been there, done that.

4 sheets will be 3+ hours, painful and a waste of time. Buy or make one of the 4 sheet dividers for 8x10 tray. Use 6 trays to cut down on contamination.

The very worst thing that can happen is backwards contamination . you will never figure what went wrong.

The best process is a Jobo with the revolving drum that hold 10 sheets. Uses 8 oz of chemical.

Best of luck

Ronald Moravec said:

3 step kits with blix give dull colors. do not use.

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If you keep your temperature, time and agitation intervals correct there is no difference between the 6 and 3 chemical kits. Colors are exactly the same.

I've always heard people complaining about the 3-step kits with Blix and it just comes down to them being inexperienced and/or the lack of them being easily distracted and not following the instructions correctly.

I've developed 8x10 Provia in trays and as long as you agitate correctly they will be fine. For me it was rotating the sheets 90 degrees instead of rocking the tray. You will not notice a difference either way you choose if you do it correctly.

Jobo expert drum at times and temp precisely kept. Kit was new and unused. Did a reshoot and sent out the film and it looked better.

Ronald Moravec said:

3 step kits with blix give dull colors. do not use. Been there, done that.

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WHAAAAT??

To the OP: this is simply not true, though you may or may not wan to use 3 or 6 bath kits regardless.

Processing sheet films in trays is hard enough when doing BW, and is borderline impossible when doing any color processing. Forget about temp control (which in E6 is crucial, more so then in C41), don't worry about the fumes of stuff you do not want to breath when working over hot open trays, and never mind the impossible troublshooting if you ever want to calibrate your process due to so many manually measured variables - just think of the effort and cost you put in to shooting the sheet in the first place. Then calculate how much it will cost to "learn" how to get it right in trays VS the free cost to doing it in a tank with proper temp control with or without an actual processor.