Ok, what did I do wrong?

120 Adox CHS ART 100, DD-X 1:9 developer, 10 min @ 73°F, hand inversion in a short Jobo #2523 tank. All negatives came out with this dark stripe covering about the top 1/6 of each negative. Chemical level was plenty high (well over the top of the reel, I used a full litre of developer). Overall, the negatives processed nicely except for this glaring problem. Was I too slow in pouring in the developer? Hard to believe that, since it went in about as fast as it can be poured, and inversions started immediately after that. This was my first attempt doing a single reel using hand inversion in the short tank, everything else I've done has been using the longer 2553 tank and a Beseler reversing motor base, and that has worked perfectly for me every time. What went wrong here? The attached positive image is a scan from one of the negatives. Camera is Zeiss Super Ikonta B folder which has never given me any problems.
Thanks, Jerry

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Increased density more than likely due to a light leak somewhere.

Christopher Walrath said:

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Increased density more than likely due to a light leak somewhere.

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No just the opposite. This looks like the reel wasn't fully submerged in the developer, either insufficient developer ( and you say there was enough) or the reel moved up the column during agitation which I have seen happen with Jobo & Paterson tanks. There should be a lock ring to prevent this,

A light leak would give increased density in a negative but would print lighter, this is a band of underdevelopment

Ian

Ok, is there a dark denser band on the edge of the negs, or a less dense band as your positive image implies?

Ian Grant said:

either insufficient developer ( and you say there was enough) or the reel moved up the column during agitation which I have seen happen with Jobo & Paterson tanks.

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I'll second that.

How did you determine that developer was totally covering the reel. You can't really take the lid off to check

Lack of developer. You should pour the developer in until no more will fit, or at least until you can see it gurgling up.

Hmmm... The tank claims to need only 560 ML of chemicals, but of course that is for using with the rotating Jobo processor. Since I hand-agitated, I figured a full liter would be enough. Maybe I figured wrong. I did NOT fill it up until it was chock-a-block full, although now I wish I had. But I assumed (there's that word again) that a full liter should be plenty. Looks like it was...almost. RE the reel sliding up the center column, I don't think that can happen with this 2523 tank, because a 120 reel fits flush with the top of the tank with the lid removed, and the lid itself would act as a mechanical stop. However, I think I should have filled the tank "to the brim" with developer instead of of trusting that a liter would do the trick. Dang. Well, live and learn. Kind of surprising that so much chemical is required for a single 120 reel, I think next time I do a single reel I'll use the longer 2553 tank on the motorized roller, which although it's a much bigger tank eats about half the chemicals that hand inversion in the short tank requires. I'll also wait until I have several 120 reels to process instead of one.

Thanks for the ideas and comments. Now I have to dig into Photoshop Elements 6.0 and see what kind of digital magic I can do that will get rid of the dark streaks across the top (these were of course light streaks on the negatives).

Did some more kitchen testing, turns out it takes exactly 1.2 liters of liquid to fill the 2523 tank when a reel is inside. So I was in fact using too little developer at 1 liter, thereby shooting myself in the foot. Adding insult to this injury and possibly compounding the error, I discovered that Ian Grant is absolutely correct: overly vigorous inversions CAN in fact easily cause a loaded 120 reel to migrate up the plastic column about 3/8" before the reel comes into contact with the lid. A tightly wrapped rubber band placed on the column above the reel would solve that, but clearly a smarter idea is simply to not use a Jobo tank for hand inversion work. In addition to the obvious problems that can crop up, it eats developer like there's no tomorrow. I have now learned this lesson, and I hope reading about it might save someone else from ruining a roll of film as I did. Thanks again to all for the advice.

Ian Grant said:

No just the opposite. This looks like the reel wasn't fully submerged in the developer, either insufficient developer ( and you say there was enough) or the reel moved up the column during agitation which I have seen happen with Jobo & Paterson tanks. There should be a lock ring to prevent this,

A light leak would give increased density in a negative but would print lighter, this is a band of underdevelopment

Ian

Click to expand...

Good snag, Ian. I misunderstood that it was the neg that was dense.

One last thing: Adox CHS ART 120 size film is a PIA to scan. It's springy as heck and difficult to keep flat on the scanner, even using Anti-Newton glass. I'm going back to good 'ol Ilford films.

The Jobo tanks are not designed for hand agitation. On the machine (horizontal) they require less solution to cover the film (actually, the machine rotates the film in and out of the solution as it spins the tank). It looks like a liter doesn't quite cover the film in the vertical position.

They work just fine for inversion use if you use enough solution. My 2521 specifies from 900 ml for 6x9 sheets to 1200 ml for 4x5 for inversion use. Judging from that, the OP's 1 L should have been sufficient, in theory at least, but it clearly wasn't.

My 1 L of developer would probably have been enough IF I had taken the precaution of making sure the reel couldn't move on the center column of the tank, as noted previously. I'm pretty sure the reel must have slipped upwards by 3/8"-1/2" during the inversion process, and that appears to be what did me in. It left the top 1/4" or so of the film high and dry part of the time. I did measure the total max capacity of the tank with plain water after the fact (with a reel installed) and it was exactly 1.2 L, which would make sense after reading bdial's info re the 4x5 chemical amount required. So if anybody else uses these short 2500 series tanks for hand inversion work with 120 size film, be aware you need to fill it chock-a-block to the top with chemicals, although I'm not sure what being completely full would do to the agitation flow during inversions. I suppose the really safe thing to do is use Jobo tanks for their intended purpose only. That's going to be my modus operandi from now on.

I only use hand inversion agitation with my Jobo 2500 tanks. I do, however, only load film in one reel (bottom) and use an empty reel on top to keep the bottom reel from sliding up/down.