Parameters for rotary development of BW film

[Adrijan]

Developing BW films by hand is fine for me for just a few films. I have to develop more than that and want to start using a Jobo CPP2.
I shoot FP4 and Trix400 and develop with ID11 and Microphen.
Can anybody provide processing parameters as a starting point, eg. temperature, time, rpm, rotation vice versa or one direction?
Thanx

 

[Rolleiflexible]

Try using your regular recipe, but presoak your film in water for about five minutes before you begin. The presoak will slow development a bit to offset the increased agitation. That has been Jobo's advice for years, and I have always followed it, and it always works for me. In any event, it will give you a benchmark from which to adjust your times if it does not produce the results you expect.

Best,

Sanders McNew

 

[rwyoung]

I second what Sanders said. And I would add that you will probably find that your negatives are a bit more dense than before. Not a big deal and easily dealt with by backing off the time a little bit, try 10%.

But for your first run, shoot a roll of test shots, nice even lighting, etc. Then run at 20C (I assume that is your current target temp) and for your usual ID11 time.

If you have a dual speed unit, use the slower speed (my opinon) and you want the direction changes to keep the chems sloshing "randomly".

 

[Bruce Osgood]

I second what Sanders said. And I would add that you will probably find that your negatives are a bit more dense than before. Not a big deal and easily dealt with by backing off the time a little bit, try 10%.

But for your first run, shoot a roll of test shots, nice even lighting, etc. Then run at 20C (I assume that is your current target temp) and for your usual ID11 time.

If you have a dual speed unit, use the slower speed (my opinon) and you want the direction changes to keep the chems sloshing "randomly".

....... and expect to reduce your hand inversion time by +/- 20%.

 

[Daud]

I would agree with the others on this: pre-soak as advised by Jobo but be very careful to make sure you have enough active developer when you (if) you dilute 1/3. Jobo tanks have two minimum fluid quantities: one for rotary and one for hand inversion. Avoid the minimum figure otherwise the negatives can sometimes be a bit thin due to under development (two 120 films on one reel for example).
If you go down this route give ILFORD PERCEPTOL developer a try at dilutions of 1 to 3: it gives long times but with a Jobo that’s no problem (go and make a coffee!). I think you will be surprised at how good it is. I use HP5 ,T-Max 400 and Tri-X at ISO320 and the negatives are as good as Barry Thornton described in his book "Elements".

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Developing BW films by hand is fine for me for just a few films. I have to develop more than that and want to start using a Jobo CPP2.
I shoot FP4 and Trix400 and develop with ID11 and Microphen.
Can anybody provide processing parameters as a starting point, eg. temperature, time, rpm, rotation vice versa or one direction?
Thanx

Sanders is right about the pre-soak. However, the pre-soak as recommended by Jobo has only one reason, the one he stated. Pre-soak is meant to slow development to align the development times with times for inversion development. So, either pre-soak or reduce development times, not both, or you will end up with thin negatives.

Sometimes pre-soak is recommended to get a more even development with short development times. I found this incorrect unless development times were 4 minutes or less. Even then, the pre-soak has to be 5 minutes or more, or result is an uneven development, and consequently, counter-productive.

The best solution for you, however, would be to use the opportunity of a new development method and conduct a development test for your two films and your two developers. I conduct mine after Phil Davis' method (BTZS), which requires 5 films or film strips per film and developer. You can do this in an afternoon. Sounds like time-consuming work, but takes less effort and time than trial and error and gives sound results.

 

[Early Riser]

I find that the presoak also aids in eveness of development. I presoak for 5 minutes with distilled water. I also do something a little unorthodox with my Jobo in that I remove the drum from the CPP2 every 1 1/2 minutes and invert the tank similarly to hand processing. This produces a more random agitation than the rotational agitation only. To compensate for the added and aggressive agitation I use the "F" setting for the speed. I have adopted this method as I found the regular agitation did not yield satisfactory evenness and left occasional "road ruts" on 120 film or mottle with 8x10 film.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I find that the presoak also aids in eveness of development. I presoak for 5 minutes with distilled water. I also do something a little unorthodox with my Jobo in that I remove the drum from the CPP2 every 1 1/2 minutes and invert the tank similarly to hand processing. This produces a more random agitation than the rotational agitation only. To compensate for the added and aggressive agitation I use the "F" setting for the speed. I have adopted this method as I found the regular agitation did not yield satisfactory evenness and left occasional "road ruts" on 120 film or mottle with 8x10 film.

My measurements show no increase in eveness due to pre-soak. Indeed, short pre-soaks (1-3 minutes) do the opposite. In a Jobo the highest rotation speed should be chosen and reverse rotation is a must (no need for manual interference). One benefit of pre-soak, not mentioned yet, is the increased ability to wash out the anti-halation layer but wash aid and a 10-minute wash do the same.

 

[Early Riser]

Ralph, I beg to differ, I did extensive testing after getting what Jobo calls "road ruts" and their suggestions were a 5 minute presoak and slower rotational speeds. I now get perfectly even negs. The highest rotational speed will definitely give you road ruts with 120 film. The suggested rotation is 50 for expert drums and 75 rpm for the regular drums (2500 etc). Jobo suggested that I could go as slow as 25 rpm. Due to my use of added inversion I rotate at the "F" speed setting. To be specific this combination is with T-max 100 and D-76 1:1 and or Xtol 1:1.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I think the only thing where we differ is the rotation speed, since I said don't pre-soak for less than 5 minutes and Jobo says pre-soak for 5 minutes. So, let's talk about the rotation speed.

Who at Jobo gave you this information, because I got the opposite answer? Did you test the 5 minute pre-soak with different rotation speeds? In my tests, the rotation speeds made no difference at all.

Nevertheless, Jobo Germany stated to me that they eliminated the lower rotation speed, available with older processors, due to the fact that it causes uneven development. I thought, the newer machines have only one speed as a consequence. I have one of the older machines. Maybe, someone who owns a newer machine can tell us how many speeds and which their machine has.

 

[Early Riser]

Ralph I spoke to Sam Proud ( this is off the top of my head but I think that was his name).

I own 2 Cpp-2, one I bought in 2000 the other I bought in 2006, they both have the same speeds and can both go quite slow. The rotation speeds always make a difference, at the high speed the film is flying through developer, that has to increase developer action and also create developer flow and eddies, the slower speed is sill moving the film through the developer at a good speed but I don't think whips up the chemistry as much.

However understand that now I do something unusual with my processing , I remove the drum and agitate it in the other axis ( the processor rotate the drum in one dimension, the short dimension of the drum, back and forth) I invert the drum, with my hand over the opening sealing it, in the long dimension, I am creating a more random and much less directional rotation. This may not be needed for most images that have complex subject matter and textures, but when you shoot white on white uneveness is far more obvious.

 

[Mick Fagan]

I've owned a Jobo CPE2 for over 20 years, bought it new. I have a reasonable working knowledge of that machine and it's limitations.

In Germany when these machines were released, slide processing is what most of these units were purchased for.

The original advertisements I saw, stated that the CPE2 could process 8 rolls of film, which required 1 litre of solution, this was alright for processing one batch and letting the machine rest for another week. But when after a holiday, someone came home and did a developing session over a weekend doing multiple runs, the motors started to burn out.

Before the motors burnt out, and especially if you had the unit full and running on the slow speed, the rotation started to jerk and you could hear the motor straining. Switching to the fast speed immediately fixed this.

Jobo then changed the maximum number of films for the CPE2 to 5 rolls and 600ml of solution and the fast speed.

The later CPE2 machines only had one speed, which was the fast speed.

I am not a trained in sensitometry but I have a reasonable idea of what can and does go wrong when developing film. When the edict for the faster speed for the Jobo came out, I did some tests using my film of the day, I detected no difference in the end result using either the fast or slow rotation speed of my machine.

As I understand it, the slow speed was for film in the 1500 series of small diameter tanks with high volume of solution. The fast speed was for paper in the 2840 type large diameter tanks with low volume of solution. The general idea was that the material being developed spent the same amount of time covered by solution regardless of tank diameter size.

For what it's worth, I have never pre-soaked any film in any Jobo processor and I have done thousands of rolls and quite a few 4x5 sheets of film, C41, E6 and B&W.

Colour paper is another issue with pre-soak. About 18 years ago we experienced a drought and our reservoirs were very low. Right at the end of summer in March I started to get cyan streaks through my EP2 colour prints. I spoke to the Agfa technicians, as I was using Agfa paper and chemicals, they advised to drop the pre-soak and just go straight to first bath.

The reason was that the water authorities add a flocculent to the water to make the solids drop to the bottom. This flocculent was causing the streaks. From that day onwards, I never did a pre-soak for any paper. This could be an issue in the future for quite a few countries as water authorities start to have problems providing fresh water as water usage rises and water levels drop.

Mick.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I've owned a Jobo CPE2 for over 20 years, bought it new. I have a reasonable working knowledge of that machine and it's limitations.

....

The later CPE2 machines only had one speed, which was the fast speed.

When the edict for the faster speed for the Jobo came out, I did some tests using my film of the day, I detected no difference in the end result using either the fast or slow rotation speed of my machine.

...

For what it's worth, I have never pre-soaked any film in any Jobo processor and I have done thousands of rolls and quite a few 4x5 sheets of film, C41, E6 and B&W.

...

Mick.

My test results go along with Mick's experience. I have the same machine as he does. It might well be that 'Early Riser's' beautiful images with their subtle tones require a different processing.

A few facts about pre-soaking films remain, however. From my experience I strongly recommend the following:

1. Don't pre-soak unless you think you really need to.
2. Don't ever pre-soak for less than 5 minutes or you risk water spots.
3. Pre-soaking film will slow film developing, and that is one of the main reasons for doing so.

Now go and look at Early Risers gallery. His images are well worth the 'trip'.

 

[Mahler_one]

Hello again Ralph:

Regarding the rotational speeds with the Jobo, below is a paragraph copied from the jobo site discussing such speeds with the CPA and CPP.


Rotation Motor Control

This switch turns the rotation motor on and sets the speed. '0' is 'off.' The 'F' through '7' settings adjust the rotation speed from about 25 R.P.M. to about 80 R.P.M. (The normally recommended rotation speed is 'P' at approximately 75 R.P.M. with 1500, 2500, and 2800 series, and '4' at approximately 50 R.P.M. with the 3000 series tanks or drums.)

I might also mention that Ilford does NOT recommend any pre soak when developing their Delta Pro 100 and 400...having said so, I just returned from a session learning the BTZS "method" and with 35mm I did presoak the 100 for 5 minutes, but not the 400 ( I simply forgot to pre soak ) and both sets of negatives turned out fine on the step tablet. Of course, using TMAX 100 and 400 4x5 and the expert drum everything was pre-soaked.

Ich hoffe Euch gehts allen gut Ralph.

Elliot