Processing Sheet Film: Deep Tank, Tray, Daylight Tank?

Leigh: a very good idea. I hadn't even considered Diafine!

I usually run D-76 or Rodinal, but Diafine is an excellent choice for tray processing. How difficult is it to maintain a temperature in practice? I normally process my roll film in stainless tanks at 75F in the summer because it's impossible to get water down to 68F, and even if it were possible, the ambient temperature in the room would raise it back up to 75F anyway. Winter is a different matter.

I guess the main difference between tray and tank processing is with a tray your fingers touch the chemistry and will eventually warm it up. How much of a problem is that?

In my experience:

Trays--everyone has them, and if you learn the technique, you can process any format with any developer and as many sheets as you can handle or as few as you need to, but you've got to learn the technique, or you'll have scratched negatives.

Deep tanks--Probably the easiest particularly for high-volume processing, but they use a lot of chemistry, so you're mainly limited to long lasting or replenishable developers (or mixing up a lot of your favorite one-shot developer for each batch). That way, they're always ready to go, whenever you want to process, and you can use them for rollfilm on reels as well as sheets up to the maximum size of the tank.

Daylight tanks--The Nikor tank is expensive, but it's a great solution, if you like to process sheet film the same way you process rollfilm. Maximum size, though, is 4x5", and you can do 12 sheets per batch. 6 per batch in Jobo's plastic version of the film cage. I've never used the HP Combiplan, but some people like that. I wouldn't recommend the Yankee daylight tanks.

brofkand said:

Diafine is an excellent choice for tray processing. How difficult is it to maintain a temperature in practice?

Click to expand...

Diafine does not care about temperature. It can be anywhere from 70F to 85F, and can vary over that range during use, with
absolutely no change in results.

It also doesn't care about time. You're supposed to do at least 3 minutes in each solution, and no more than 5 minutes.
I use 5 minutes because it gives me a bit of time to do other things.

Agitation should be minimal. This may be the most important aspect of tray development with Diafine.
It's a compensating developer, and excessive agitation will reduce that compensating effect.

The neat thing about Diafine is that it lasts forever at working strength (it's never diluted for use). Just replenish
per the instructions and it will last for decades. I've personally used it for over 50 years.

Replenishment is done simply by replacing the volume of Solution A that's lost during processing, then adding the
same amount of Solution B to its working bottle, discarding excess used solution.

I just wrote a rather lengthy description of Diafine in another current thread here about "How many rolls...?".

- Leigh

Diafine needs to be warm

I will probably/should post this in the other Diafine thread as well...

Leigh is correct in saying that Diafine doesn't require temperature precision, but it does require a bit of warmth.

The recommendation of 70F to 85F is fine, but it is important to have it at a temperature of at least 70F.

Diafine doesn't perform well in cooler circumstances.

I tried trays with D-76 at the Glen Echo darkroom. The trays worked ok.
I bought hangers and big deep tanks, but I had no where to store them with the large chemistry volumes. I sold them.
I bought a Yankee Daylight tank mail order. I did not like it. I was told by many people about the uneven development. I returned it unused.
I used the credit to buy a NOS Jobo 3010 Expert Tank at Per Volquartz's recommendation. [~$310US]
I found a Jobo CPE 2+ through APUG Classified for ~$100US plus $40US for shipping, no lift, no bottles, no tanks.
Two days after the Jobo CPE 2+ arrived, I saw a Jobo CPP 2 through APUG Classified for ~$150US plus $30US for shipping, a lift, bottles, two tanks.
I bought the CPP2.
I sold the CPE 2+ on APUG for about what I paid for it.

Bought the book The Rotary Processor Manual by John Tinsley. Read the book. Developed several rolls of film and 4"x5" sheets with replenished XTOL. Then I moved on to C41 film processing.

I am one very happy camper. The costs of the Expert Tank and the CPP 2 processor will be amortized for years while I develop spotless and streak free film for years. Priceless!

MattKing said:

The recommendation of 70F to 85F is fine, but it is important to have it at a temperature of at least 70F.
Diafine doesn't perform well in cooler circumstances.

Click to expand...

Good point, Matt.

I always expect people to avoid the endpoints when a range is given, but that's perhaps an invalid __assumption__.

Thanks.

- Leigh

I have been crunching the data and have recently come to the conclusion that you can lose 2/3 stop film speed by developing in open tray shuffling stacks of sheets.

Quality of the negatives is still sublime, but the speed is gone.

Bill Burk said:

I have been crunching the data and have recently come to the conclusion that you can lose 2/3 stop film speed by developing in open tray shuffling stacks of sheets.

Click to expand...

Any speculation as to why that might be, Bill? I haven't particularly noticed it, but I'm not measuring that carefully. I'd be hesitant to correlate speed to a particular development method in a blanket way. Factors (some of which overlap) could be, among others:

--More agitation with shuffle method causing higher contrast, shorter development time, not leaving enough time for shadows to develop.

--Developer choice and oxidation.

--Aerial fog from shuffling (could be related to developer choice as well).

--Fog from light leaks in the darkroom being a bigger factor with open trays than other methods.

One thing that I'm careful about is to time the shuffling speed so that I always cycle through the stack evenly, for instance, one cycle every 30 sec., whether it's 4, 6, or 8 sheets.

A few things made me think sheet stack shuffling is the culprit. I don't think sloshers are affected unless you stack within slosher compartments.

-Tank developing roll film gives me full speed.
-ASA specifications require a specific kind of agitation - and physically this seems at odds with that.
-When I developed two sheets emulsion to emulsion I had significant ghost effects.

I get no significant fog (0.05 at 16 minutes). Plenty of time for shadows to emerge, 13 minutes is my normal time. This remains fairly stable my agitation is by feel, about 5-10 seconds per sheet (I begin with faster agitation to ensure the sheets do not stick together). I use no presoak. I don't turn the film 90 degrees (though that is recommended by manufacturer).

I am open to suggestions of things to change.

For example Leigh suggested developing a single sheet.

Other things I might try:
D-76 straight
Nikor tank
Traditional film like Tri-X

Could be the choice of film--my own preference is for traditional grain films.

Ghost effects I've never noticed, but I always stack the film emulsion side up. I occasionally have to process one or two sheets, but I prefer to process more like 4-8, so that cold be another issue.

One thing I haven't done enough of is monobath processing in trays for single sheets. I suppose when I was first experimenting with monobath processing I tried storing the solution in a flat plastic container that I could process 4x5" in, but I gave this up when I learned that once you start using it, it's not worth using the next day. I've done it with tanks and hangers for 4x5" or 2x3", but since it's an inherently low-agitation method, it might work well with a single sheet in a tray, and that could be attractive for ULF. I still don't feel 100% confident, for instance, shuffling 7x17", just because I don't shoot enough of it. I wouldn't shuffle in a monobath, because the solution is strongly alkaline and softens the emulsion, and it's too prone to aerial fog effects and overagitation (which speeds up the fixing process more than the development process), but for single sheets it might be just the thing.

David A. Goldfarb said:

Could be the choice of film--my own preference is for traditional grain films.

Ghost effects I've never noticed, but I always stack the film emulsion side up. I occasionally have to process one or two sheets, but I prefer to process more like 4-8, so that cold be another issue.

Click to expand...

I understand the preference for traditional grain, it's what I use for roll film, and a traditional grain roll film clued me in to this issue. But I seem to get full speed on TMAX 400 roll film - and the difference is small tank vs tray.

The ghost effect came about from an error, I accidentally flipped one sheet over. But it illustrated that the two emulsions were competing for limited developer. X-ray film users may need to be alert for this. But it will not normally happen if you always develop emulsion up.

I'm pretty excited by this finding. I think there could be some "compensating developer" type of effect that causes the speed loss. Again the negatives are beautiful, and the curves are smooth. The development times are predictable. What I never knew until now is that I lost some speed.

I just processed 4 sheets of Delta 100 in trays. The community darkroom I visited had old Kodak hard rubber (I'm guessing they're hard rubber) trays, 5x7 size. They worked great.

I got some scratches, I'll have to practice more. The film I shot wasn't particularly important so scratches are OK I guess. I know exactly when the scratches happened; I wasn't careful when shuffling and stabbed other sheets with the edge of the sheet I was re-introducing to the bath. There was also a decent amount of dust on the sheets; I didn't wash my hands before I loaded the holders and I'm using old holders so they are probably grimy. They are light tight though, as is my camera. No light leaks noticed.

I used Rodinal, we'll see how they look once they dry and I have a chance to contact print them.