Sheet Film Frustration - Uneven Development

[George Collier]

One more opinion - I can't help it.
I do 4x5 tri-x in trays, have been for years, with HC110. 8 - 10 sheets at a time.
Unload from holders into a film box, e-up, clipping the corner of the last one, so I can find it in the dark.
Turn the stack over, now the clipped one is on the bottom, e-down. Hold films in the left hand.
Pull films out with the right hand, one at a time, drop into a tray of water the same temp as the developer, pushing down into the water with the little finger, keeping the rest of the hand dry. Go through the stack, the clipped one on the bottom, and herd them all together into a neat stack.
Shuffle constantly for 2 minutes.
When the clipped one is on the bottom, pull out the stack and drain for only a second or two.
Place them, e-down, into the developer and begin shuffling, bottom to top. Rotate 90 degrees clockwise every other shuffle (feel for the corner).
Agitate constantly the whole time.
Pull the stack out together and go to the stop, fix, etc.

I use an 8x10 tray for 4x5 with 1000cc developer. This was Fred Picker's recommended method for tray development and I have very few problems with uneven development, and maybe only one or two scratches over the years with this. I also do a lot of pan strips, and a sequence of shots is always very closely developed between shots.
Practice in the light with some of that bad film to develop the feel for it.

About the dust - I second Lee's suggestion about the camera - the dust could be getting you at the time of shooting.

 

[Bruce Watson]

I've been using a Jobo 3010 tank on a CPP-2 for years now, well over 1000 sheets, with perfectly even development. It's one excellent system.

Dust can't be conquered, but it can be tightly controlled. It takes some effort. Twice a year or more I clean my darkroom from ceiling to floor. That's the ceiling, the walls, the shelves (even the underside of the shelves), anything that's exposed. When I'm not in the darkroom I leave an electrostatic air cleaner running. With careful cleaning of the film holders before loading, and keeping the film holders in ziplock bags whenever they are not in the camera (never let a film holder leave your hand unprotected -- ziplock or in camera only), this has fairly well eliminated my pre-exposure dust problems.

I was still getting junk on my film due to processing and drying however. So I moved to steam distilled water for everything (for making stock, diluting stock before use, washing, final rinse with Photoflow) including final rinse of the drum during cleanup. And, all one-shot chemistry, including fixer. Now I'm pretty well dirt free.

I'm just sayin'... the junk on your film is under your control. It's not easy, it's not fun, but you can control it. And it's well worth doing IMHO.

 

[pellicle]

Hi

Thomas, I'm not sure where you live, but I live in Finland. I have to say that compared to Australia I see more dust here than there. These days I hang the sheets to dry on a cheap plastic laundry hanger (by a corner) and give them a final squirt with a 'misting' water bottle containing a tiny amount of photoflo and water. This seems to break the 'adherence' of any dust which seems to find its way onto the tops of the trays.

I don't do more than sheet in a 5x7 tray (emulsion up) and gently agitate (rocking) front back, left right, front back ... for the development time. I've been using D-76 as my preferred black and white developer since 2001 (with an odd dabble in pyro [thank you Ken if you happen to be reading this])

With multiple sheets I now use a jobo 2553 tank and the 2509n spirals, I don't have the water bath, but then room temperature is constant here in my flat. What I do for agitation is to roll the drum on a small gadget I made up. This is essentially 4 cheap roller wheels mounted on a bit of wood to support my drum and allow me to rotate by hand.

The tank requires an amount of fluid for developing which is well beyond what I need for the film. I've used a bit of plastic wrap attached instead of the lid to determine just where the 'soup' levels are with different volumes and if I'm using more than just the outer most parts of the spiral I need more than 400ml in the drum.

I rotate carefully and consistently by hand and haven't actually seen uneven development more than once (on the inner spiral grove, which led me to check the amounts as I mentioned above)Depending how you feel about spending money the drum was inexpensive on ebay.

I'll have some BTZS tubes (again, thanks Ken sooner or later (when the dog sled gets here from Canada ;-)

Personally I've come from a chemistry background, and so I don't like the 'inspection' routine. I prefer to measure things (light to effect Dmax) and time things (development to effect Dmax) working with the manufacture stated concentrations (Kodak are well praised here).

I don't know if I've helped much, but perhaps its just a technique thing?

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Thanks again everybody for your excellent suggestions.

This thread leads me to believe I'm doing the correct things, with some variation in technique between different people. I am excited to try the drum that's being sent to me, since that eliminates much of the human interaction.
If that gets done to perfection then I'll stop worrying about this and move on to finally be able to use this nice 4x5 system.

I am a handy person with excellent motor skills, balance, and a good dose of common sense. That's why this is bothering me so much. It doesn't make sense.
One more thing I'm going to do is go over my darkroom again with a caulking gun. I saw a couple of light leaks from when the light is on in the laundry room next door, and I need to light proof the door better, especially around the bottom of the door. These things may well be reasons why my film is suffering too, and I did this darkroom inspection yesterday in the dark.
Still the sheets developed in tanks should be better, but oh well. Time will tell. I will load the drum in a bag that I know is light tight and if I have any more problems I'll report back.

Thanks again everybody for your very generous comments.

- Thomas

 

[Shmoo]

try using an antistatic brush on the film holders after you blow out the dust...helps a lot. Also, drum development with a Jobo tank (2500 series) on a Beseler motor drive roller thingy is great!!! Don't forget WHERE you hang your film can be just as important as how you load and develop it...try a shower stall after you've run hot water through the shower to drop all the dust out of the air.

S

 

[jfish]

I took what George Collier wrote and tweaked it. Not to say his is bad or anything. Its just mine is different, and maybe it will help. Done tones of sheet film this way for years with nary a problem with scratches and never any uneven development.

Unload from holders into a film box (I turn the box to the horizontal orientation, and the film perpendicular to that, so the edge hangs over the side. Makes it easy to grab later), e-up, putting all the film in the same orientation, with the code notches in the lower left except the last sheet, which you put with the notch in the upper right and still e-up, so I can find it in the dark.

Hold films in the left hand. The code notch that is in the upper right will be your first sheet to go in, and the first sheet to go out. It is your orientation sheet.

Pull films out with the right hand (I fan them out myself, but I've very used to doing sheet film and it might take you a while to get used to doing that), one at a time, drop into a tray of water, E-UP (never, I repeat NEVER put film e-down. IMO there are too many things at the bottom of a tray or the sides that can scratch the emulsion), the same temp as the developer, pushing down into the water with the little finger, keeping the rest of the hand dry. Go through the stack, herding them all together as you go.

Now, pull the bottom one out, just not at too sharp of an angle or you can get a scratch, and lay it on top, pressing in down in the water gently. Repeat this through the stack at least 2 times. I usually go for about 3 minutes of pre-soak for sheet film just to make sure it is wet all over. Keep feeling that upper right corner for the code notched sheet. When you've gone through the stack at least 2 times, and you come upon it, stop...that is your first sheet and you will want to begin the transfer to the dev.

Pull out the stack and drain for only a second or two.
Place them, E-UP, into the developer and begin shuffling, bottom to top. Rotate 90 degrees clockwise every 1/5th of the development time. (Divide the dev time by 5 i.e. 10 minutes/5=2 minutes. So rotate the tray, or the stack, 90 degrees every 2 minutes. That way you will return to the proper orientation when it is time to put the film into the stop).
Agitate constantly the whole time.
When your dev. time is up, pull one sheet out at a time and place in the stop bath. Do this by keeping one hand in the dev, which you will use to grab the bottom sheet and hand to your other hand, which will put it in the stop. Taking the whole stack out at one time gives the last sheets less dev. than the first sheets, since you put in one at a time. Call me picky, but I like to give all my film the exact same dev. time.

Dev. is pretty cheap, considering and if you have more than 1 run to do, having quite a lot of dev. won't hurt and will allow 2 runs to go through without having to replenish. Per kodak's data sheet on D-76, you can get 16 8x10 sheets out of a gallon of D-76 straight. That would be 64 4x5 sheets.
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j78/j78.jhtml#004



About the dust - Lee's suggestion about the camera is a good start. What I do every once in a while, is take off the front lens board and the rear glass, extend the bellows as far as possible, and wipe the inside with a damp cloth. But more importantly, when loading the film, after the film is inserted into the holder, I blow off the surface with air. Then close the slide. Since dust is most likely falling on your film as you load the previous sheet, and hence staying there when you load it, dusting it off just before closing the slide will eliminate 99% of your dust. Guaranteed.

Maybe I'll make a little video on film development and post it since it is hard to describe the process and easier to see how its done. Give me a week or so.

Hope this helps.

 

[George Collier]

Jfish - I like your tweaks, particularly the rotating of the last piece instead of clipping the corner - I can't believe I've never thought of that. And, in fact, you are correct about e-up during processing, I'm not sure how I mixed that up, but I don't think I've ever done e-down. When I was doing the post, I think I had gotten too far into the scotch, and remember going back and forth on that point.
On the move to stop, though - I agree with your point about the length of time it takes to get the film in and out of trays. I remember in the army doing production printing where we actually timed a 5 second interval between each print to guarantee uniform time. If you think about it, when you put in the whole stack from the initial water bath, the top piece will get the most time, because it is in contact with developer (e-up) from the moment the stack goes in. It probably makes sense to put them in one at a time, them move them one at a time at the same speed. Ten sheets can take 30 - 60 seconds, enough to see a difference. One nice thing about using alkaline fix and pure water stop is that both hands can get water (stop) on them and it won't hurt the developer.

 

[harleyman7]

Thomas, I just saw this thread and might as well offer my 2 cents worth. I used a home made slosher tray for years with no problems. My tray held 4 sheets of 4x5 always emulsion up and the developing tray was a rubbermaid plastic tray (Walmart or Target) a little bigger then the slosher. I used PMK at the time and used a little more developer then was recommended for the amount of film so it would be sure to completely cover the film and slosher. Agitation first 30 sec. and then 10sec every 30sec. thereafter....this was for PMK. Also a 2min. presoak before going into the developer. Agitate vigorously the first 30 sec....THIS IS IMPORTANT!! When I started doing 4x10 negatives, I switched to a Unicolor drum and motor base. You have a drum and motor base on the way so your problems could be solved. This method works very well for me. I use the Pyrocat in glycol since going to rotary processing. I hope all the advice you've received from everyone inspires you to keep trying. I shoot medium format too, but I'm a large format guy at heart. I will be the first to say I'm no expert, but if I can help in any way just email me. Good luck.

 

[nyoung]

Not trying to hijack your thread but I have a question for those on this thread developing in tubes. I have the Unicolor and Ciba/Ilford drums and a motor base left over from my color printing days. Which type of tube would be best for film and how much chemistry should I use in each tank. I recall that for color printing these tubes functioned with a pre-wet and relatively very small quantities of chemistry.

 

[Konical]

Good Evening, nyoung,

My Ciba drums won't work with 4 x 5 film because they are completely smooth inside and have no provision for keeping sheets separated; 8 x 10 film in an 8 x 10 drum should be fine though. Many people successfully use the Unicolor drums for film processing, but leaks seem to be a common problem. My strong preference, expressed many times on the Forum, is the Chromega color print drum; it keeps sheets separated with no problem and I've used the same drum for several decades with absolutely no leakage problem. As indicated in my earlier post above, I prefer to be generous with chemical volumes in B & W since the cost is minimal. I recommend at least 8 oz. and more often use 10-12 oz.

Konical

 

[dagabel]

Thomas - I was having uneven development in my old stainless steel daylight tank until I started using this method described by someone over on the LF forum: Dead Link Removed.
I'm relatively new to LF, but I haven't had any uneven development since I started using this technique.

Thanks,
Duane

 

[pellicle]

Hi

somehow your URL was munged, if you don't mind reposting it that would be nice

Thomas - I was having uneven development in my old stainless steel daylight tank until I started using this method described by someone over on the LF forum: Dead Link Removed.
I'm relatively new to LF, but I haven't had any uneven development since I started using this technique.

Thanks,
Duane

 

[jfish]

...I think I had gotten too far into the scotch, and remember going back and forth on that point.

Been there plenty of times, though its either vodka, gin or wine for me.

 

[Andrew Moxom]

Thomas, how did your endeavours with the Unicolor tank go? I know how frustrating sheet film can be, and it was a revelation to me to be able to get 4 sheets developed that were even all over. I too went through the iterations you did. A Yankee Tank, a Jobo 4x5 tank, tray development. I always got uneven negs. Or at best, I may have got one or two good ones from my Jobo manual tank, but it was unpredictable.

These days, I use the unicolor tank and have been blown away at how simple it is, and how well the dev process works in them. I must admit, I have not tried taken any pictures with a lot of sky in them yet, but I will do this spring.

I know you are doing some house cleaning in regards to simplifying your system. That is a good thought process, and commendable in that you can bring yourself to do that. I have already seen your 210 lens sold yesterday. I would say that before you offload your 4x5 camera for good anyway, at least try the Unicolor tank a few times. Even if you use one of my lenses to try it, I think a view camera still has a place in your tool arsenal. I'd be willing to loan you a lens so that you can be convinced and know for sure.

Andy.

 

[sbandone]

I process up to 6 sheets at a time in a Jobo 2521 tank with a 2509N 5x4 spiral in an old CPE2 processor. I also load the sheet film with the Jobo loader (a bit pricy but it works well)

I haven't processed many 5x4 films but I have always had even development and very clean negatives- sort of encouraging

Dust-well that is another subject! I share everyone elses' frustrations - they nearly always come in the sky, who put them there!

 

[Murray@uptowngallery]

Nice to find this thread.

Twice I have read the term brush development.

Can someone please refer me to a site that explains how to do this...with pictures even better.

Have hope on dust control - it has to be possible..there are people shooting much larger film and getting at least some success :O)

Thanks

 

[23mjm]

After noting that I had some pretty good inconsistencies in my tray development of sheet film, I moved on to a Jobo 3006---WOW the Jobo is it!!! The end, yea there are other ways, but the Jobo is easy gives consistent results and thats what it is all about. Yes it is pricey but hey my time is pricey too and getting bad negs cost me a lot.