Your tricks for developing a lot of films?

Since I have my own business, I have not much time for the darkroom. Last week I just wanted to process some films and found that 46 rolls of 35mm film are more work than fun. I managed to develop 22 of them in one evening. As I have 3 big Jobo tanks and some smaller ones this was about the maximum I could achieve.

Do you have some tricks how to process many, many films within very short time?

Bigger tanks. The 2581 Jobo tank is 8 rolls of 35 at time. The bigger one is even more but that's huge.

If you mount the tank on a rollerbase plugged into a timer [Gralab 300 works fine] then it's pretty easy. Two tanks and two timers/rollers let you run two batches at once if you offset the start times a little.

The 1500 tanks won't work on the rollerbase. You'd need a processor and be limited by the weight limits.

Use deep tanks and a basket to hold the reels. Failing that use multiple dev tanks & spirals if you use a replenishable developer like Xtol Id011/D76 then there's no chemicals to make up for each batch. I have at least 20 Paterson spirals & 8 or 9 tanks and can process a lot of filmper hour.

Ian

Bigger tanks, as both Ian and Nick have suggested. My biggest holds 6 medium format or 12 35mm rolls. I don't shoot so much 35mm, but when I come back from a trip with lots of MF, it's a real time saver.

3.5 gallon tanks and a basket would be even better, but I haven't had that much space until recently. I might be able to do that in my current darkroom, but for now, I have a 5x7" tankline, and I can process rollfilm on spirals with a lift rod or with a basket that I have for 4 MF or 8 35mm reels.

for MF - load carefully on Paterson

I have a tall Paterson tank - that allows me to process 3 reels of 120 at once. But with care, you can take the beginning of one 120 onto the tail of the first one already going onto the spiral reel. Then you can process 6 120's in the time of just 3.

The other issue is pre-loads - I have more spools than tanks. You cannot load a film easily onto a wet reel. But there is no problem loading a dry reel into a just used, rinsed, and shook out tank. Load all films of a common type onto reels, and fill the tank.

The extra reels get loaded and stored in my paper dark drawer, with a reminder taped on the drawer front that there is x number of pan film reels in there.

I frequently load films onto reels in the morning, label what is in which tank, and make sure that the needed chemistry is available in stock stregth.
I look up the kodak dataguide calculator dial number corresoponding to the dilution that works best for the film in question, and tape it onto the tank top along with the film type.

Then I go to work. Once home in the evening, after dinner, and still feeling a bit burned out from the work day, I can mechanically follow the instructions I laid out in the morning. By 7pm I can start to think again, and the films are usually all hanging to dry in a drying cabinet, and the darkroom can be used for more creative purposes.

Another tip is to try a water stop, and then superfix/tf4 fixer. Fixing times are short with these fixers, and the wash time is short as well when an all alkaline process is used. This allows many minutes to be trimmed from a processing sequence, as opposed to kodak fixer for 10 minutes, rinse, HCA, long wash....

A few old news photogs that come here have told me they have double-loaded their film on steel reels (base-side to base-side, keeping emulsion facing out) -- I can't vouch for validity other than that I have heard it independently from at least 3 of them.

Those tanks that hold 12 rolls of 35mm film are heavy when you go to agitate. They do work nicely though with one note;

It's best to load the film and have the developer in the tank ready to go, or load the film and keep it in a dark place until you are ready, then pour the developer in and turn out the lights and dunk the film in.

My experience with a Telesor(?) stainless steel tank was that it filled slowly. It made me nervous. Otherwise it was the best way for me to go when I had a larger amount of film that needed to be run. I've no jobo or deep tanks.

A basket in a deep tank would hold a lot of film.. I've seen one once (i'm a youngster) and it looked slick.

Yes, whenever I'm using a large tank--8 or 12 x 35mm--I either fill and drop the reels in on a lift rod all at once or pour in the developer with the lid off in the dark depending on the developer, replace the lid, and proceed as usual.

We had a tankline with baskets in our high school darkroom. It was indeed slick.

Depending on the film, that back-to-back trick may not allow the antihalation backing to be removed from the base of the film, so the film has to be respooled when wet for washing. Maybe this wasn't a problem in the old days, but it seems more trouble than its worth.

I've rolled two 120 rolls on a 220 stainless reel, though, occasionally, but it's tricky, so I don't usually risk it. I think this is probably easier on a Paterson or Jobo reel. Doesn't one of them make a spacer clip or something to facilitate this?

David A. Goldfarb said:

I think this is probably easier on a Paterson or Jobo reel. Doesn't one of them make a spacer clip or something to facilitate this?

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Some Jobo reels are made to accommodate two rolls of film sequentially on the same spiral, and there is a tab that you move after loading the first roll to keep the rolls from overlapping. Haven't seen enough Paterson reels to say about theirs.

Lee

I think that's what I was thinking of.

If I was skilled enough I would start 3 of those monster tanks staggered by a minute. They hold 8 or 12 reels. Then thered be juggling and sheer amount of chemistry needed.

If you wanted to tempt fate you could construct a PVC continuous strand processor and splice the films together onto a giant reel and run them all through at once like movie film. But don't, please.

Mike Wilde said:

... But with care, you can take the beginning of one 120 onto the tail of the first one already going onto the spiral reel. Then you can process 6 120's in the time of just 3.....

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I can attest that this does work quite well on Paterson style universal reels. I can't remember who suggested it to me first, and I had my doubts. But I've been doing it for a number of weeks now. Just make sure you have enough active developer in the tank to handle the film. In other words, don't use too high a dilution. Since the reel loaded with two 120 strips is basically the same surface area as two reels loaded with 135-36 and they stack to the same height on the spindle, so long as you're OK with 35mm you should be OK double stacking 120.

One trick I've learned is take tape into the darkroom with you to fix the tail of the the first film onto the head of the second. I can *usually* pull the tape from the backing paper cleanly and use that to fasten the two together, but if the backing paper starts tearing I find that it's hopeless to get the tape off without it being covered with paper residue. If so, then you can't attach the two pieces of film together. I'm here to tell you that feeling around in the dark for half an hour looking for a roll of tape is no fun. Just have a piece available you can use if necessary, and if it turns out unnecessary then you just throw it out. Two inches of tape wasted is a lot less valuable than a half hour of my time in the dark.

MB

Yep. Red tab on Jobo. First time I saw it I thought it was some annoying "sealed for your protection" thing... snapped it off

Didn't even think of AH coating - good catch (that's why we call him Moderator)

I can confirm that as a news photog I use to double up each reel, I used to staple the ends together. Made a 'healthy' 12 tank, D-76 straight, set up the tank with the developer, then roll all the films, then drop the pushed rolls in first. Shake and roll! I'm still trying to work out the tank and basket thing.

Oh hey, used to separate for wash, until I got lazy.

I can only add to the above good advice; take music with you. Some good tunes make the sessions go well.

In business we are always running to put out fires ,but we need to control our time and fires, so as not to let other fires build up on us,the best thing in you state is to get it done before it becomes another fire to put out , it takes about 30 mins to three or four rolls done each day , of course this doies not include a full days shoot and a lot of film from it : but we must find our way to get it done, all of the other posters have given you good advice , But you can only control your work flow! happy holidays

seawolf66 said:

In business we are always running to put out fires ,but we need to control our time and fires, so as not to let other fires build up on us,the best thing in you state is to get it done before it becomes another fire to put out , it takes about 30 mins to three or four rolls done each day , of course this doies not include a full days shoot and a lot of film from it : but we must find our way to get it done, all of the other posters have given you good advice , But you can only control your work flow! happy holidays

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One of the problems in North America at least is that everyone is of the opinion that if they don't get everything done right away, then the world will end. I always do film processing within a day or two of finishing the roll. If I did shoot 40 rolls in one day, I would probably just spend a day in the darkroom. I think the real key is the reels though, if you have one tank that can handle one reel, and have 10 reels, you can do a lot of film, in a short period. As your processing one roll, you have another in the wash, and a third is loaded on the reel in a dark place. When the processing is done, you move the one in the wash to a rinse in photoflow, move the one in the processing to the wash, wash out the tank, and move the next reel from dark storage to processing. Your never really waiting, because your working on one end or the other, continuously. Squeegee the roll that is in photoflow, and hang. The reel gets washed and then put on a drying rack. When a roll is dry, you cut, then contact print, from the time you start the first roll, until you have a contact print of the last roll, would be about 24 hours, perfect way to use a "personal day"....

These days if I was shooting 40 rolls in one day then at least ¾ would probably be shot on d*****l, fact of life, I use film when I want the look of film, and shoot d*****l when I don't care.

If you can process in the dark you can do my way which was to go to Tap Plastics and get 5 inch acrylic tubes and glue bases to them and make them 2 feet tall. Then get a stainless steel rod and bend a spiral on one end and a 90degree handle on the other and thread stainless steel reels on the rod. I can process eight 120s or fourteen 35mm reels at a time. Then you need a big drying cabinet with a heater in it.
Dennis

No sense re-inventing the wheel here.

For nearly 40 years the pros relied upon deep tanks and nitrogen gas burst development to quickly process enromous number of rolls of film with precision. In a 3.5 galion tank in one processing run (20 minutes +/-) one could easily develop 20 rolls of 36 exposure 35 mm or 12 rolls of 220. A simple re-plenishment and one could replicate this all day long. Anyone that has commercially processed E6 at a lab has seen firsthand the results of gas burst processing and may have not even realized it. Unlike a JOBO the only moving part in a gaseous burst system is the solenoid valve and these devices have been tested for over 250,000 cycles without a hitch.

Every method of souping a lot of film in a hurry is a special technique,
and you need to learn how to do it. To do it well, it is a serious investment in time,
and you will screw up film in the process of learning how to do it.

On the other hand, you can do a tank load of film every couple of days,
and be caught up in no time.

Work within your limits, and simplify your technique so it is no trouble to soup film after you shoot.

Those are the only two tricks I know.

d

Not a comprehensive answer, and for medium format only, but one of my tricks is to load two 120 rolls taped together end to end onto 220 reels. When developing medium format, this doubles the economy with my home E-6 processing, as I do not reuse the chemistry (except for cross processing). One five liter kit does 24 rolls of 120 film this way (or 12 rolls of 220 film), which gives me the same cost per surface area as with 35mm: $2 per roll vs. $9 per roll at a lab. It is $8 per roll if I take it across town to A&I myself and don't have to pay the courier service charge from Samy's Camera, but with traffic and gas prices, I gladly pay the courier charge.

For 35mm, I have done up to 12 rolls at once in a large tank. That would be only four batches for you (two batches now that you only have about 24 rolls left). You can't give these tanks away to most people. I was given a large quantity of these that were donated to my community college, but never would have been used there. I think some of them can hold up to 16 rolls of film. Yikes!

I would offer to send you one of the tanks, but I have a shortage of lids, and there is no telling if any of your lids will fit perfectly.

I also have a few that have slip-on lids. Obviously you would have to pre fill these, dunk your film in on a rod, put the top on, and dump and add chemicals in total darkness.

DF is a wise guy... He is right.

Couple of long tank to make 8 x120 or 14x135. Start time differed for the second tank.
It goes quite fast and you don't need to go to the gym anymore if you do that every day...

I agree with Mr. Cardwell. I would also add that being in a hurry never made for superior results for me. I would imagine that you will have enough printing to do for a long time and that poorly developed film will increase the time exponentially and give poorer results.

I agree with Ms. Senft. I can develop 100 rolls of film and find it hard to get 20 really good prints in a month. Might as well do it right.

If you REALLY need to do it fast, a 3.5 gallon tank line will give you the option of 20/run. But you need lots of sink real estate.