Your tricks for developing a lot of films?

[Martin Aislabie]

My take on this is - Photography is fun – it’s your hobby - take your time & enjoy it

I used to come back from a photographic holiday with lots and lots of rolls of film.

I invested in some tanks that would take 5 x 35mm reels and the corresponding number of reels

I could carefully dev 4 tanks worth of film per night.

A few nights in the darkroom - and hey I'm done.

Alternatively, I could have cut corners, got sloppy on developer start temp, stayed up really late, rushed around like a headless chicken and generally beaten myself up to get finished faster - but for what?

This is my hobby - this is what I do for fun - I only do it because I enjoy it - all of it.

If you don't think you are making enough progress with your rate of film processing then there are two alternatives

1) Get your film developed commercially

2) Invest in more kit to process more films at a time.

A couple of things to consider if you plan on processing lots more films at a time

Developing Tanks full of chemicals are quite heavy - particularly by then end of an evenings processing

You need to be really precise with your time/temperature/agitation when processing large batches - as you have the opportunity to screw up lots of film in one go

Martin

 

[Murray Kelly]

You have a LOT of films! Could you give the reels a dunk in alcohol to remove any water, then dry that with a hair drier on zero heat? Some hiardryers will let you just blow air. Stay away from the heat - I have seen some reels buckle when subjected to even mild warming.

The alcohol doesn't need to be ditched every time - just get rid of as much water as you can each time so's the carried over water doesn't dilute it too much.

Murray

 

[dpurdy]

I can dry a stainless steel reel with a towel in about 10 seconds. How much time can you save?
Dennis

 

[removed account4]

df is on the money!

it takes time and experience through experimentation
to figure out what will work for you.

in the end it won't take too long
to trudge your way through all that film
...

i have a method i use when i return from a trip with 60 rolls of film to process ..
i have 4 tubes i load with film in reels, and let stand. if i have to agitate
i start each film tube 1.25 min or 2.25 mins after eachother so i can just keep agitating
until i can stop.
if you want to do deep tanks,
go to something like the family dollar and buy cheep tupperware containers,
they hold a gallon+ .
you can load your film on reels, and bend a coathanger to string your reels onto and do
your agitating that way. it will take a little experimenting to know how much you need to lift+drop your
film so you won't be over agitating ( easy to do in a deep tank ) your film.

after it is all said and don't just process a few rolls every once in a while and you will be done before you know it ...

good luck!

john

 

[streetshot]

One more for DF...right on.

I shoot a lot and pay the price when lab time comes. A schedule of developing film once a week - on the same day - has worked for me. Of course the exigencies of life and availablity of sun in the Northeast can compete with this but I find I need to have some version of a plan so it doesn't get out of control...which it will and way too often. When I have a lot of film to develop I use 4 - 8-reel tanks (35mm), load them all at once then process each tank one at a time. To do all 32 rolls takes about 2.5 hours spool-to-hang dry. I can do this twice in a day. At 64 rolls a day I can get caught up quickly.

The process of starting tanks in timed sequence has never worked for me, perhaps getting several film washers might work but its a lot to have going on with these tall tanks.

Guillaume is right, it is a cool workout - I've saved on a gym membership.

Happy new year!

Michael