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Roll film tanks and reels. Room to move?


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I just bought an entire arsenal of roll film tanks, so that I can

water jacket my whole develpment process. One of these four reel

tanks is made by Brooks and holds an even liter of developer. So if,

as I'm choosing to do, I endulge Rodinals claim of needing 10ml of

dev. per roll, I can do one roll 1+100, or two rolls 1+50 perfectly.

The only thing about this tank is that there is about 3/4 of an inch

of space on top of the reels, so during inversion the reels will move

quite a bit more than with normal Nikkor tanks. Placing two 120 reels

on top of one 135 reel solves the "problem", but doesn't help me if I

want to run two 35mm rolls. <p>I have one old Nikkor tank that has

reels that have little rods that stick up and contact the lid. This

keeps the reels from moving in the tank. So someone must have thought

this a problem. <p>On a similar note: does anyone agitate by lifting

and replacing, with roll film tanks?

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Once you have pulled the film out of the 35mm cassette, the cassette makes a find and dandy spacer for any size space (up to the diameter of the cassette).

 

That's how I've been doing it for 20 years. Pull cap off cassette, take out film, pull other cap off, bend cassette to proper thickens, load film on reel insert reel, insert cassette 'spring', put cover on.

 

No movement.

 

And no, I use a twist and turn invert motion, with a quarter turn every inversion. (Unless I am developing Tri-X where I use a continuous random agitation method I learned in photo school)

 

tim in san jose

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It has been my experience with all things photographic that consistency is infinitely more important than accuracy.

 

Tall tanks like Brooks and Kindermann allow more movement which produces more development action than shorter tanks like Nikor. Just stick with one brand of tank and your results will be consistent.

 

I have always used a covered stainless tank with inversion agitation for the developer and open beakers with a lifting motion for stop and fixer. It has always worked perfectly. Problems associated with pouring things in and out of that little hole in the lid are eliminated.

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Marcus,

 

I was surprised to hear the figure of 10ml of Rodinal as a minimum necessary to process a roll of film. I�ve successfully processed scores of rolls of film using 6ml per roll. I use 6ml of Rodinal to 300ml of water per reel of 35 mm film. Works great.

 

Cheers,

 

Joe Stephenson

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I always fill my tank with the correct number of reels even if I am developing less tha the capacity of the tank. In other words, if I develop 1 roll in a 2 reel tank I always use 2 reels. I have read that one reel sliding up & down can enhance development but in my personal experience, it dosen't work. Try it, your results may differ. I always fill the tank with the maximum solution required to fill the tank as well. This is the way I've been doing it for 40+ years. If it ain't broke don't fix it!
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  • 2 weeks later...
I would be skeptical of Rodinal's figures for the minimum developer needed to develop a roll. Years ago in the military we would put two rolls of Ektachrome on a Nikor reel (emulson-side out) and develop 8 rolls in a four-roll tank using standard development times (E4). I usually fill the tank with empty reels so the film reel can't slide up and down. I would think such a motion could run the rish of causing uneven delelopment.
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