Deep Tank Mayhem

[stuart_todd]

Hello one and all,

 

Sick of having to develop one 120 film at a time in my standard 35mm

developing tank, I went out and acquired a Patterson Deep Tank (5x

35mm or 3x 120). However when I decided to develop my first two rolls

of film, the question I should have asked when I bought it or even

before I used it is: How do you agitate the blasted thing/tank?

It's just so big and when you do invert it, you hear the all the

chemicals rushing around inside making me think of horrible horrible

dark streaks on my film. Also regarding agitation/inversion, five

seconds takes one full _gentle_ inversion, where on the smaller tank

it would take two. Would I still have to do two full inversions for

large tank or do I stick to five seconds agitation has developer says?

 

Regards,

 

Stu :)

[ann_clancy3]

We use these all the time in class. We are inverting one time every 30 secs. We have never had any problems with streaking? When developing 2 rolls of 120 , i would add the third reel anyway. It will help in keeping the others stable.

[ann_clancy3]

Am sorry, forgot the agitation method. Invert and twist , invert back to an upright position with a twist as you invert. Basically the same manner as the small tank.

[david_goldfarb]

As Ann says, there's nothing exotic about it. Fill up any empty space with empty reels so the reels don't move around and agitate normally. My biggest tank holds 6x120 reels (stainless).

 

It's odd that Paterson calls their 5-reel tank a "deep tank", which usually refers to a large rectangular tank with a steel cage that can hold 20 or more 35mm reels. Agitation is done by raising and lowering the cage.

[peter_witkop]

One thing I have noticed about processing large tanks, like a the one mentioned here, or a jobo 4x5 tank ( 44oz of chem when processing by hand) is it's great upper body exersise :o)

[chris_waller]

Try the Paterson 12-reel tank! A few weeks with that and you'll have shoulders like Arnie Schwarznegger! The gurgling is nothing to worry about. I use a Paterson 5-reel tank and give one inversion every 30 seconds (or once per minute if my dev times are over 10 minutes). Just put one hand over the cap and one hand underneath, get a good grip and invert. The more the liquid sloshes around inside the less chance you have of streaking. I count it out, "invert, 2, 3, 4, return".

[stuart_todd]

Thanks to all for your answers. I've used it two more times now and gurgling noises are something I'm going to have to put up with, processing and paranoia is a great mix. Although the using an extra reel or two does quieten down the chemicals a tad.

However the results are same has my small tank, but two to three times faster due to fact I'm doing multiple films, instead one at a time.

On response to the body building side of it... I thought that's what 4x5's and Mamiya RZ's where for???

 

Stu :)