These are some notes I have been sharing with some folks on f295 on how I develop large format film in a daylight tank. I’m not currently equipped to do tray development of sheet films, nor am I especially motivated to try it. So I use the equipment I have — stainless steel tanks (I do have one Paterson tank, but have not tried it for this) — and it seems to go pretty well. You need at least a 32 oz tank for this, and my instructions may need adjustment if you use a larger one, especially as regards keeping the film in the soup when you invert the tank.
It’s pretty simple. Read through the steps before trying it, just to get a sense of the flow, and by all means try it with some expired sheet film to see how they fit in the tank.
I have a big changing bag, so I take my film holders, my tank, and some rubber bands in there. I wrap the rubber bands around the palm of my hand, just up to my thumb. This makes it easy to get them off when you gently bend the film.
I take the film out of the holder, gently bend it in half the long way (so the 4 inch-wise edges touch) and gently slip a rubber band around it to keep it folded. Did I mention doing this gently?
Put it in the tank and keep going. As you get more sheets in there — four or more — you will need to work them around a bit to get them in there.
You can get at least 4 in there, perhaps 6 (especially if you folded them across the 4 inch axis).
What I am finding is that they ride up in the tank sometimes and the rubber bands keep them from dropping back down when I invert the tank during agitation. Your development will be uneven if that happens. I put a 35mm reel on top of the sheets when I did this last night and it worked fine with 6 sheets.
Simple as that. I then take the sealed tank out and process it like anything else.
Works just fine. The tricky part has been getting the right amount of soup in there: I have underestimated it a couple of times and ended with negs that are underdeveloped on one end. 800 ml is the right amount: with a D-76 solution at 1:3, I only use 200 ml of stock developer for 4-6 sheets. Questions? Leave a comment.
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