Austerby
Well-known
I'm just getting into LF, making tentative steps first with my Harman Titan pinhole camera. I've used the tortilla method in past to develop 5x4 negatives (loosely folding them over and securing them with hairbands and placing them in a Paterson tank).
Since then I ordered a MOD54 insert (http://www.mod54.com) as I thought it looked like a good idea. It arrived this week and I was out in the snow with the Titan this morning taking a number of shots and returned with an opportunity to use the holder for the first time.
I have a Calument pop-up changing tent so placed everything inside (three double darkslides, the large Paterson tank with column insert and funnel lid) and stuck my hands in to get loading.
It was definitely trickier than I was expecting, but then I'm just getting used to feeling my way around darkslides in the dark, and I did find it difficult to be sure whether the films were loaded properly. I did get all six negatives out of the darkslides and onto the MOD54 then into the tank.
In development I was careful with the agitation, certainly not as strongly inverting the tank as I'm used to with 35mm or 120.
The key test was after processing, when I opened the lid. One neg had detached itself and remained in the tank when I pulled the MOD54 out. The others were more or less neatly in situ. On inspection, two of the negs had clearly been improperly positioned and there's an undeveloped corner on one. Another has a bit of emulsion missing, which must have been down to mishandling during loading.
So, overall, given that I'm a newbie when it comes to this sort of thing, I'd say I'm very impressed with the MOD54. It enables me to use my existing tanks for a new format, it will take some experience to learn to load properly (as has 35mm and 120), and it holds up to the processing well.
Since then I ordered a MOD54 insert (http://www.mod54.com) as I thought it looked like a good idea. It arrived this week and I was out in the snow with the Titan this morning taking a number of shots and returned with an opportunity to use the holder for the first time.
I have a Calument pop-up changing tent so placed everything inside (three double darkslides, the large Paterson tank with column insert and funnel lid) and stuck my hands in to get loading.
It was definitely trickier than I was expecting, but then I'm just getting used to feeling my way around darkslides in the dark, and I did find it difficult to be sure whether the films were loaded properly. I did get all six negatives out of the darkslides and onto the MOD54 then into the tank.
In development I was careful with the agitation, certainly not as strongly inverting the tank as I'm used to with 35mm or 120.
The key test was after processing, when I opened the lid. One neg had detached itself and remained in the tank when I pulled the MOD54 out. The others were more or less neatly in situ. On inspection, two of the negs had clearly been improperly positioned and there's an undeveloped corner on one. Another has a bit of emulsion missing, which must have been down to mishandling during loading.
So, overall, given that I'm a newbie when it comes to this sort of thing, I'd say I'm very impressed with the MOD54. It enables me to use my existing tanks for a new format, it will take some experience to learn to load properly (as has 35mm and 120), and it holds up to the processing well.
