Processing time during lockdown

Prest_400 said:
At the moment I've been caught up with other obligations in life and got rather busy. Wer're not in a lockdown here so one can go out and have reduced meetings. More individual meetings lately and a different athmosphere from people.

However, I do actually still have time for some nice darkroom session but I haven't bothered dragging myself to the community darkroom.

I was given an old box of Ilford FB paper that's supposed to be fine. I want to print some family pictures and portraits on it. Perhaps during Easter, which given the strange situation, I perceive it as being erased from the calendar...

Got some film last week, as I had no BW in 35mm left, and loaded my mju I as an EDC camera.

What regime (time & agitation) did you use for this combination? I've often done HP5 at EI250-320 and Dil. E at 7:30-8 minutes. Finding HP5 flat (lighting doesn't help that too), but then I split grade print with a heavy bias towards grade 5 when I want heavier contrast.
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My recipe for HP5+ in dilution H is 15 seconds initial agitation then 2 inversions at 4 mins and 2 more at 8 mins and pour out at 12 mins. Same for Delta and Tri-X. All rated @ ei200 and developed @ 20°C. I use 500ml in a 2 reel tank and only load the top reel to avoid streaks and surge marks. Hope this helps. Ps, I think Charjohn Carter does similar.
 
John Bragg said:
I use 500ml in a 2 reel tank and only load the top reel to avoid streaks and surge marks. .........
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John,

I just want to be sure I am following this. You only load the top reel, the one that would be sitting out of the developer if the tank was sitting upright? I guess I was thinking that 500 ml in a two reel Patterson tank would contact the bottom third or so of the top reel , which would give you a big case of uneven development. But, have never looked in the tank with two reels and 500 ml inside to see where the exact level was relative to the reels.
I don’t have a huge problem, usually, with surge marks doing semi-stand development with the film in the bottom reel, but maybe I’ve been missing something.

Lovely photos of your daughter, btw.
 
I was hoping it was a stainless tank; my two-reel stainless tank is pretty much right up to the brim with two reels in it and 500ml of solution.
 
css9450 said:
I was hoping it was a stainless tank; my two-reel stainless tank is pretty much right up to the brim with two reels in it and 500ml of solution.
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Hi Larry. I once had a problem with streaking with a single reel in a double tank (Jobo, holds 500ml to the brim) . It looked like surge marks, unlikely given minimal agitation regime, but may have been bromide drag and it was very evident near the sprocket holes on the bottom. Since dilution H is very dilute, I opted to use a full 500ml and leave the bottom reel empty and the problem went away. More vigorous agitation would probably have evened it out, but that was not (and still isn't) the effect I was after. Hence to this day, as a minimalist where agitation is concerned, it has been a habit that stuck with me and I never had uneven development since.
 
John Bragg said:
Hi Larry. I once had a problem with streaking with a single reel in a double tank (Jobo, holds 500ml to the brim) . It looked like surge marks, unlikely given minimal agitation regime, but may have been bromide drag and it was very evident near the sprocket holes on the bottom. Since dilution H is very dilute, I opted to use a full 500ml and leave the bottom reel empty and the problem went away. More vigorous agitation would probably have evened it out, but that was not (and still isn't) the effect I was after. Hence to this day, as a minimalist where agitation is concerned, it has been a habit that stuck with me and I never had uneven development since.
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John,

So, in your tank (still a Jobo?, I don’t have) the upper reel is sitting completely free of the surface of the 500 ml of solution while the tank sits upright? That’s what I am trying to understand, if your developing regimen depends on developer contacting the film, then draining off and sitting there like that for a while, until you invert the tank again, after which is drains off and the film just sits above the developer for a while once more.

If you were not getting the nice results you show here, I probably wouldn’t care what you were doing:)
 
Larry Cloetta said:
John,

So, in your tank (still a Jobo?, I don’t have) the upper reel is sitting completely free of the surface of the 500 ml of solution while the tank sits upright? That’s what I am trying to understand, if your developing regimen depends on developer contacting the film, then draining off and sitting there like that for a while, until you invert the tank again, after which is drains off and the film just sits above the developer for a while once more.

If you were not getting the nice results you show here, I probably wouldn’t care what you were doing:)
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It is filled to the brim. Both reels submerged. the bottom reel only serves as a spacer and that's it.
 
John, I don't know what developer James Ravilious used, do you? Along with full tones in the shadows EI200 with HP5 or Trix he was able to get a creamy look. Maybe that was from the soft light that is in Devon. Still, I like it in my photos that I take in sunny California. I learned at little about softening my photos when I lived in Panama' there was no soft light there. It was blazing sun, or torrential downpour.
 
charjohncarter said:
John, I don't know what developer James Ravilious used, do you? Along with full tones in the shadows EI200 with HP5 or Trix he was able to get a creamy look. Maybe that was from the soft light that is in Devon. Still, I like it in my photos that I take in sunny California. I learned at little about softening my photos when I lived in Panama' there was no soft light there. It was blazing sun, or torrential downpour.
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Hi John, as I recall, James Ravillious used Perceptol, possibly 1:2 like Barry Thornton. Likely true as in later years he had to stop darkroom work and farm it out due to dermatitis. Common with Metol (Elon).
 
John Bragg said:
It is filled to the brim. Both reels submerged. the bottom reel only serves as a spacer and that's it.
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Got it, thanks. 500ml only goes about halfway up the top reel in a Patterson tank, that’s what was confusing me. It takes 600 ml to cover the top reel, and that just barely.
I’ve only ever used Patterson or steel tanks, so didn’t know the Jobo was lower capacity. That’s why I couldn’t understand how you were getting that to work.
All good now, thanks.
 
Apparently (?), Winogrand shot Tri-x predominantly at 200, but I’ve never been able to find out how exactly he was processing it. Anybody have any firm knowledge? Just curious.
 
Larry Cloetta said:
Got it, thanks. 500ml only goes about halfway up the top reel in a Patterson tank, that’s what was confusing me. It takes 600 ml to cover the top reel, and that just barely.
I’ve only ever used Patterson or steel tanks, so didn’t know the Jobo was lower capacity. That’s why I couldn’t understand how you were getting that to work.
All good now, thanks.
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A pleasure Larry. Golden rule with semi stand is use double the quantity of solution to normal in a larger tank. Espescially when very dilute dev is used.
 
I am catching up on my B&W backlog as well. I didn't realize how much there was until I started pulling it all together and found I had 91 rolls of 120 and 16 rolls of 35mm. I've moved twice in the past 2 years so some of it was moved in different places and I haven't had a lot of time to catch up - but fortunately now I do. I made it through 28 rolls last week - mostly 120 Acros in Xtol but also some 35mm Tri-X.

Most are not labelled...so it's been pretty fun to see where I've been again, oldest roll thus far was from 2017. The 35mm Tri-X is usually from an Olympus XA I keep in my pocket - and don't use it that often, so one roll had photos from Crater Lake, Oregon Caves, Redwoods, Pennsylvania, Flagstaff AZ and Angola!
 
analogangler said:
I am catching up on my B&W backlog as well. I didn't realize how much there was until I started pulling it all together and found I had 91 rolls of 120 and 16 rolls of 35mm. I've moved twice in the past 2 years so some of it was moved in different places and I haven't had a lot of time to catch up - but fortunately now I do. I made it through 28 rolls last week - mostly 120 Acros in Xtol but also some 35mm Tri-X.

Most are not labelled...so it's been pretty fun to see where I've been again, oldest roll thus far was from 2017. The 35mm Tri-X is usually from an Olympus XA I keep in my pocket - and don't use it that often, so one roll had photos from Crater Lake, Oregon Caves, Redwoods, Pennsylvania, Flagstaff AZ and Angola!
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That makes my remaining 5 rolls of 35mm a doddle in comparison then.
 
Larry Cloetta said:
Apparently (?), Winogrand shot Tri-x predominantly at 200, but I’ve never been able to find out how exactly he was processing it. Anybody have any firm knowledge? Just curious.
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Hi Larry. From what I have read, Winogrand developed by inspection. I know no more than that. I do however know that he kept exposed rolls for a considerable time before developing so as to disconnect himself from them and be able to judge the images contained in a dispassionate way.
 
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