Question about developing sheet film

Pirate

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I've seen a YouTube on developing sheet film that was pretty good, but this part was never addressed:

At what stage does the paper backing come off?
 
Ok, and while I'm on this topic, do you develop Emulsion side Up or Down?

I'm about to head out with my 3x4 Speed Graphic and find something to shoot so I can experiment with developing this stuff. Should be back in a few hours.

P^)
 
The paper 'backing' is there to separate the sheets and stop then scratching one another. Throw it away as you load the holders - or, as you've already loaded them, as soon as you unload.

Develop emulsion up.

Cheers,

R.
 
The paper backing doesn't come peel off, from the looks of it. These things are just like a printed photo, glossy on one side and papery on the other. I know it has to separate or you get a negative out of it.
 
The paper backing doesn't come peel off, from the looks of it. These things are just like a printed photo, glossy on one side and papery on the other. I know it has to separate or you get a negative out of it.

What type of film are you using?

From your description above this sounds more like printing paper, rather than film.

John
 
Nevermind, the film I'm using doesn't have the paper back. I pulled one out of the box and sacrificed it in the name of learning. The film holders I got for this camera (James....) still had sheets of film in them and they have a stiff type of paper backing. The film I'm using now is just like standard 135 film, so no back to worry about, just the standard emulsion/non-emulsion sides.
 
It was film that was loaded into the holders, I wonder maybe if it was "instant" film of some type?

The film I'm using now is efke and it's normal film like I'm used to dealing with. I have 8 shots from this afternoon I'm going to try the developing out tonight on them. Nothing fabulous and it's from a close location I can re-shoot anytime, so nothing lost if I screw it up.
 
I'm curious what the stuff in the film-holders was. Are there any manufacturers names or emulsion numbers on it ? Could it be that someone had previously loaded paper in there for pinhole contact-negs or something like that ?

An alternative to the deep-tanks (15 litres) I used decades ago, or expensive new tanks, it may be more convenient to use paper developing trays and 'slosher' frames to keep the film organised and scratch-free in total darkness. I found this worked better for me than manual shuffling (but I only tried that once, oops).

The ones I made are similar to this http://philbard.com/panel.html though I used studding rather than bolts, and added handles from stainless steel wire. The idea is simple and cheap, no serious precision, needing no permanent darkroom-sink but does require darkness of course.
 
no names on anything but I bought it off one of the guys here. I was hoping he might pop his head in, but I'll email him and ask what it was.

I'll make or buy something good later. For this right now, just learning it, I'm using tuperware from the store. The size is perfect and I'll be using the batch that I'm doing my roll of 135 with when I done, so nothing wasted.

I'm off to start things up, I'll be back to post in an hour or so.
 
Ok, the roll of 135 Rollei Pan 25 is done. I couldn't find the right time to use for the developer so, going by some other 25's, I went with 12min 30sec... ish.

The negs look cool, but there are places I can see what looks like... well, when you put too much paint on the side of the house and it start to run a little bit.... yeah, that's what it looks like happened to the negative. Did I burn it maybe with too much time? It looks really great though. Guess we'll find out Tuesday when I scan it and reverse it to see it correctly.

I'm off to do the sheet film now. Back in a bit.
 
Ok, the sheet film is done.

Same thing happened, looks like something melted them and they started to run a little. The pictures are great, no distortion, but something was wrong. No idea what stage it could have been in as I'm still too new at this, but I'll figure it out. Tuesday I see my photographer buddy again and he'll know what I messed up. But the pictures came out great, other than a lot of scratching. Have to work on that. Bigger trays for sure. I was doing 8 sheets this time, in a small tray. I'll get bigger, proper trays soon. I like this stuff, and even though it's only 3x4, this large format stuff is a kick!
 
Sounds like a good first time with sheet film, as you're both positive and enthusiastic !

The slosher device (widely used, not my idea) shown in the link in my post 12, above, means you can develop in paper trays without the sheets hitting each other and without requiring direct handling of the wet film during processing. That would be especially useful with Efke film which has unhardened emulsion and is reputedly (I say that as I haven't used Efke sheets myself) fairly delicate when wet - this could be a reason for the deformation of the emulsion during handling. There are a few threads over at APUG which have details of the slosher method.

Presumably the 135 film was developed in the usual sort of daylight-tank (Paterson etc.) ? Was the temperature 20C for all the solutions ? With the warm weather we've been having it is even possible that the water coming out of your cold tap is warmer than that. At that point, putting the small processing tray/tank inside a bigger tray, or bowl, filled with water at the 'right' temperature will help to keep the temps on target for long enough to do the processing. Big changes between dev, stop, fix and wash can obviously also damage the emulsion, due to it shrinking and expanding at a slightly different rate to the filmbase.
 
Interesting.

The unhardened emulsion sounds right for what I was seeing, it makes sense to me. The Efke and Rollei are both made out here, one in Czech and one in Croatia if I'm not mistaken, so they could both suffer from that.

Here's the Tank I'm using:
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/5041-...el-Developing-Tank-with-two-reels?cat_id=1603

I love this little thing, it's easy and great to handle.

My temps are all right at 21c, I've measured them and checked the charts. That last two rolls (the first two rolls) I developed came out good with even temps the same is this roll. -- The sheets I developed in the bathroom (improvised dark room as there are no windows) and it was a slight bit warmer, but the 135 roll did the same thing, so I'm pretty certain the temp did not effect anything currently. I think I overdid the wash. I'm going to try another roll tomorrow and just use water for the final wash and see if that makes a difference.

Man, looking at this 135 roll on the light box with my 8x loupe, I'm way impressed! I can't wait to scan some of these and even print a few to really see how they came out. I might have to buy stock in this film! If you havn't tried it, I'd recommend it, at least for one or two rolls. I want to try a roll in my Nikon next to see what my F5 can do with it. This roll was shot in my Leica M3 with Voigtlander 50 F1.1 lens.

Tuesday, plan on seeing some scans.

That Efke sheet film really did scratch easily and I know a lot of that was my untrained technique, so I'm not too worried about that part. I might shoot a couple more of these tomorrow too, and develop them after the 135 to simulate the process I did today, and see if changing the wash to just water will fix the sheets and 135. We'll find out tomorrow.
 
Did you use an acid stop bath before the fixer, or plain water?

...I might shoot a couple more of these tomorrow too, and develop them after the 135 to simulate the process I did today, and see if changing the wash to just water will fix the sheets and 135. We'll find out tomorrow.
What solution did you use for washing, if not just plain water?
 
Ilford Microphen developer
Ilford Ilfostop stop-bath (30 seconds)
Tetenal Fixer (4 minutes)
F905 washer - (no normal style brand name) just a drop is supposed to make the water roll off the neg. Isn't working real well so I added a few more drops this batch. Might have put in too much so I'll just do the water here tomorrow.
 
...
F905 washer - (no normal style brand name) just a drop is supposed to make the water roll off the neg. Isn't working real well so I added a few more drops this batch. Might have put in too much so I'll just do the water here tomorrow.

If it's a non-sudsing detergent like Kodak Photoflo, then try 5 mL per liter of distilled water.
 
The paper backing doesn't come peel off, from the looks of it. These things are just like a printed photo, glossy on one side and papery on the other. I know it has to separate or you get a negative out of it.

Often people will put printing paper in view cameras to make "paper negatives", which then get contact printed (emulsion sides together) to make prints. There are also papers which develop into positives, which also are often used in large format cameras. These make a print directly.
 
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