Stainless steel tanks

[ed1k]

That's a good question - I load wide stainless steel reels with 120 film without any problems, but I still cannot always do it correctly with 35mm film. I do pretty much what Mark said above but film does not always find its proper way. 120 film does find, but 35mm film sometimes get jammed near sprocket hole and slips into wrong trench.

To the original question - excuse my ignorance - but how streaks could be because of plastic reel, or how stainless steel reels can eliminate streaks... My guess is it's something wrong with stand development technique Jan practicing, not with reels.

Cheers,
Ed

 

[Al Kaplan]

You can load 35mm film by pulling out a bit at a time but I always just take the film spool out of the cassette, tear off the leader, and load! the weight of the dspool seems to help keep the filmm from snarling while I'm doing it. After it's loaded on the reel I tear the film free from the spool.

 

[hlockwood]

You can load 35mm film by pulling out a bit at a time but I always just take the film spool out of the cassette, tear off the leader, and load! the weight of the dspool seems to help keep the filmm from snarling while I'm doing it. After it's loaded on the reel I tear the film free from the spool.

That's how I do it as well. I would also caution to have throughly washed hands to avoid oil contamination on the film surface.

Harry

 

[JTK]

Loading Nikor-type reels takes a little practice. Use a dummy roll of film in daylight a few times, then do it with your eyes closed a few times...before you commit your valuable photographs 🙂

I managed a crew of 2-3 who processed around 60 rolls of ektachrome daily in deep tanks...10-15 rolls in each batch. One of those folks was a disaster with anything mechanical, but with a few practice rolls even she got totally reliable...it was the first thing she'd done well in life, several years after she got her degree in journalism 🙂

 

[imush]

As I have been trying rodinal stand development a bit lately and am getting fed up with the streaks left by my plastic reels in the Patterson tanks I would like to get me a stainless steel tank with reels.

Yes, I've been there and switched to steel, mostly. Here were my Rodinal stand dev streaks from sprocket holes in a Patterson tank (on top left, they look like poles). I never got these in steel tanks.

Just a word of caution, though. Keep in mind that the standard steel tanks are much smaller by volume than the Paterson ones, and by most users' accounts you need at least ~5ml of Rodinal per roll .

I think a single-reel steel tank is not good for Rodinal stand development because its total capacity is under 400ml. So at 1:100 you can only put in a little over 3g of Rodinal, which may not be enough . The 2-reel tank only holds ~550ml, so if you could stand-develop a single 35mm roll in it. For 1:200 you would definitely want to get a larger tank.

So I suggest getting a taller tank than you would normally need, so you can put 5ml/roll of Rodinal, especially if you ever plan to use 1:200 dilution.

And, since it would be tall and your reel is on the bottom, I would agitate once in the middle of your development, so the developer on top would mix in. I have conducted no controlled experiments to support this last suggestion, but somehow came to feel this way after a couple of rolls.

Here is a good 1:200 example.

 

[marke]

Wintoid, a question...

Wintoid, a question...

I used to use Paterson, and bought a fairly expensive Hewes SS reel for Paterson. These are different from the regular Hewes reels as they accommodate the plastic stem of the Paterson system. I'm in the UK, if you're interested in it.

Are these still 36 exp. reels? If so, the outer diameter must be larger, right?

 

[wintoid]

Yes, and yes they're larger.

 

[mh2000]

Jobo also makes "tabbed reels," these (or others) save much frustration. DON'T GET THE CHEAP ONES! I really wish that there was something similar for 120 though...

Don't start out with 36 exp rolls, much harder... they are more likely to bind up (just as in plastic reels too sometimes).

Good luck!

(Once you get used to SS reels you won't want to go back to plastic... much more elegant! )

 

[imush]

I used to use Paterson, and bought a fairly expensive Hewes SS reel for Paterson. These are different from the regular Hewes reels as they accommodate the plastic stem of the Paterson system. I'm in the UK, if you're interested in it.

I would be interested in a couple of these. How much are they?

 

[wintoid]

You can get them from here http://www.retrophotographic.com/shop/98/index.htm

 

[Honus]

... Just a word of caution, though. Keep in mind that the standard steel tanks are much smaller by volume than the Paterson ones, and by most users' accounts you need at least ~5ml of Rodinal per roll .

I think a single-reel steel tank is not good for Rodinal stand development because its total capacity is under 400ml. So at 1:100 you can only put in a little over 3g of Rodinal, which may not be enough . The 2-reel tank only holds ~550ml, so if you could stand-develop a single 35mm roll in it. For 1:200 you would definitely want to get a larger tank.

So I suggest getting a taller tank than you would normally need, so you can put 5ml/roll of Rodinal, especially if you ever plan to use 1:200 dilution. ...

I would respectfully disagree. I use a 300ml stainless steel tank and have developed many rolls with 1+100 Rodinal (3ml) without any problems. This includes stand development, usually pushing Tri-X to 1600 and developing for 2 hours.

 

[ed1k]

I absolutely agree with Robert. I keep my 450ml SS tank only for Rodinal, and develop film in 1ml of AGFA Rodinal plus 200ml of water; then SS tank is closed and put on a side for constant rotation. Yeah, it's not a stand dev... I know, but I love results. 35 min @ room temp (22-27C) is enough for 100 ISA film. The best use of Rodinal I have found so far.
Cheers,
Ed
Examples:

 

[imush]

Well, I just was not sure so never tried highly diluted Rodinal in my SS tank, thinking there may be not enough of it for the film. You proved me wrong. Did you ever do 1:200 in it?

I absolutely agree with Robert. I keep my 450ml SS tank only for Rodinal, and develop film in 1ml of AGFA Rodinal plus 200ml of water; then SS tank is closed and put on a side for constant rotation. Yeah, it's not a stand dev... I know, but I love results. 35 min @ room temp (22-27C) is enough for 100 ISA film. The best use of Rodinal I have found so far.
Cheers,
Ed

Pray elaborate more on this method. How do you rotate? At what speed? Surely not rolling it by hand for 35 minutes? The pictures look remarkable indeed.

 

[visiondr]

One thing that I've noticed that you might want to keep in mind. I use only steel tanks and the ones with the stainless lids (some have plastic lids) have one annoying problem. If you, like me, dislodge air bubbles during the initial agitation sequence by rapping the tank down onto something hard, you might have a problem taking the lid off when the time comes! I've had it jammed on so tight I had to use a screwdriver to pry the lid off. So, don't rap downwards if your tank has a steel lid. Rap it sideways against something.