Sheet Film Processing

The time has come for me to develop my own 4x5 sheet film, lately I have been getting varying results back from the lab I use and I can't be sure whether its me or them that's producing them so if I keep everything in house I should be able exact some control over the process.

I have acquired a Paterson orbital processor that I have modified to process the film in. I have seen some articles on the net about doing this and some seem to be of the opinion that you need to scuff the bottom of the processor to stop the film sticking to it or you need to apply some resin to lift the film slightly of the bottom, I have gone for both methods, erring on the side that maybe there is merit in both techniques and a mix of the two will be the best option.

 The Above image shows the complete unit and base

As you can see from this image I have scuffed up the bottom using a Dremel multi tool then added resin in the base to slightly lift the film off the surface, I went for a combination of spots and lines to see if either was better than the other and have found out that either work as long as the film is supported all the way round IE the top r/h one in the image needs some additional blobs of resin added to it to support the outside of the film and the one below it could do with a blob in the middle.

The advantage of this system is that you use far less chemical stock than the traditional tanks and it can be loaded in a changing bag and processed in daylight. I am using 200ml of solution which I think is plenty although I have heard of people using 150ml or less. I am still in the testing stage at the moment but so far I am impressed with the results, the tank just needs a few tweaks and it will be there.