How many films do you develop at one time?

ibcrewin · 01-13-2011

I have a 4 reel, 2 reel and 1 reel tank. If I fall behind, I go for the 4 reel tank. The one reel for one off rolls, but I use the two reel tank most often.

arunrajmohan · 01-13-2011

I have 1, 2, and 4 too. But I never process more than 2. I always feel something jinxes my films when do more than two. That is even if I have 10-15 rolls to develop.

Arun

ruby.monkey · 01-13-2011

I have tank space and hanging clips for up to four rolls of 135, or two of 120. Nowadays I tend to limit myself to two rolls at a time - having small babies in the house means that the time I can devote to developing, scanning, and post-processing, is necessarily limited.

Tom A · 01-13-2011

For the sake of consistency I always do 5 reel batches. Paterson tanks, 1500 ml of developer and 60 seconds interval agitation. With smaller tanks you most likely have to increase agitation cycles to every 30 seconds.
I like eliminating things that can affect the outcome of developing - and doing it this way I know that neither agitation nor dilution will affect how the negs turn out.
Ok, sometimes it is a bit of a chore to shoot 5 rolls - but there is usually something that I can "waste" the 5th roll on (macro, a walk to the coffee shop or just around the place I live).

drewbarb · 01-13-2011

For personal work in 35mm, I usually process four or eight rolls of 35mm at a time in one tank. Sometimes, if I have a lot of film to process I'll load two tanks and run them 60 seconds apart, so I can basically do 16 rolls of 35mm at once. Occasionally I'll process only one or two rolls at a time, but this always feels like a waste of time and chemistry.

I used to process film at a small boutique b&w lab in NYC; I now run my own small lab for some of the same clients, and my processing is done the same way. I use baskets that can process 18 rolls of 120 or 220 at a time in deep tanks. When I have big orders I will load up two of these at once and run them in succession- so that once the the first basket goes into the fix, the second goes into the developer. This means I can process up to 36 rolls of 120 or 220 in a single lights-out session which may last 45 minutes to an hour, including time to load the film.

For sheet films I have several different processes, depending upon the format and the quantity I have to process. For 4x5, I'll run 10 sheets at a time in single sheet holders in small tanks, or 24 sheets at a time, in 6 holders which each take 4 sheets at a time- these go in the same deep tanks as the medium format baskets. For film larger than 4x5, I use open trays. With 5x7 and 8x10 film, I try to limit it to no more than 6 sheets at a time in a single tray; larger films really need even fewer sheets at a time. I can process sheet film up to 20x24 inches this way- though I've found that film above 11x14 should really be done one or maybe two sheets at a time. This is slow and tedious stuff, and very expensive- but man, do they look good!

ibcrewin · 01-13-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by ruby.monkey

I have tank space and hanging clips for up to four rolls of 135, or two of 120. Nowadays I tend to limit myself to two rolls at a time - having small babies in the house means that the time I can devote to developing, scanning, and post-processing, is necessarily limited.

Oh I soo hear that! I was making prints in the basement once and I heard one of them wailing upstairs. The wife ended up getting her but it definitely throws me off.