[LargeFormat] A daylight tank for 4x5

[Guy Glorieux]

Gareth,
I use a tubular metal 4x5 daylight developing tank with a cap on top.  It
looks a lot like the metal tanks for 35mm or 120 but bigger to fit a dozen
4x5 sheets.

I don't know who manufactures them and I have not seen any in stores, but
they come up once in a while on eBay, where I found mine.  They are a bit
tricky to load at first, but when you get used to, it's a piece of cake,
even with a changing bag.

The real trick is when it comes to pouring the chemical into the tank.  I
find that the "mouth" of the tank is not well designed.  You need to put
almost a liter of stuff into it, quick, (and simultaneously let the
corresponding amount of air flow out), otherwise the processing will be
uneven. So what I do is I prepare 1 1/2 liter of chemical, place the tank in
a tray, pour as quickly as I can without beeing sloppy and recuperate the
overflow from the tray which I  pour once again into the tank until I know
that the tank is full.  This can take about 1 minute and you must agitate in
the course of doing this.   Again, practice is the name of the game.  The
results are IMHO as good as tray processing.

I've also used the square boxes (don't know the name either), but I've had
no success with them.  They leak the chemical and are not easy to load, if I
remember well.

Best,

Guy Glorieux
Montreal, Canada

Gareth Rees wrote:

> All (except Clive - who wants me to tray process),
>
> Anyone with any experience of dev tanks for 4x5 negs. I'm somewhat
> challenged in the darkroom department and want a daylight tank so that I
> can do the business in a dark-bag. I tried using my existing 35mm Jobo
> tank but this (rather anoyingly) crushes the film as the tank is a bit
> less than 4 inches tall.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Reagrds
>
> Gareth Rees
>
> --
> e-mail: gareth-s.rees@baesystems.com
>
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