Daylight Development Tanks - Introduction

Daylight development tanks, very convenient to film shooters, are not made any longer. That is a real pity, since those are really convenient for developing your (B&W) film w/o the need for a darkroom or even a changing bag.

In today's digital age, that means that one can shoot "full frame" (135 film that is) with moderately price to extremely inexpensive cameras, develop the film (in bright daylight, using coffee) and scan to produce the images, w/o any need for a darkroom whatsoever!

As mentioned above, daylight development tanks are not made any longer and they are more and difficult to obtain on the 2nd hand market.
Personally, I got lucky on 3 daylight development tanks, I am sure that I overpaid, but, at least I can call those mine now (in order of purchase):

• Jobo 2400
• Agfa Rondinax 35 U
• Agfa Rondix 35

Interestingly enough, all those tanks are German brands. I wonder if there were daylight development tanks of different makes too.
Concerning 120 film, I am aware of the existence of the Agfa Rondinax 60.

All three of the above 135 film tanks work on very different principles.
The Jobo 2400 and the Agfa Rondinax use reels, similar to conventional development tanks, on which the film is rolled onto. In contrast thereto, the Agfa Rondix 35 does not employ a reel at all.

In the Jobo 2400 the film is fed onto the reel in a way similar to the any other Jobo or Paterson reels, it is slid in, although, from the inside rather than the outside. At the end of the process, the film is cut from the cartridge. The advantage of the Jobo 2400 is, that it is watertight and can be used as a regular developer tank, also for stand development. Here is a video with a demonstration of the tank.

Loading the film onto the reel of the Agfa Rondinax 35 U is similar to loading a steel-reel. The film is fixed to the inner part of the real and rolled on, slightly bulged. As soon as the film is completely loaded to the reel, a knife needs to be engaged to cut the film next to the cartridge. Due to the fact that the reel is upright in the tank, the reel has to be turned at all times during processing. The Rondinax is not water-tight and therefore has to be kept upright during precessing. Check out this full tutorial.

The Agfa Rondix 35 is the most economical amongst the three, in terms of chemicals' volumes. However, when it comes to washing the film, it is the one that requires the most activity and time. The Rondix does not employ a reel, the film is wound onto itself on a spool. Agfa's advice is to actually roll the film onto the spool when there already is developer in the tank. My advice is to install the film and spool, fill the tank with developer, than close the lid and start winding the film.  The Rondix will keep you busy turning a little crank back and forth for the entire time of the processing. The cartridge will be attached to the film throughout the entire processing, this allows the reversal of the film onto itself. Actually, I use the cartridge to anchor the film for drying. The Rondix is not water-tight and therefore has to be kept upright during precessing. Again, someone else already did a video on the topic.

It is my turn now to use said tanks with alternative developers, e.g. Caffenol, and share the results.

Updated Chardonnol Recipe

Presently, the C41 film is drying.
So far, results look OK, still a little faint though.
I overexposed the film by 2 stops...

Right, here is the recipe:
1/4l Chardonnay
1 tsp ascorbic acid
3/2 tsp soda

I developed for 20 minutes, with agitation ever minute.

As soon as the film is dry, I will scan images and present those here.

Chardonnol - Chardonnay as Developer

What gave me that idea?!
Well, very simple, Dirk posted a very interesting article (and video) about developing photo-sensitive paper with red wine and some other stuff.
Have a look: http://www.caffenol.org/2012/06/20/wineol-red-wine-developer/

This inspired me to research a bit myself, which brought me to this page:
http://www.phenol-explorer.eu/contents/graph?compound_id=457&experimental_method_group_id=2&food_id=137&unit_type=weight
Interesting! It seem that chardonnay actually produces the most caffeic acid. Now you know why this white wine always caused you problems!
Don't drink it! Use it as developer!
Some more interesting reading on the topic can be found here:
http://www.skinandallergynews.com/views/cosmeceutical-critique-by-leslie-s-baumann/blog/caffeic-acid/5be431eb4418c47d008ed4d6a9534421.html

Right, let's go to my first ever experiment using chardonnay as developer:

Chardonnol

Recipe:

• 0.5l cheap Chardonnay
• 3/4 tea spoon ascorbic acid => measured pH 4
• 2 tea spoons washing soda => measure pH > 11 (maybe 1.5 tea spoons washing soda will be better)

The soup was brown by now.

X-pro development

I developed a regularly exposed Agfa vista plus ISO 200 (C41 color negative film) for 16 minutes in a Jobo Universaltank 160 Mod.4.
Agitation during the initial 30 secs, than every first 10 secs of a minute.
The result was very very faint, somewhat like the experiment I did with Caffenol-STD and a 10 minutes development (see previous post).
Here is a high contrast frame (dust in the darkroom, dust on the scanner, I even seemed to have managed to scratch the film). One image reflects the file that my Epson V370 produced, the other image was a result of playing with curves in the GIMP.

scan as created by the scanning

curves adjusted using the GIMP

Unlike with the under-developed example shown in the previous post, I was unable to recover any color information from the negative. Maybe the development was even too short for this.


I figure, Chardonnol would be a very good developer for stand development, in particular seen the fine grain it produces. Will try 45min with this recipe next.

Here is another example, low contrast now:

as scanned

curves, brightness and contrast adjusted

This time, I operated at the very limits of image reconstruction. I guess, the vertical lines are actually inside the film material, now visible due to the enormous push by the scanning software and my GIMPing.

Printing those frames (by means of an enlarger) could be a challenge. Asks for grade 5 paper, I guess.