Re: Processing 4x5 sheet film

Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Sat, 27 Jul 1996 21:41:32 -0400 (EDT)

On Sun, 28 Jul 1996 LLSFe@aol.com wrote:
> Your Jobo is probably the best solution for you. There are developers that
> are slower working but not weak that you might use. One of Ansel Adams'
> ....Best wishes,
>
> Lynn

Let me second Lynn's and John Buford's suggestions. I spent one of the
worst years of my life (relatively speaking) trying to tame Kodak
Professional Copy Film in a Jobo -- the old model, hand rotated, not with
the machine.

It isn't clear to me from Per's letter what method of rotation he's using,
but I found that the *slowest* rate by machine was about 10 times faster
than worked.

The very contrasty PCF finally performed perfectly with one rotation every
20 to 30 seconds (I'd tried as low as 45!) and a switch to Rodinal, 1 to
60 as I recall.... but we don't know what film Per is using so can't say
more there. However, a film coming out too contrasty for *cyanotype* is
pretty well up there, which does raise one other possibility -- a change of
film -- but that is almost certainly not necessary.

Well there is yet another possibility -- cyanotype gets terrifically
contrasty on certain papers. You might find one that's softer. Have you
got a densitometer, or are you reading it by step tablet? What is the
"too-contrasty" density range?

Judy