[lithedreamer]

Wow. Don't blast that into a bottle of developer. Don't, just don't. Most canned "air" is something like difluroethane, sure its more dense than air at STP, and generally non-reactive, but considering the trouble one would have to go to top of a bottle with it in a way where you could be sure you were actually excluding the oxygen in the room, it seems unnecessary. Not to mention the potential of blasting developer out of the bottle and all over the room if you squeeze the trigger a touch to hard.

But then I never understood the appeal of accordion bottles either, at least not when $5.00 will buy a few hundred glass marbles.

I think I'm going to have to concur...

[Wheatfield]

Wow. Don't blast that into a bottle of developer. Don't, just don't. Most canned "air" is something like difluroethane, sure its more dense than air at STP, and generally non-reactive, but considering the trouble one would have to go to top of a bottle with it in a way where you could be sure you were actually excluding the oxygen in the room, it seems unnecessary. Not to mention the potential of blasting developer out of the bottle and all over the room if you squeeze the trigger a touch to hard.

But then I never understood the appeal of accordion bottles either, at least not when $5.00 will buy a few hundred glass marbles.

What a pile of dung. You don't have to exclude the air, you need a layer of gas on top of the developer, nothing more. This is a technique I used for some 4 decades in the darkroom to extend the life of developers. It's safe, it's efficient, and it works.
You seem to think that the only way to use canned gas is a full strength blast.
You are ignorant, very ignorant.
And you are giving bad advice on the internet.
Don't ever try to day ANYTHING that requires even a remotely gentle touch. You sound like you don't have the self control for it.
Man, oh man, there is nothing like a good dose of hysteria on the internet.

[Jlnk]

I don't know why you think it's bad advice.

I would say that the method falls into the category of unnecessary potential hazard. The primary reason is because we're dealing with "canned gas". It's similar to advising people to use "a solvent". Telling someone to use "a solvent" in a particular situation is potentially hazardous; telling someone to use xylene is as well but then one is dealing with a limited and specifc range of hazards.

Oh and the GHS (new standard replacement for MSDS) for some common canned air dusters advise keeping it out of contact with alkali materials, like say, the strong base (pH 10) of c-41 developer. But whatever, who am I to advise against needless risk.

At this point it's sort of moot, I'll leave you all to your own devices. Bye-bye.

[Jamey777]

Just use soda bottles and squeeze the air out...

i have used the 1L press kits since 2013 with no problems. I do keep them in the dark, at room temp. I was developing rolls 19 & 20 after 11-13 months.... you just have to extend the dev time.

Keep good records and then you know what you can get away with for the next press kit...

[jcdoss]

Keep good records and then you know what you can get away with for the next press kit...

I've developed a few films... mostly B/W, and I'd like to see a tutorial that shows clear differences between poorly shot and poorly developed frames. How do I know I need to extend dev time versus I just screwed up the shot?

[Jamey777]

an underexposed shot is pretty obvious in my mind.... if you aren't developing enough things will look 'flat' and not very contrasty.... if your chems really go bad i have heard you will get color shifts but i never experienced that.

here are a few examples of some tetenal press kits I did that turned out well:

rolls 19-22 4:45
rolls 14-18 4:30
rolls 11-13 4:15
etc
roll one was of course the recommended time 3:30

the worst thing that can happen if you overdevelop is more contrast, so no big deal for me as I like that look.

make sure you have your temps correct and it really is pretty forgiving time-wise.

good luck

[PGillin]

OK, so I was coming here to ask exactly the OP's question, plus one more.

How much of a pain is it to develop color PRINTS?
I've done it before, using a machine to develop, but I've just found two perfectly good color enlargers in a secondary darkroom at my uni. Being in the darkroom club, and knowing how absolutely gorgeous wet-printed superia 1600 is....
Well I want to give it a go and I'm figuring as a club we have enough people to make the chemistry economical.

[lithedreamer]

OK, so I was coming here to ask exactly the OP's question, plus one more.

How much of a pain is it to develop color PRINTS?
I've done it before, using a machine to develop, but I've just found two perfectly good color enlargers in a secondary darkroom at my uni. Being in the darkroom club, and knowing how absolutely gorgeous wet-printed superia 1600 is....
Well I want to give it a go and I'm figuring as a club we have enough people to make the chemistry economical.

I looked into this because I was trying to decide whether to go for the K-1 or an enlarger. This is by far the best article I found on the topic.

[Digitalis]

You don't have to exclude the air, you need a layer of gas on top of the developer, nothing more.

I drop a small pellet of dry ice in my developer which almost instantaneously sublimates, displacing air and creating a thin layer of inert CO2 gas by the time I put the cap on.

[Eagle94VT]

OK, so I was coming here to ask exactly the OP's question, plus one more.

How much of a pain is it to develop color PRINTS?
I've done it before, using a machine to develop, but I've just found two perfectly good color enlargers in a secondary darkroom at my uni. Being in the darkroom club, and knowing how absolutely gorgeous wet-printed superia 1600 is....
Well I want to give it a go and I'm figuring as a club we have enough people to make the chemistry economical.

PGillin - if you learn how to develop color prints let me know. I haven't had the time to dig into it, but about 8 yrs ago I bought an entire darkroom from a person for $200 - which included a color enlarger. It sounds more time consuming - but the chemistry is interesting.

[PGillin]

PGillin - if you learn how to develop color prints let me know. I haven't had the time to dig into it, but about 8 yrs ago I bought an entire darkroom from a person for $200 - which included a color enlarger. It sounds more time consuming - but the chemistry is interesting.

It's definitely more finnicky than B&W. I've done it, in the FIU darkroom, but we had a developing machine for the prints, just slide them in one end and about 5 minutes later you have a complete, dry print at the other. Don't know how it would go with trays. I'm going to look into it this week and will def. let you know how it goes if we try it.

[Eagle94VT]

Whats everyone's consensus on when to "start the clock" when developing C41 at home? I developed 4 rolls at once in a tall steel cylinder - and boy did it fill slowly - the film at the bottom vs the film at the top were off by a good 20-30 sec. Almost a 20% difference in the solutions.

[lithedreamer]

Whats everyone's consensus on when to "start the clock" when developing C41 at home? I developed 4 rolls at once in a tall steel cylinder - and boy did it fill slowly - the film at the bottom vs the film at the top were off by a good 20-30 sec. Almost a 20% difference in the solutions.

I only use two reel canisters, but I'd still hold off on starting the timer until the canister is full.

[wombat2go]

Whats everyone's consensus on when to "start the clock" when developing C41 at home?

I use wide mouth Ball jars for quick fill/empty.
The old type stopwatch is started at end of fill and timed to the start of empty.
Here are my times
Pre 3 m
Dev 3m 15s
Bl 4m
Fix 5m
Rinse 0m 30 s
Sta 1m 10
(Slow inversions for first 20~30 sec and one slow inversion each 30 sec thereafter)
These days I change the Pre, Rinse and Sta after about each 3 rolls.
These are only water anyway plus a small amount of Sta. That seems to help reduce sticky water droplets.

[Eagle94VT]

Thanks for the input! I'll give that a go