Re: [Leica] Agitation-especially LONG

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabiner.cncoffice.com>]

Marks Rock and Roll:
John I bet other people here have informed agitation opinions based on much
trial and error and reading as myself. 
You've heard of Suddenly Susan????? Well this is Especially Agitation!!!! 

I adjust my water so it is coming out at 70 degrees and pour it into my metal
tank through the plastic lid to start to presoak.  
This is a two liter tank as often as it is a one liter tank. 
I put on my nice French Rubber Gloves! (says made in France)

While my negs are thus soaking I mix up my Xtol ...and I of course check the
temperature to make sure it's at 70 degrees after it's mixed up. 

I'll add a spligit of hot water to it if it's too cool or an ice cube to it if
it is too hot. 
I use masking tape on my rubber lid to make sure it does not fall off. (See
Rolling) 

I flip my tank upside down and lean it up against the corner of my Wetsink
untill it drains by itself. 

I set my big glow in the dark timer (which fogs my negs I'm sure). Start the
time and pour. Don't get confused. The lights are on!

It takes my big tank about 30 seconds to get filled through the lid and I
agitate the rest of the minute.
	Many hard core darkroom people I know say turn off the lights and lower the
reels in with rods for the most effecent and quick introduction of chemical to
the film. I did it this way working in a custom lab. But Life is too short,
those rubber lids work much better than those old metal ones did!

All kinds of good people will tell you not to roll your tank and roll the tank
is exactly what I do on my wet sink not too fast.
I watch my tank roll down my sink for a couple of feet sometimes. Gravity
agitation I'm going to patent it!

For that end of the first minute I'm introducing developer into the presoaked
film and I feel rolling the tank for the last part of that first minute is the
best way to do efficiently do this. The developer goes shooting through the
spirals of the reels like it wants to do. 
Replacing water soaked negs with developer soaked negs through infiltration or diffusion.

I don't bang my tank down like I used to and many people do because I don't ever
have any problem with air bubbles. Ever. Which I attribute to the presoak. If I
dont' presoak I'm gonna get air bubbles. If it do, I don't.
And I redid my whole sink in the last few years and I don't feel like banging a
big heavy metal tank on it. Makes dents in epoxy coated marine plywood.
And it disturbs my Elgar. Too loud!

So for a minute my tank sits there on my wet sink. I'm sure I once went through
a period where I would put the tank into a water jacket with my 2 liter stop and
fix containers. (Rubbermaid)
But no longer. My Darkroom is 72 degrees. Two degrees warmer than I want my
standing liquids to be. That's the way that works.

My first agitation will be the way they teach it at Brooks (my friend Ken who
went there and confirmed this to me) You invert the tank at a moderate speed
twisting as  you invert and quickly flip back twisting again. You visualize the
liquid standing still and the tank moving around the liquid. I do this for 5 or
10 seconds (depending on how exciting the music is) and put the tank down again.
But it's of course it's best to be consistent so don't use music as a metronome
unless you always listen to the same tape every time you run film. (The
Sorcerers Apprentice?)

But the next minute just to keep things interesting I don't agitate the same
way: the brooks inversion way. I roll instead.
I alternate rolling with inverting every other minute. I figure I get the best
and worst of both worlds this way.
I have severe doubts about how much good inverting a tall two liter tank is
going to do. It's too tall. I don't think the chemistry agitates very well.
But rolling will do the same job in a short tank as a tall tank. So that
introduces some consistency there.
And what do Jobo's do? They roll I think. And they are taking over the world
like Starbucks. So rolling so it cant be so terrible. And as I've run thousands
of rolls of film this way I guess it must work.
I think it's always great if you can leaving a blank reel at the bottom but a
space at the top so the reels can move back and forth in the tank I have severe
mixed feelings about. You don't want those posts which hold the reels together
on the reel to leave a mark on your film. Especially if you were shooting with
the Hasselblad/Fuji XPAN! So I don't do that so often.
Well that fills up the page! Hope this doesn't make anyone too agitated!
Mark Rabiner
If you think of inverting as rocking than I "Rock and Roll"! Despite Elgar.