Hangers & Tanks, Hangers & Tanks! (Film Processing)

                                                       

Ok guys, usually I'm pretty adamant about whatever system I use when processing film. Up until this past week, 8x10 film had always been processing in trays, sloshing a stack of sheets for a pre-determined amount of time. Now that x-ray film has entered the field of play, the entire game has changed! Where tray processing modern film emuslions such as Ilford HP5+ and Kodak Tri-X could afford me processing loads of up to 8 sheets, x-ray film slowed things down to a meager 1-2 sheets at a time. In turn, this lead to uneven development, inconsistent processing, and a whole lot of wasted developer. None of these things are good, to be expected, or something I can live with.

Little did I know, the most simple, elegant solution for my problem had been invented well over 50 years ago! 8x10 film hangers and tanks; those stainless steel, chemistry devouring film hangers and processing tanks were designed with thinner based, orthochromatic films in mind. Simply load the x-ray film under red safelight, place film into pre-soak for 5 minutes, semi-stand process for best compensating effect and acutance, and reap the benefits! At the moment, I'm without a stainless steel drying rack, but since the Pyrocat HD developer further tans and hardens the double-sided emulsion, after final washing, I remove the film to photo-flo and dry it in a cabinet.

So how are the results? There's still a little bit of the backlog to be uploaded to Flickr, but for now, here's a sneak peek at the works in progress.

Stay tuned for more updates on X-Ray film, B&W processing, YouTube videos, and more!