I’m helping my friend Jonathan get set up to do his own black and white film processing, so I made him a shopping list. I suggested the Jobo 2500 daylight tank because it looks good on paper, and I can’t recommend my Paterson Multi-Reel 5 Tank/Super System 4 kit.
The Paterson is a plastic tank and reel system that would be great except for the little BBs that grip the film to advance the film into the reel for loading. They’re not a problem for me with 35mm, because the film is so narrow that it’s still pretty rigid. Medium format is another story, though: if there’s even the slightest bit of moisture on the BBs, they tend to jam and not release the film while you’re loading. This means that you have to take the reel apart and start all over again, sometimes making crimping the film unavoidable, which makes a nice big white mark over your photos. What’s worse is that sometimes the BBs will fuck up the edges of the film, creating a place where it will jam almost no matter what you do. Not good.
I went over to Jonathan’s the other night to show him how to load everything up and got to play with the Jobo. Its reels adjust to accommodate 35mm, 120/220, and 127 just like the Patersons do, but they don’t have the stupid film-jamming BBs! They are larger in diameter, which may a problem for people with smaller hands, but they actually just work. No jamming, no ruined frames, just easy loading. Hell yeah!
The tank itself is nice, too. It’s part of a whole system, so you can get extension tubes should you need to increase capacity at a later date, or chop it down for smaller batches.
But wait, there’s more! There aren’t many options for daylight 4×5 processing, and as I’ve written previously in this review and follow-up, the Combi-Plan 4×5 daylight tank sucks. I’ve heard good things about the Paterson Orbital processor that does four sheets at a time and uses almost no chemistry, but they’re discontinued. Having been a UK product, they’re nearly impossible to get in the US. Jobo to the rescue again—you can get reels for 4×5! I haven’t handled them yet, but the idea of having a single, good system that can handle 135 through 4×5 is extremely appealing. I’m about to order a setup for myself and will report back on the 4×5 reels once I’ve tried them.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this thing… hopefully I’ve lost my last frame to crappy reels!
Where can a neophyte film developer like myself find one of these? The only thing I can find with that name is an auto processing system that costs several thousand dollars.
Chris,
You can get them from B&H Photo:
Jobo 2500 series tanks
Adjustable 35mm/120/220 reel
4×5 reel (holds 6 sheets)
Do you use this with the rotary processor or by hand? Seems like a stupid question but from reading your article I get the impression you are doing this by hand but Jobo’s website say’s its not suitable for this.
Sorry, I should have said something about that. It is meant to be used on a roller base ($24.50 from B&H), but I didn’t recommend that for Jonathan because he’s going to be using Diafine developer. Diafine is truly magic, but if you over-agitate, it makes film really grainy, and if you under-agitate, it makes streaks, and I was worried about the smooth rolling action not creating enough turbulence to get results he’d be happy with.
I suspect the reason they say it’s not meant to be used as an inversion tank is because it’s so wide, and would take a large volume of developer to fill. This is a problem if you’re using a one-shot developer, because you’ll use a lot of it, but if you’re re-using and have a lot of it already mixed up, it should be no problem at all.
The top does seal well and it has a funnel cap, so there’s no physical problem with inverting it.
Both the 1500 and the 2500 series Jobo reels fit 127 film.
Good catch, Alien! I updated the text with the correct info. Thanks!