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A short course on product development centered around the SP-445 film tank.

So last night I started to process some film and realized that the tank I usually use was still damp. So I grabbed another from the shelf over the sink and loaded it up (using my latest dark box of course.) I filled it with SP-76EC, squeezed it and started agitating. It dripped. I re-squeezed. It still dripped. I thought about putting it back in the dark box and swapping lids but it wasn't leaking that badly, so I kept going. I figured the O-ring was worn out since it was one of the very first tanks built. (Kind of...

It's not a power washer. Some people mistakenly believe that washing film under running water is like using a power washer on their driveway. It's not. The running water is not blasting away the residual thiosulfate (fixer). The thiosulfate is actually embedded in the emulsion and can only be removed by diffusion (or dispersion, we'll let the chemists argue over the difference). While the chemistry behind this gets really complex really quickly, the concept is simple. It's more like soaking a dirty pan in the sink to remove the baked-on grease. Basically, the universe likes things in equilibrium. Thus the concentration...

Slickest way we've found yet to load the film holders.

We finally found a new hosting site; we'll see how this works out. Here are the details.