Tag Archives: Jobo CPP2

Color, Darkroom, Photography

New adventure- home processing C41 color negative film

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Some of you may be aware of the recent calamity that was the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing of Calumet Photo. This hit particularly hard as they were the primary photo retailer in the Washington DC area, and my go-to shop for everything from film to lighting equipment to low-volume c41 film processing for 35mm and 120. Well, with the utterly unplanned, un-announced overnight shuttering of their stores, I was left without a convenient, quick source for processing my 120 film (there’s an excellent pro-lab here in town but between their schedule and mine, it takes about a week to turn around a roll of 120!).

As a result of that calamity, I decided it was time and invested in a film processing drum and a set of reels for my Jobo CPP2. Now I’ll not have to worry – I can run a batch whenever I feel like it, from as little as one roll up to six at a time, and it will cost me less per roll than outsourcing it. The reels are the 2502 series reels, and the tank is a 2563 tank. Jobo has a rather involved numbering scheme for their components, so I sometimes get confused trying to match everything up, especially on Ebay where you have to source your components separately. But no matter – I got all the pieces put together last night and everything matches, so I’m a happy camper. Next stop, YouTube, for some videos on how to load those 2502 reels!

Darkroom, Photography

New Fixer, and Other Darkroom Topics

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A long time ago, back when I was still printing enlarged silver gelatin prints from small negatives, I bought this multi-gallon cube of Kodak Rapid Fixer. I noticed recently that it seemed to have shiny particles in it that I couldn’t filter out, and that used fixer that should have had plenty of life left in it was silvering out on the insides of the working strength bottles I use when processing. This, combined with the sulphur smell it always had, pushed me to try a new fixer. I ordered a couple bottles of TF4 from Photographers Formulary. This stuff is a revelation – minimal odor, faster acting than Rapid Fixer, and they say on the bottle how many square inches of film one liter of fixer is good for.

And here’s a snapshot of my darkroom in action, for the curious:

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That’s the wet side, with my Jobo CPP2 processor, with the last of the b/w negatives from the San Francisco sojourn in the drum. Tomorrow starts the printing.