FWIW I'd pay £199. Any higher and other systems come into play. It's going to take a while to recoup the unit cost in chemical savings. Although definitely a greener option. Did you experience any surge development issues?
I think the idea with placing it vertically is that you can put the whole thing in a Sous vide with controlled temperature water and get temperature control that way
Yeah, I'm just not sure I see the value then. For colour neg using a swizzle stick by hand like that isn't a big deal for 3-4 minutes (E-6 would be a different story) and for B&W there are other ways to achieve automated agitation. Like I said it is an option, but I just don't think it's where the benefits of the product shine.
@@Shaka1277 im not sure either, but the main benefit from how I understand to using it horizontally is the thermometer, which you wouldn’t need anyway. Idk if it’s worth 450€ for that tho
Great videos as usual, as someone who develops black-and-white regularly but still hasn’t developed C41 at home yet due to the intimidation of chemical temperatures, etc. The option to just pouring chemicals and let the machine do The math is very appealing, sometimes convenience is worth the money, that being said, I’d love to see a video or at least hear from you what options there are for beginners for a more automated pain-free experience when developing C41
I think you would be better off using a water bath at the correct temperature and a sealed cap on the tank. The development times are not so long that you can't do it by hand. Most of the pain is loading the film in the dark, washing the film and waiting for it to dry. That think is going to end up leaking all over.
In my full blown darkroom days I had a Jobo ATL2 automated unit that filled and emptied and washed everything by itself. I used it extensively for all my C-41, E6, Ciba, RA4 before digital came along for me. I used it so much I had to replace gears and pumps a few times, which was not easy in the way it was put together. Loved it and wish I had one again now.
I ordered mine in February and received it at the end of May I am going to use it today to develop two 5x4 negatives. I ordered the 4x5 reel also. I would like to video my processing today. But don’t have enough hands available. From Northern Spain I’ll keep you posted.
I think they have pretty much designed this we me in mind. I think you convinced me I need this. I loved my Jobo when i had it but it took over a good chunk of my darkroom. This seems like exactly what i need in a smaller form.
I have the Pira Darkroom Helper, and am quite happy with it. It doesn't monitor chemistry temperatures, but is able to maintain a constant temperature... I also like the way the PIRA works using magnets to rotate/agitate contactless through the bottom. Software-wise PIRA also has a lot to offer. Price-point for sure was a big argument for me, for version 1 I only paid 199 Dollar a year ago.
Price is a huge factor and I do appreciate the small heater it has. I've never used one but it's another great option. I'm excited to see what they do with version 2 down the line.
Are you developing C41/E6 at 38deg using the PIRA Darkroom Helper? My concern with the AGO is that 38deg is not maintained through the 6-8mins of E6 1st Dev ... whereas it appears the Darkroom Helper might do that. (Except it's not available right now, apparently V2 is under development (pun intended!))
Rip Rowland. Aka PE. A world of knowledge was lost. Yet a lot preserved on that forum. Anyways, interesting product. I think this just helps more with consistency. Which for me is a non issue. I’m just a hobbyist. But like you said for small labs. This is perfect.
What about “edge effects” so important to 35mm BW film resulting from alternate agitation, it’s gone right? Or is there a way to do alternate while the tank is vertical?
After some years now, I've figured out I can just develop anything, literally anything at box speed plus or minus a stop, in 1:7 XTOL for 2 hours, no agitation past 1 minute, and it looks better than any other method I use every time. Well, okay, except C41. For some reason, XTOL pretty much never causes bromide drag at these levels. It even worked on specialty agfa copex rapid microfilm that you're supposed to need special weird matched developer for. Nope! Worked first time perfectly in 1:7 XTOL as well. Xray film, normal film, fast film, slow film, anything.
at 8:31 the likely reason is that C-41 is designed, from the outset to be a "mechanised" and manual process so is calibrated to an agitation regime, as opposed to some, which are stand development methods, or manual inversion/agitation only, so no compensation for time is needed.
I've since learned that C-41 is so finely tuned that it's diffusion-controlled, so greater agitation simply cannot speed up development. It can however help with continuous removal of development byproducts, which makes sense.
I've been using mine for about a week. Turns out my thermometer is off by a few degrees and I accidentally started at 36c instead of 39c. The ago added about a minute and the colours turned out very nice. The only issue I had with it is one of my developing sessions, the arm was not properly turning the spools inside the tank and it was idle the entire development session, ruining my roll. No idea why this happened.
Hey, could it be possible you used an older Paterson tank. There is a case where some time ago Paterson made tanks with different version of the central column. You can use plastic the adapter included to bring these old Paterson tanks to the new standard and that way the spindle can reach the centre of column correctly. We will be including this in the User Manual update soon.
Good question! I do 4-5 fills of whatever the appropriate volume is for the tank, for: 1, 1, 2, 3, and 3 minutes for 10 mins total. No idea how good that is, but it works fine for films with a decently strong AH layer like Delta films and Pan F.
I would not recommend this system for color film. The colors will shift if temperature is not right. This can't be compensated by extending developing time. You would get better results with a sous vide stick, agitating manually. For scanning and heavy photoshopping - probably. For negatives intended for RA-4 printing in darkroom - never. Should this thing have a heating element, it would be a cheap alternative to Jobo. For black and white work though, it could prove useful.
For B&W there's no question. I'm getting good (scannable with no noticeable errors or issues, using NLP) results with colour but do need to do a proper side by side. It won't be perfect but it's a question of how different the results are compared to a sous vide or similar.
@@Shaka1277 How much does the temperature of developer drop using AGO, assuming standard 37.8°C in 20°C room temperature? I would assume it could be even in the range of 5 degrees.
