Lab-Box – A Developing Story in Which a Photographer Tries to Avoid Loading a Paterson Reel But Ends Up Doing it Anyway

It seems like I have always taken photos, starting with a 126 instamatic as soon as I could handle one. Then in the late 1970’s when I wanted to take some proper photographs (wildlife macro) I used my mum’s Pentax K1000 with close-up diopter lenses, before buying a Canon SLR in the early 1980’s.

But I never did my own developing, I used some black and white film, but mostly colour as that was what the subjects I was interested in required. Colour negative film though was always a let down and it’s very existence probably set my interest in photography back quite a few years. When I started using slide film I quickly found any and all was way better than negative film, Kodachrome when I could afford it, but even Boots’ own brand if I couldn’t.

In the mid 1990’s I got much more interested in the process and history of photography and started taking various evening courses in order to learn techniques and especially black and white developing and printing. Evening classes locally were held at an arts and education centre that was formerly a school complete with a purpose-built dark room that had been retained after the building was converted from a school (I wonder if it is still there?).

I soon found that I could manage printing, but at the time I was a dairy farmer and what with worn and split fingers I couldn’t feel anything and never managed to load a developing reel with the lights out and always had to ask someone else to do it. Once the film was loaded for me I could do the developing, but the negatives almost always came out rubbish anyway. At the time I blamed the film, which was mostly bulk HP5 loaded into re-useable cassettes at the classes. So instead I mainly used XP2 and Kodak T400CN, dropped them off at one of the many mini-labs that were around then and got the negatives back much quicker anyway than waiting for the next evening class. These were much easier to print than the grey, greyer, and even greyer negatives I got from the self-developed HP5. With hindsight I am sure the source of the problem was the film developer available at the classes which came in a 1 gallon brown glass bottle labelled ‘developer’. I have no idea what it was, and any notes that might have held a clue have long gone. But I still have something of a phobia about HP5 and have never used it since.

A quick note on the picture above: One thing I have noticed on returning to black and white film is that scanning does give a much greater leeway than printing with an enlarger. I have found it hard to make the results here look anything like as bad as the prints I made in the 90’s. And negatives that 30 years ago I would probably have binned can produce quite acceptable images for screen viewing and inkjet printing.

We moved to a farm in Wales in 2000 resulting in the loss of the home darkroom as well as the opportunity do do evening classes, then a few years later digital took over. Eventually after 15 years or so an interest in film photography returned. A number of factors coming together, not least inheriting the K1000.

After sending off black and white films to be developed for a while I came across the Lab-box which seemed ideal for me, a way of loading and developing both 135 and 120 films in daylight without struggling to load a reel in the dark. These days I still don’t have much in the way of fingerprints, but I can usual feel what I am touching, even so the Lab-box seemed like a way to get out of having once again to try and learn how to load a conventional developing reel. And ideal it was for a time until a series of problems became apparent. But on a positive note it in turn has led me back to developing in a Paterson tank, loading reels with 35mm and 120 films in a changing bag, sometimes without any trouble at all.

The Lab-box it turns out has several loading issues with 120 film and a catastrophic failure point with the developing tank that is the same for both formats.

Pulling 120 film into the light tight chamber prior to attaching it to the reel doesn’t always work, it will fail every time if there is any residual dampness, but also at other times seemingly randomly. Fortunately this can usually be felt when pulling out the backing paper, so then it is a case of putting the whole Lab-box in a dark bag opening it and sorting it out by feel.

Clipping 120 film to the reel always results in burning the first couple of inches and often losing the first negative or part of it. But also the film chamber closure doesn’t have a lock so great care needs to be taken when removing the backing paper and tape as any tug on the film can cause the chamber to open a little.

Probably because the film is pulled into the centre of the reel rather than pushed parts of the film on adjacent spirals can touch and prevent development of patches. This happens occasionally with 120 film in Paterson reels as well but never as often or as seriously as with the Lab-box, and of course there is no way of knowing until after the film has been developed.

And then finally after less than 2 years of use the seal where the turning handle enters the tank disintegrated, a critical part as without it the developing tank won’t hold liquid. This seal is similar to an oil seal for a bearing, rubber of some sort containing within it a metal reinforcing ring and a circular spring, but none of it seems to have any chemical resistance at all and eventually it just fell apart. According to the Lab-box website the boxes have 2 year warranty and spares are always available. No they don’t and no they aren’t, not in the UK at least. Nor are there any contact details on the Lab-box website. I did eventually find an email address for them, but have never received a reply. Instead I found that I can get a good but not perfect seal with 2 ‘O’ rings, a large one in the recess on the side of the tank and a smaller one on the shaft of the handle.

But I have stopped using it anyway as I reasoned I was doing quite well sorting out the Lab-box in a changing bag, so why not have another go with a Paterson tank? Which is where I am now; roughly where I would have liked to have been thirty-ish years ago.

Postscript

While rummaging through old dirty and scratched negatives to scan and include here I came across some HP5 that had been professionally developed (those shown in the featured image). I can’t recall where or when exactly, or indeed why, and also I can’t remember much about the reason for the subjects, some theme or other for the evening class probably. But maybe I was suspicious about the developing at the Arts Centre and tried somewhere else. Whatever the reason the negatives look like they are on a completely different emulsion to the self-developed HP5 ones.

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