Hamlet

To B’s or not to B’s. That is the question.

Every weekend I stand over my kitchen sink — music blaring, timer ticking — steadfastly inverting my stainless tanks as I develop, stop, fix and wash the previous week’s photographs. Inevitably, my mind drifts to how sweet life would be if only I owned a Jobo machine to do the agitation for me.

So every couple of months, I point my browser to the B&H website and ponder the purchase of a Jobo CPE-3 processor — with its big ol’ tilt mechanism, its big ol’ footprint, and its big ‘ol price tag. And every couple of months, I talk myself out of it. Not only does it cost about three times what I think it’s worth, but unless I want to make a Jobo film processor the centerpiece of my living room decor, it’s simply too massive for my tiny condo. Plus, the bulkiest bit of the processor’s overall bulk is the bulky tub — an utterly pointless component given that I shoot only B&W film, and thus don’t need to submerge all my developing chemicals into a temperature controlled multi-gallon bath of hot water.

If only someone made a device that featured the Jobo’s motorized rotator, but without its colossal plastic tub or its punitive price… and that’s when I remembered the existence of Google.

Truth be told, I half-expected my search to uncover more alternatives than it did… but seeing as how 99.999+% of the world’s photos are taken with a smart phone, I guess the dearth of options makes sense. Plus, if you are a B&W film photographer, the process of occasionally inverting a film tank isn’t exactly an insurmountable burden. If it were, I wouldn’t have done it for the past 33 years. But the older I get, the more time becomes my most precious commodity. And the 11 minutes I spend hand-inverting a roll of HP5+ in Rodinal, followed by the 5 minutes I spend hand-inverting that same roll in fixer, is 16 minutes that I could be doing something else — like cleaning up the mess; or preparing my negative sleeves; or readying new Lightroom folders for the upcoming scans. In the 1990’s, 16 minutes didn’t matter to me. Today, it does.

The first and most desirable alternative, is the glorious Filmomat processor.^{(note 1)} Like the Jobo, it commands the room — but unlike the Jobo, it looks great while doing so. It also costs nearly twice as much as the Jobo, yet (because it fully automates the developing process) doesn’t seem at all overpriced — though it’s well beyond “affordable” to a guy who drives a 13 year-old Ford Fiesta.

The second alternative came from Jobo themselves, via a contraption they call a “manual processor roller base.” Essentially, it’s just four wheels turned upside down. You lay your tank across the wheels and proceed to hand rotate the tank for the duration of the developing/fixing time. This seemed more like an anti-solution than a solution. Using the hand-inversion method, I only have to attend to the tank for 10 seconds every minute. The manual processor roller base would require constant hands-on attention.

The third alternative was basically a category of similar products, which riffed on the idea of Jobo’s manual processor roller base, but used a motor (rather than your own hand) to keep the film tank in constant rotation. There were a few processors with this design — one of which seemed to have died in kickstarter; one of which appears frequently on eBay but seems rather poorly conceived; and something called a B’s processor.

Reading through the B’s literature and watching the videos, I became intrigued. It was small; reasonably priced; firmware updatable; and looked to address some of the fluid dynamics issues that also contributed to my Jobo hesitancy. So, not wishing to lose any more of life’s precious moments to the tedium of hand-inversion, I ordered one.

What I didn’t know to order, however, was the little accessory strap that allows you to mount shorter tanks on the device. My 2-reel stainless tanks aren’t big enough to span the gap between the wheels, so the B’s maiden voyage required that I dust off my 2-reel Paterson tank. Maybe you like Paterson tanks. I don’t. Frankly, I believe they should be classified by The Hague as a torture device and outlawed. But it was the only tank I had that would fit the machine, so I bitched and moaned my way through my first-ever rotational processing cycle. While the negatives came out absolutely perfect, my Paterson contempt remained an impediment.

To eliminate all need for the Paterson tank, I ordered the small tank adapter from B’s. Also, intuiting that a Jobo tank might be better suited to rotational development than my stainless tanks, I ordered a 2-reel Jobo 1520 tank from B&H whilst removing the CPE-3 from my wish list.

I endured one more Paterson tank experience — again with perfect negatives — before the Jobo tank and B’s accessory strap arrived.

I’ve now used the B’s Processor to develop 18 rolls of B&W film — all types, all developers, all sorts of ambient temperatures — and every one of them is perfectly developed. The Jobo tanks themselves work great — the reels load much faster than the Paterson reels, and chemistry enters/exits the tank instantly (unlike a stainless tank). Also, as an added bonus, not a single drop of liquid has yet to escape the tank — minimizing clean up.

My process is straight forward and stolen step-by-step from the method suggested by the B’s manual. Specifically:

1. Fill the tank with water, and prewash the film for 4 minutes, with the processor running in Mode 3 (fast) the entire time.
2. Dump the prewash, fill the tank with fresh water a second time, then run the processor for an additional 1 minute in Mode 3 (fast).
3. Dump the prewash, fill the tank with developer, then run the processor in Mode 1 (slow/pulse) for the full development time one would normally use for hand-inversion.
4. Dump the developer, fill the tank with a fresh water stop bath, and run the processor for 1 minute in Mode 3 (fast).
5. Dump the stop, fill the tank with fixer, and run the processor for 5 minutes in Mode 1 (slow/pulse).
6. Dump the fixer, and wash using a modified Ilford technique — employing a couple of hand-inversion cycles, and a couple of spin-cycles on Mode 3.

Given the price, impeccable results, and teensy amount of storage space it requires, there really isn’t any significant downside to the B’s Processor. The worst things I can say about it are…

• It’s really designed to work best with tanks larger than 2-reel (Paterson excepted). Adding the strap to support a stainless or Jobo 2-reel tank seems a bit clunky, and the asymmetrical weight of a full tank sitting on the left half of the processor makes the unit a bit unstable… but it works… just not elegantly.
• The rotation is controlled via magnets that must be attached to your developing tank. These can be attached via rubber bands or stuck on with some included stickers. Even if you decide to sticker the magnets to your tank, you’ll still need to slip on a rubber band to create a “track” for the wheels. Like the add-on strap to support 2-reel tanks, it all seems a bit clunky. But, again, it works… just not elegantly.
• The B’s design does not allow the tank to be submerged in a water bath, which means (should you wish to use it for colour processing) your developer temperature will cool during rotation — requiring you to use the “average temperature over time” method. Fortunately, I don’t shoot colour film. But if absolute repeatability is essential, you’ll probably want a processor that allows the tank to be submerged… though you’ll spend a lot more in the process (no pun intended).

The B’s processor has quickly earned a spot in my film developing workflow. The fact its operation sometimes feels a bit clunky has not had any actual impact on its usability. When combined with the magnetic stirrer that I now use for chemicals, the whole film developing process makes me feel more like Walter White cooking up some blue meth than some old nerd developing film — albeit without the significant financial rewards, of course.

So, to B’s or not to to B’s? I weigh strongly in favour of the former. Every time I use it, I gain 16 minutes of precious free-time to engage in life’s other mundane tasks. And I get beautiful negatives with 100% repeatability. Hamlet never had it so good.

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©2023, grEGORy simpson

^{note 1 :} At the time of my Google search, Filmomat had only a fully automated processing unit. Since that time, they’ve released the Filmomat Light — a smaller, cheaper, manual unit, which is conceptually similar to the motor-driven processors (like the B’s), but which allows for a water bath (for color). Since it’s not as large as a Jobo CPE-3, it could potentially fit on a shelf in my closet. It’s an intriguing option, partly because it supports installation of two motors, which enables one to simultaneously develop two tanks — ideal for someone like me, who is always shooting different films at different ISO’s and developing in different chemicals. Then again, I could accomplish the same thing (while occupying less space) if I simply purchased a second B’s Processor. Also, I know full well that if I did have a processing tub, I’d inevitably start shooting colour film just to make use of it — and I suck at colour photography.

ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: There’s really no grand underlying theme to the photos — save, I suppose, for the fact that all were shot in the last month, and all were processed using the B’s Processor… other than the digital shot of the machine in action, of course.

Rest Stop, Highway 99 was photographed with an Olympus XA, on Fomapan 100 at ISO 100, and developed in HC-110 Dilution H. Storm Front, Kitsilano was shot with a Contax G1 and a Planar 45mm f/2, on Ilford HP5+ at ISO 400, and developed in Rodinal (Blazinal) 1:50. B’s Processor Processing used the OM Systems OM-1 with the Olympus 17mm f/1.2 Pro lens. Lucid Dream came to fruition in a Minolta TC-1, on Ilford FP4+ at ISO 125, which was developed in Rodinal (Blazinal) 1:50. If You Drink, Don’t Spell was shot with a Contax G1 and a Biogon 28mm f2.8, on Fomapan 100 at ISO 100, and developed in HC-110 Dilution H.

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