|
Rambles
By P.G. Ramblings
The New Found Joys Of 35mm Film
Processing
When it was
decided to launch a new photographic venture in
shades of black, white and grey, an ugly thought
that briefly reared it's head very nearly scuppered
the business before it had even taken it's very
first faltering step. Having become so accustomed
to the convenience of minilab style automated film
processing over the past few years, the very
thought of having to revert back to manual tank
film processing made me positively weak at the
knees. Thank God therefore, though since there's no
such thing or person, let's thank the Internet
instead for it was there that salvation was found
in the guise of an Arkay
King Concept Image Pro 35mm daylight tabletop film
processor.
Before being
swallowed up by Arkay,
the King Concept Corporation were responsible for
producing some of the most innovative photographic
processing equipment ever to emerge from America.
In fact, it was Roger King himself that designed
their ImageMaker, ImageMaker II and Enterprise
processors along with the accessories and other
related darkroom equipment while somewhat
incidentally, their national sales manager during
that period was a delightful Irishman by the name
of Ed Carroll. Small world indeed.
Arkay,
one of the biggest names in photographic
processing, had been manufacturing darkroom sinks,
film drying cabinets, print dryers and other
professional quality darkroom and photographic
accessories for decades so the fact that they
thought it necessary to buy King Concepts was
indeed quite a tribute to Roger King and his self
designed products.
Although the
Arkay King Concept Image Pro daylight film
processor which Arkay produced after the takeover
was a little gem of a machine, it represented such
a significant departure in design approach and
philosophy from the original company concepts, that
Arkay/King Concept failed to survive for very long
after that. With the King Concept Corporation in
tatters, Arkay ended up with bits and pieces of the
old company and although they made a few attempts
to introduce some variations to the products, they
were never as successful as King Concepts and
finally the project totally collapsed.
After a few
months of daily usage, it's been found that the
very versatile Arkay
King Concept Image Pro daylight tabletop film
processor
is exceptionally good for low volume photolabs such
as ours (it can develop two 35mm at a time and
while not being just quite so automated as a
minilab, it is nonetheless easy to operate and most
importantly, produces consistent results time after
time. Also, even though it utilises a total loss
system, it's frugal use of chemicals has proved to
be another bonus point, as can be seen by the size
of the four small tanks, it uses exceptionally
small quantities of chemicals.
As evident in
this image,
the control panel for the processor which is
powered by an external 12 volt transformer, is
simplicity personified or to put it another way...
idiot proof but not so one little quirk that was
something of a surprise. If it has a fault it's the
fact that films have to be loaded onto a pair of
Hewes
stainless steel reels which if you've never
previously attempted, ain't no joke the first time
around. While I'm sure there are many who are
experienced at loading stainless
steel
reels, I
wasn't one of them but after a couple of weeks and
umpteen dozen rolls of out of date film later, it's
become second nature... fingers crossed.
Has it been a
worthwhile investment? Very much so and especially
so after a nasty experience with a local lab that
totally destroyed a number of films they'd been
foolishly entrusted with. Luckily, reshoots were
relatively easy to arrange but had a wedding been
involved... huge sigh of relief. Perhaps being self
sufficient and not dependant on the professionalism
of others or lack of... isn't everyone's idea of
photographic bliss but for us folks here at
PhotoGenre... going to bed at night without the
worries of what some moron might be doing to your
valuable films, affords us more time to enjoy the
more meaningful things of life... like sleep
and...
IndexPage
|
