[Leica] no digital eyes allowed!

[Jim Brick <jim_brick@agilent.com>]

Was Santa good to everyone?

He was certainly good to me.  :)

A few months ago I decided to pull all of my processing and printing back
in-house rather than use my local pro lab, Calypso Imaging. I like Calypso
a lot, but they recently stopped printing Cibachrome. Also, twice in the
past four months, their C-41 line was down, two weeks each time. It is a
pain to have to drive all over the place just to get processing and prints,
and then have to wait, sometimes, for days. I will still use them for
LightJet prints as I cannot afford the $1/4 million for a LightJet printer.

So I decided to sell a few items that I don't use to help pay for a large
JOBO Auto Lab. An ATL-2300. I asked my local JOBO rep who to buy it from
that takes American Express (frequent flyer miles) and to maximize his
commission. He pointed me to a photo supplier in Palo Alto that I had
forgotten about. Bear Images Photographic. Actually just a few blocks away
from Keeble and Shuchat Photography. They carry neither Leica nor
Hasselblad so over the years I've pretty much ignored them. But they are
the premier JOBO dealer in this part of CA. They sold, installed, and
maintain all of John Sexton's ATL processor(s) over the years as well as
those in both industry (Silicon Valley) and the local universities.

I stopped in two weeks ago to discuss the JOBO ATL situation and
appropriate drums and tubes. And then they said, hey... would you be
interested in an ATL-2400 as we have one that we got in as a demo and ran
one roll of E6 with it. You can have it for very near the price of a new
2300. So I checked it out and said yes. Which included a new (not a demo)
warranty. Cool! The 2400 is basically a 2300 with auto-refill of chemicals
from reservoirs in the base of the unit. This is a great feature for long
printing sessions as you never have to pour or deal with chemicals other
than the mixing of the initial 5 to 15 liters for the storage tanks. The
tanks contain floating lids and keep the chemistry in good shape for weeks.
It also came with a battery backup that will run any process to completion
if the power fails. A great feature here in energy poor California. Bear
Images' technical guy is a JOBO whiz and is getting the full maintenance
manual for me.  :-)

Now I'm in the middle of installing it. I had to move out my British
"Wilkinson" rotary processor, which is actually in good shape but parts are
hard to get and it is made mainly for prints (4x5 to 20x24.) It will do
film, but not with the ease of the JOBO. I have run thousands of rolls of
E6 and thousands of Cibachrome and RA-4 (mostly the older Agfa process)
prints through it over the years (since 1972.) The reason I got the JOBO is
because besides me, my daughter, her best friend Jane, and my swimming
partner (remember the 29 year old "young girl" who got the free R8) will be
using it. The JOBO is pretty much goof proof.

I am looking for a home for my Wilkinson Processor. Free of course, but to
someone who is genuinely interested in using it. It is a very nice looking
processor but my history with Peter Wilkinson and this processor prohibits
me from giving it to someone who will abuse it. The cost new was $10,000 in
1972. It will run any process, up to eight steps, automatically. It has to
be someone local to me as I cannot ship it.

Anyway, it may take me another week or two to get the 2400 completely
installed and running. I have a backlog of Ciba's to make and a bunch of
film to process but I know it will be worth the work and wait.

Sorry digital folks... this is "real" photography. None of this ones and
zeros stuff. Silver halide, redox, darkness, smell, all of the good stuff. ;-)

If anyone is genuinely interested in the Wilkinson processor, Email or call:

jim@brick.org 
408-247-0312 (home after 7:30pm)
408-970-2533 (work 7am to 7pm)

Jim