 Today we're here to review the Stearman SP-445 development tank. My name is David Patton. When I started photography, I wanted to make art. I wanted to be a landscape photographer. But with a family to feed and bills to pay, I decided it would be better to be a working photographer than a starving artist. So I took a job as a photojournalist. 25 years and thousands of assignments later, it was time to go back to my first love. It was time to follow my passion. Come along on my journey to become the best black in my photographer I can be. Whether it be film or digital, I will be sharing what I learned through my successes and my failures. In hopes to inspire and educate. This is my journey. This is Bright in the Edge. This isn't a paid review. This is paid for with my own money. I just thought I'd pass along my take on this development tank. This tank is a development tank for 4x5 sheet film. It holds 4 sheets and it develops in 16 ounces of developer. Which I find extremely economical. You load your film on these film holders. There's two of them. They slide into a slot in the tank. You put a sheet on each side. What I really like about this film holder is it's just like loading up a regular film holder for your camera. I've done it in really small changing bags. It works really well. It's really hard to come up with a lot of things to say about a development tank. It either works well or it doesn't. It's either economical or it's not. And this really hits all the bases. I wish I would have found this many years ago. I wish this would have been out many years ago when I started large form of photography. When I started out, I tried to develop my own film in trays. It really left the opportunity for uneven development, scratching negatives, that kind of thing. I just avoided it. One of the cool things about this development tank is it's light tight. You can develop your film with the lights on. That is a major plus. The developer goes into the tank quite quickly and it empties pretty rapidly as well. There's really less chance of getting uneven development. You can do your regular agitation with this tank. It does a pretty good job at not getting chemicals everywhere. It seals pretty tight. I don't really have a lot of negative things to say about this development tank. The lid at times can be a little finicky. For me, it doesn't go on quite as smooth as I'd like. And that might because it's still pretty new. If I moisten the seal around the lid, it seems to slide on a lot easier. Just a little bit of moisture. And it does feel like it could pop off. It just doesn't feel real confident inspiring. So I tend to put a heavy rubber band around it when I'm developing. Now, it's never popped off and it probably never will. But I'm a little paranoid. And another slight negative would be it only holds four sheets. Now, that's kind of nitpicking, I know. But if they could figure out a way for this to do six and maybe 20 ounces of chemistry, if you happen to be watching this, that would be the perfect tank for me. I'd want one of each. I could use both at the same time. If I only had four sheets, I'd use this one. Or I'd use the six sheet by itself. But I think if we could just add a couple more sheets to this, it would be perfect. That's it really for the cons. There aren't many. This thing has made developing black and white 4x5 film so much easier than my experiences in the past. If you're thinking about doing black and white photography and using a 4x5 sheet film, I highly recommend purchasing this right away. This is, I think, one of the most important pieces of my kit. This is almost as important as my camera, lens, and film holders because I need a way to develop that film. Developing yourself really helps you dial in consistency in your photography. It's really not hard to develop your own film. You'll save a lot of money and you can try out different developers. You can come up with a look that you really like and you don't have to send your film off to get developed. I would highly recommend purchasing something like this. Now there might be other products out there like the Stem repress. I haven't really seen any. I think they've got round holders for like Patterson tanks and that kind of thing. What I really like about this is these going flat and then going real easy. There's no fiddling around. They just slide right in. Super easy to load. So if you're thinking about developing your own film, and you can't really go wrong with this product, it might sound like it's a glowing review and it is. This is one of the best pieces of gear I've bought this year. So I'm going to end this video right here. Until next time, thanks for coming along for the ride.