The joy of film development
Digital photography is about instant gratification. You shoot, you look at the screen (in the slightly dismissive parlance, "chimping"). You're satisfied, or more likely, not quite satisfied and you repeat the process.
When you're taking photographs on film, your gratification is delayed. For hours, maybe, or weeks, or even months. You might not even remember what's on a roll. It's all the more exciting for that - especially when you develop your own film, and you open the tank and see, as if by (chemical) magic, the long-forgotten images in negative.
So, what do you need to develop your own black and white film? Not as much as you think - and you don't need a darkroom, either, unless you also want to make your own traditional wet prints. You need
- A daylight developing tank. Paterson is the usual brand.
- A changing bag - basically a big black light-tight bag with a zipper and two elasticated holes for your arms
- Four jugs. One each for the ...
- ... chemicals. Developer, stop bath, fixer, water. The developer turns the latent image into a real image. The stop bath stops that reaction. The fixer washes out the unexposed silver, leaving behind the negative image.
- A bottle opener and scissors, for opening the film canister (inside the bag!) and cutting the film off the reel.
- A thermometer that will measure 20 degrees Celsius.
- A small measure that will accurately measure the chemicals you need (anything from 5ml to 50ml, typically)
- A timer. I use my phone, with an app called the Massive Dev Chart Timer, which also has a database of film/developer combinations.
Bicycle. Rollei Retro 400s film, home-developed in Rodinal
So, not too much. You can pick up the majority of it cheaply. The tank and the bag can be had for not much more on eBay. The chemicals, especially if you use an economical developer like Rodinal, can be as little as 20p/30c per roll, compared to commercial development that might cost 30 times that. Cheaper and more fun. What's not to like?
In my next post, I'll talk about the process of development.
Shed. Taken on a Kershaw Penguin folding camera from the 1950s, on Shanghai GP3 film, home developed in Rodinal
I really did think that you needed a darkroom to develop your own film. I bought a Pentax on ebay a while back, which turned out to have a broken meter and lost its charm when I couldn't manage to take any worthwhile photos. I did put a few rolls through it, but I always took those to a local shop to develop.
How long has the process you described been around?
The black-and-white process is based on the same chemical concepts (silver halides, developer, fixer) that Daguerre used in 1839. Of course, it's a lot less messy these days - for a long time they had to coat either copper or glass with stuff and take the photo before it dried - and the chemicals are more refined, but it's basically the same process. The developer I use - Rodinal - was patented in the 19th century!
Colour is a whole different ballgame, though. The current negative process is called C41, and only dates to 1972.
Do you still have to hang them up with clothespins like you see in the movies? :)
Well, you can buy proper film-hanging clips, but yeah, I use clothes pegs . . .
I think that's way cooler. :D
My dad had a darkroom in out house growing up. It was very cool.
Awesome! Did he let you use it?
I'd love to have the room to have a darkroom, with an enlarger for printing.
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