Cost of DIY film processing per roll

Chris L

Chris L

Messages
931
Name
Christian
Edit My Images
No
I'm looking at doing my own processing for black & white 120 film to produce negs for scanning and so I've read a bit and seen some videos showing the procedures and listing the items that are recommended.

I like the idea of producing my own negatives very much as well as the freedom you get from doing it yourself but I'm wondering if anyone has looked at the cost per roll of doing their own processing? Is it cheaper, about the same or more expensive than sending the rolls away?

Cheers,
Chris
 
Updated December 2014

I occasionally run some brief calculations through my head to ensure that I'm not spending obscene amounts of money on developing, I'll try and breakdown here. Most of the prices are sourced from Silverprint, as I could pick the stuff up in person so didn't need to include delivery.

T-Max Developer = £11.65 for 1 litre, each 100 millilitre can dev 4-5 rolls (maybe more, haven't pushed it yet). Let's say 4 rolls per 100mL, so each one would be 29.1p.

Ilford Rapid Fixer = £10.39 for 1 litre. I've used my first 100mL to fix 12 rolls and most places suggest that 12 is far from exhaustion, so let's say maybe 16 rolls? 6.5p per roll.

Fotospeed RinseAid RA50 Wetting Agent = £4.99 for 500mL. I use 2.5mL for each roll, so theoretical capacity of 200 rolls, let's say 190 to account for leakage. 2.6p per roll.

That's 38.2p per roll.

Add in a sheet of Kenro Filing pages = £6.07 for 25 sheets, 24.3p per roll.

So about 62.5p per roll, including a long term storage medium (unlike those plastic things that most labs will give you). You'll won't quite get a litre from the dev and fix, so let's call it 75p conservatively.

Considering that Genie Images, my lab of choice for C-41 charges £6.75 excluding VAT (including is £8.10) per roll and I have to pay for transport there, can see where the economy starts to kick in. My previous C-41 lab of choice, Fuji Digital Imaging in Burnley wants £6.50 for it, but that doesn't include the postage to send it to them. West End Cameras wants £9.99 for it.

If this is too much per roll for you, you can go much further - let's say:

Rodinal = £13.09 for 500mL, and one shot at 1+50 would mean about 10mL per roll, so you could get 50 rolls per bottle. 26.2p. Rodinal is often developed at 1+100, so 5mL per roll, that's 100 rolls per bottle, halving that cost down to 13p.

Push the fixer to get 20+ rolls out of it per 100mL, and that's 5.2p per roll.

And instead of using a bespoke wetting agent, many people just use soap, or their water in their area is soft enough that they can just wash it using tap water - so almost 0p.

Total cost per roll then: 18.2p per roll.

If you want, I can include the rough cost of gear if you wish to factor that in, but that's some chemical costs. Also, these are all at medium format amounts - 500mL for a Paterson daylight developing tank. JOBOs will use less, developing 35mm will use less (and thus, your economy increases further). Apologies for the extremely long post, let me know if you need anything clarified.
 
Last edited:
^^^ what he said :LOL:

though on the second costing, it'll still cost you for the storage sheet (more than the chemicals cost - gulp - hadn't really considered that!)

oh - and the water around our way is probably soft enough to get away without, but a single drop of ecover in the final rinse will certainly be enough to sort things Chris :)

I think even with home C41 or E6 it was under £2 a roll for 120, last time I costed it out - compared with £8-10 commercial processing, it soon pays for the processing hardware, and when you figure the cost of dev and scan services, it pays off a V500/9000F scanner in a few months shooting.
 
TheBigYin said:
^^^ what he said :LOL:

though on the second costing, it'll still cost you for the storage sheet (more than the chemicals cost - gulp - hadn't really considered that!)

oh - and the water around our way is probably soft enough to get away without, but a single drop of ecover in the final rinse will certainly be enough to sort things Chris :)

I think even with home C41 or E6 it was under £2 a roll for 120, last time I costed it out - compared with £8-10 commercial processing, it soon pays for the processing hardware, and when you figure the cost of dev and scan services, it pays off a V500/9000F scanner in a few months shooting.
Click to expand...

Yes, the storage sheets cost an obscene amount of money. I know they require R&D to find out which material is the best and most unharmful, blah blah blah, but it's a glorified piece of paper in my books and it is an alarming amount of money per roll.

Whilst I primarily chose scanning by myself because of the control over the process rather than any potential cost savings, my Epson 4180 cost about £25 second hand. Genie's dev+scan works out to £7.50 (!) more than the cost of just developing, so after 4 rolls my scanner hardware had already paid for itself in my eyes. Fuji Burnley charge £3.50 more than just the cost of developing, so it would pay for itself after ~7 rolls (in addition to having a scanner around, useful in its own right). And not forgetting that, for instance, Fuji would probably only give you 3000 pixel wide jpeg's - my own scans are 5500 pixel wide uncompressed TIFFs, much better for further processing, and you have no idea what their scanning software has done.
 
I'd imagine that if you have a sewing machine you could probably make your own storage sheets, cut up some plastic wallets and sew them to A4 paper...
 
Another consideration Chris is room "A" to store the gear when not in use "B" a temp darkroom area to set the gear up in when in use. I suppose also it depends on how many rolls you intend to use / develop, not now as it's new to you but say in 6 to 12 months time.
Another avenue to consider is instead of commercial developers, there are people / individuals who specialise in developing to your own requirements / tastes, could be more cost effect in the long run.

As said what number of rolls will you be doing in 12 months from now 1 a week, one a month one every couple of months, all factors to take into account, but good luck whatever you decide.
 
Thanks for all the info peeps! I was expecting it to be cheaper (though obviously had no idea of the actual cost but those prices per roll are brilliant. As a complete noob I'll no doubt push the cost up initially for the occasional knackered roll but basically I could develop a roll and buy a new one for less than the cost of sending a roll away for developing and of course be able to do it the same day as well as looking at pushing and pulling as my experience grows :)
 
TheBigYin said:
^^^ what he said :LOL:

though on the second costing, it'll still cost you for the storage sheet (more than the chemicals cost - gulp - hadn't really considered that!)

oh - and the water around our way is probably soft enough to get away without, but a single drop of ecover in the final rinse will certainly be enough to sort things Chris :)
Click to expand...

Cheers Mark :) I'm not exactly sure where abouts you are but unlike Castleford & Wakefield, we're on the Featherstone supply which I believe is classed as hard and I must admit it was one of things I was wondering about with regards to washing the negs?
 
It's definitely not all that bad - i'm in Sharlston - and even if I forget the wetting agent I don't really have problems - it's just easier, and the negs dry a little quicker I find, so I use it when I remember.
 
Issey said:
Another consideration Chris is room "A" to store the gear when not in use "B" a temp darkroom area to set the gear up in when in use. I suppose also it depends on how many rolls you intend to use / develop, not now as it's new to you but say in 6 to 12 months time.
Another avenue to consider is instead of commercial developers, there are people / individuals who specialise in developing to your own requirements / tastes, could be more cost effect in the long run.

As said what number of rolls will you be doing in 12 months from now 1 a week, one a month one every couple of months, all factors to take into account, but good luck whatever you decide.
Click to expand...

Cheers Les. Yup, I'll sort out an extra shelf in a hall cupboard for storing the kit and would be using the bathroom for the processing which has no external wall so no window/natural light though it does have a powerful extractor which should mean there's no problem with any fumes?

Whilst I'm still looking for a job I'll be limited to a max of probably 4 rolls a month. Once I can afford to hire models/studios then it could go up to maybe 8-10 in a busy month or just a roll a week for non portrait stuff so still not really a significant amount.

I'm interested in your comment regarding getting the film processed by someone other than a commercial processor? What sort of things would they be offering and do you have details of the sort of people you mean?
 
I've still got some of my 35mm negatives from when I was a schoolboy in the late 60s stored in punched sheets made out of something similar to greaseproof paper. I wonder if you can still get them anywhere? I don't remember them being as hideously expensive as the modern plastic ones. The negs are still OK, though they are harder to look through than the modern ones.
 
NickT said:
I've still got some of my 35mm negatives from when I was a schoolboy in the late 60s stored in punched sheets made out of something similar to greaseproof paper. I wonder if you can still get them anywhere? I don't remember them being as hideously expensive as the modern plastic ones. The negs are still OK, though they are harder to look through than the modern ones.
Click to expand...

The Kenro storage sheets are like greaseproof paper (glassine?), but they still seem pretty pricey:

(http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/kenro-35mm-25-pages-glassine-942-p.asp)
 
Surely it's false economy to use washing up liquid instead of wetting agent?
Washing up liquid contains all sorts of chemicals and perfumes, wouldn't want that coating my negs and then putting them in storage.

Wetting agent less than 1p per use.
 
Edtog said:
Surely it's false economy to use washing up liquid instead of wetting agent?
Washing up liquid contains all sorts of chemicals and perfumes, wouldn't want that coating my negs and then putting them in storage.
Click to expand...

I don't advocate it, but people do do such things so at least it's worth a mention. At less than 3p per roll, it's only 4% the cost of the process, which to me makes it a no brainer. And the wetting agent makes the negatives dry very quickly.
 
Rinse aid should work fine as well. I'm pretty sure it is just a non-ionic detergent and shouldn't contain neither colourants nor perfumes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top