Tutorial How to develop your first B&W film.

Yup that's the stuff, thanks.

A lot of the photos i've scanned feel like they need about -0.5 stop adjustment. This the monitor or have I left them in a little long? I can't currently upload any photos due to my broadband being down all weekend.
 
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I may be incorrect but I don`t think you mentioned that keeping the developing liquids within 5% of each other is very important. Regarding colour developing I go back to flashing the negative was the norm. I gave up buying the raw chemicals as the water had to be the correct acidity.
 
Can i just point out that the point:

a TOTALLY dark room WITHOUT a safe light or a developing bag
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is quite ambiguous and would actually mean that the dark room would have to be without a developing bag. It would be better phrased:

A totally dark room (without a safe light) OR a developing bag.
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cowasaki said:
No
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Superewza made a perfectly valid point, especially for wording in a process that can already be quite confusing for someone new to it. I agree, and good point made IMO. He/she also provided a helpful correction, rather than just pointing out the ambiguity.

At best, your response is unhelpful and unconstructive :shrug:
 
freecom2 said:
Superewza made a perfectly valid point, especially for wording in a process that can already be quite confusing for someone new to it. I agree, and good point made IMO. He/she also provided a helpful correction, rather than just pointing out the ambiguity.

At best, your response is unhelpful and unconstructive :shrug:
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For a start, it was supposed to be comical and secondly it is quite obvious what the sentence was saying as why would the dark room have to be without a changing bag :bonk: Oh and thirdly had it not been so obvious then I would have written it without brackets eg "a developing bag or a TOTALLY dark room WITHOUT a safe light" as using brackets is not a good example of the art of English either.
 
... but using commas is - one would be good here, no?


Maybe a wee smiley in your post to lighten the implied harshness?
 
Ambermile said:
... but using commas is - one would be good here, no?


Maybe a wee smiley in your post to lighten the implied harshness?
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That was the comedy! Swapping it round would have done, as above, but as it is so obvious I didn't see the point.
 
If you say so, but "... without a safelight, or a changing bag" removes ambiguity and implies the two choices. Whatever, first Friday off in ages and I'm arguing bloody grammar - we're better than this :bonk:
 
cowasaki said:
why would the dark room have to be without a changing bag :bonk:
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I think what some people who shoot with film forget is that just because you are familiar with these terms, and what is obvious and to be assumed, does not mean people who are completely new to the world of film photography will also know these things. After all, this tutorial is designed entirely for them - would it genuinely have hurt to have accepted an improvement, or even acknowledged it in a more polite way (even if you disagree with it)?

Being comical is 10 times more difficult over the internet - and especially hard to gauge with two letter answers, I'm afraid :thumbsdown:
 
Just had an absolute nightmare getting a film on the spiral. Not sure if it was the film was particularly curly, the new spiral I bought being rubbish or a slight change in technique. First time I've tried FP4, new spiral looked basically the same. I tried leaving the film on the spool and taking it out as I went to cut down on the amount of unnecessary touches, but kept interrupting my rythm and having to start again.

Any way what ever the individual issue was I started again the way I've done them in the past with my old spiral and opened the spool up and it went as well as usual. So I suppose it wasn't the film....
 
steveo_mcg said:
Just had an absolute nightmare getting a film on the spiral. Not sure if it was the film was particularly curly, the new spiral I bought being rubbish or a slight change in technique. First time I've tried FP4, new spiral looked basically the same. I tried leaving the film on the spool and taking it out as I went to cut down on the amount of unnecessary touches, but kept interrupting my rythm and having to start again.

Any way what ever the individual issue was I started again the way I've done them in the past with my old spiral and opened the spool up and it went as well as usual. So I suppose it wasn't the film....
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I know in hot humid weather I always have trouble. FP4+ I find easy to load, it is nice and thick like HP5+. Maybe just a bad day!
 
Yeah, I don't think it was the film when I used my other spiral and opened the door canister all was well. Going to try the new spiral in the light with some duff film tomorrow.

But, as you say, it might have just been a bad day one way or another.
 
Me again, just finished developing a roll of ilford pan f, couldn't find development time for the d74 (rhs) so took a punt at 5 minutes. Hard to tell from the negs but that may have been too long.

Any advice for future times where I end up winging it?
 
Doh! Would be nice if these details were on the site instead of buried in an non indexed pdf.

Cheers though, only 10% off so should be ok. Might need a new little work at the scanner.
 
Really thin negatives in some cases and blocked up shadows in others... Need to try this again next time I think less agitation and at the full 5.5 minutes
 
That would be a little disappointing but I'm hoping its unlikely as I've only just got a roll of slide film back from it and there was no sign of an issue. I suppose it could be some Chinese quality control from the GP3 or just not quite on the roll correctly.
 
Initially I suspected an encroachment on the film plane, but on looking again the mottling would appear to suggest a chemical problem. This could be due to a lack of developer in the tank across the top of the film, which then when you have fixed leaves a blank area which then prints or scans as a black mottled area. I would be interested in seeing a scan of the full negative including rebates.
 
EdBray said:
Initially I suspected an encroachment on the film plane, but on looking again the mottling would appear to suggest a chemical problem. This could be due to a lack of developer in the tank across the top of the film, which then when you have fixed leaves a blank area which then prints or scans as a black mottled area. I would be interested in seeing a scan of the full negative including rebates.
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One full negative, easier said than done with Gp3 curls enough to hold the lid of the scanner open. Developer was Rodinal at 1:50 so nothing exotic and I made about 600ml and the tank suggests only 520ml for 120.
 
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EdBray said:
Light leaking would give white band/streaks/loss of contrast would it not?
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Once the mention of chemicals was made I thought that it that was most likely right and it was an issue with chemicals not getting to the neg evenly. I've been lucky and not seen many faulty negs.
 
Well I'm glad this came up on test roll and not any thing interesting. What would cause this do you think? Poor agitation technique, insufficient chemicals?
 
steveo_mcg said:
Well I'm glad this came up on test roll and not any thing interesting. What would cause this do you think? Poor agitation technique, insufficient chemicals?
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It could be either of those, it could also be contamination from previous use it could also be an issue with the film (storage perhaps if used from cold condensation), if the tank was immersed in a shallow water bath and the temperature changed dramatically then this could also be a cause. To aid your investigation, you should try to work out where this band would be on the film in the spiral as you process it, most cameras would have the sky at the bottom

My suggestion would be to shoot another test roll of known quality (Tri-X, FP4 or HP5) and after ensuring that you have scrupulously cleaned and dried all your processing equipment before you start. Then after making up the chemicals to the exact amounts required for the process ensure that the temperature is constant and that all steps are followed precisely. This will give you the best information on what has happened.

Good luck.
 
For any Pedants reading the above post: I know every camera will capture the image with the top (sky) as seen at the bottom as the image is captured upside down.

What I was trying to say was that some cameras have a strange film path and that the film may not be orientated on the spiral with the sky at the bottom as is normally the case, or did you invert the spiral on the centre column prior to loading into the tank.

Whilst unlikely that the film path is different it needs to be checked as if a normal film path then that is one less issue to look at, if you can remember whether you loaded the spiral onto the centre tube as is or did you invert it as if not, this could immediately knock out the issue of insufficient chemicals as the band would be at the bottom of the spiral in the bottom of the tank, this could also then support a temperature issue if tank was placed in a shallow water bath.
 
Cheers Ed, I've no way to work out if it was the top or bottom of the spiral that was effected as I'm not all that disciplined getting it on in the dark bag so it probably got turned round a number of times before it ended up in the tank.

I'll do as you recommend shoot a good roll and clean the tank thoroughly. Hopefully I'll just never know why it happened...
 
Just developed my first roll of Fomapan 400 at home... what a nightmare. Sticky hot changing bag, film wouldn't go onto the reels... It seems there are pictures on the roll, but what the quality is like, I don't know. The sprockets are all chewed up.
 
mothdust said:
Just developed my first roll of Fomapan 400 at home... what a nightmare. Sticky hot changing bag, film wouldn't go onto the reels... It seems there are pictures on the roll, but what the quality is like, I don't know. The sprockets are all chewed up.
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Fomapan is awful like that, curls more than a curly thing and the backing is very fragile :(
 
Fomapan is both a blessing and a curse for home developing. It's very difficult for a beginner, but if you can get Fomapan onto a developing reel, you can pretty much get anything onto a developing reel.

That's when more expensive, thicker film stocks such as Kodak and Ilford film really come good - makes developing far less hassle.
 
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