Tutorial How to develop your first B&W film.

cowasaki

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Darren
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cowasaki submitted a new resource:

How to develop your first B&W film. - How to develop your first B&W film.

Well I think we seem to be happy enough with the film development instructions so here they are:

If anyone has comments or additions just add them.

Develop your own film, it’s easy.

There are several different processes for developing film. The most popular is called “C41” and this is the process used for normal colour films and also for some special black and white films (eg Ilford XP2, Fuji neopan 400CN & Kodak cn400) designed specifically for sending to the high street...

Read more about this resource...
 
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Once we are happy with the text I will take some photos of the steps.

I hope someone else can do the prints sticky and then some others on things like doing tints etc would be really good :)

What do people think?
 
great idea, Ive been meaning to do some home developing myself so this is very helpful:D
 
Right, now we have an exposed film we need to carry out several steps:
Steps 1 to 4 involve handling the undeveloped film and need to be carried out in the dark see later in the text.

1 – Extract the film from the film canister and fit the spool into a light proof developing canister. (See below)

2 – Measure out the required amount of developing fluid, Fixer & Stop
3 – Get these 3 chemicals to the correct temperature and held there
4 – Look up the required times for each of the 3 chemicals and any special instructions and make a note of these.

[*][/LIST]


only step one needs to be done in the dark
 
Looks OK to me Darren, but I'm more a "seat-of-the-pants" developer so I don't know if I ever do two films the same (except the colour ones)... bit like the elbow in the bathwater :D
 
a very important one for you Darren - step 1a - Put your Protective gloves on before working with any of the chemicals (optional but highly recommended!) - I know you mention it in G, but it's worth hammering away at tbh!
 
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Darren.. I've adapted the written description into something a bit more visual. Please check I've got things correct as I plan on using this to guide my own first ventures into home developing. Corrections and improvements welcome, I'll provide it as a PDF when finalised if it's of any use.
 
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Looks like a good idea. When you're done, just RTM it and it will be stuck like a sticky thing on a very sticky day. ;)
 
Darren.. I've adapted the written description into something a bit more visual. Please check I've got things correct as I plan on using this to guide my own first ventures into home developing. Corrections and improvements welcome, I'll provide it as a PDF when finalised if it's of any use.

Looks good to me and with that diagram you could have one for each type of developer/film type so definitely good. We will post this as a bonus :)
 
I think you could do with a couple more "Stop the timer/reset the timer/start the timer boxes but other than that it looks OK - I could even use that printed out :eek:
 
I think you could do with a couple more "Stop the timer/reset the timer/start the timer boxes but other than that it looks OK - I could even use that printed out :eek:

Yes, will add them.

Anybody fancy doing the wet printing version of this?
 
Nice idea.

Can I just add that if you have film that is likely or known to curl, then after the developing process, hang it in a cool to cold place to dry e.g. bathroom overnight with the window on breather or even open - it really does make a difference.

Films to have been tried thus far:

Agfa Apx 100

Rollei Retro 100
 
Looks good to me and with that diagram you could have one for each type of developer/film type so definitely good. We will post this as a bonus :)

That was the idea :)

The original is based on an A4 (or A5) pdf for a print, complete and save reference sheet for each film/chemical combination you want to try. Things I need to add:
  • Special instruction boxes (e.g. agitation instructions)
I'm not going to add stop/start/reset timer instructions to the flow chart version.. it's optional and basic common sense.. and I'm trying to keep it "clean". Sitting alongside Darren's full text version it shouldn't be needed.

I've started to do something similar for loading the film onto the spiral, just figuring out the slight differences between 135 (canister) and 120 (no canister).
 
I used to have something similar to the chart "back in the day" - only real difference was it was colour coded - the dev stages were in blue boxes, stop in red, and fix in green. This corresponded to the labels on my chemical bottles, and the labels on all the measuring cylinders etc. - okay - so I used to be obsessive :LOL:

To be honest, it was more for the older 7 bath kodak e6 processing, where it could get very messy, very easily :shrug: Tetenal kits are a breeze in comparison.
 
Second draft.. I liked Mark's idea about the colour-coding..
 
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Excellent thread :) I can see some laminated sheets being made and a small dry wipe marker/pen for the times to be written on.
 
Call me old-fashioned Darren - but surely you need to actually do this stuff before writing about it? Else it smacks of the adage "People who can, do. People who can't, teach."

Do we, in fact, *need* stickies for this stuff? Or this?



Arthur
 
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yes. its the bedrock of film, you cant show what you've done without the devloping stage, and if new people are going to take up film work, then this could be a good resource for them.
 
Call me old-fashioned Darren - but surely you need to actually do this stuff before writing about it? Else it smacks of the adage "People who can, do. People who can't, teach."

Do we, in fact, *need* stickies for this stuff?

Arthur

I was after someone else doing it but nobody came forward so hoped to do this as a joint thing between a few of us. Was hoping for as much feedback as possible so it can be adjusted. I was hoping also to use the instructions to do my first prints too :)

EDIT: I have done this THREE times as below. Sorry I thought I was answering the printing thread which I will admit I have not yet done.
 
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yes. its the bedrock of film, you cant show what you've done without the devloping stage, and if new people are going to take up film work, then this could be a good resource for them.

That's the point... Darren is so new at this he's not done it himself yet. IMO it's a bit like telling people how to drive when you've only ever pushed a pram. Whatever, call me old-fashioned as I said - then ignore me.
 
That's the point... Darren is so new at this he's not done it himself yet. IMO it's a bit like telling people how to drive when you've only ever pushed a pram. Whatever, call me old-fashioned as I said - then ignore me.

EDIT: Sorry thought I was replying to the printing thread not the developing thread......

I have only done this three times but it has worked perfectly each time.

If someone can get to my level using this then they can learn more from others on here as I have done.

If anyone can think of any changes then I will add/fix them
 
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well..this *is* a photography forum, the idea being that we can all teach and learn together to learn new skills, or improve skills we already have, or to pass those skills on to others. a thread like this is being made up from lots of peoples experiences to get the best methodology, that is the idea of the forum, and so the sticky stays.
 
right just done my first film! it was more of a practive roll really but there are a few images that came out. I thought id give it a try with the roll of delta 400 that was half exposed when the lubitel decided to open. Negatives are drying now!
 
right they are almost dry but one one side of the negative it is really sticky and I dont fancy putting that into the scanner? any idea why that has gone sticky?
 
It can take a while for the emulsion to dry, especially if it's cold like now.
 
Haven't used them, though that packaging idea looks like a great idea!

Oh - and tap water here, though I'm lucky enough to have fairly soft water. When I lived in an area with harder water, I used to use distilled water - local halfords sold it for topping up batteries back then, not sure if they still do.
 
I'm not sure how much Halfords sell distilled water for, but you can get RO/DI water with very low TDI from marine aquatics shops. Provide your own container and it's usually £3-£5 for 25 litres.
 
I'm not sure how much Halfords sell distilled water for, but you can get RO/DI water with very low TDI from marine aquatics shops. Provide your own container and it's usually £3-£5 for 25 litres.

Thats definitely going to be better than Halfords - £3.79 for 5 litres :eek:
 
You can buy a basic RO unit from about £60 from someone like Osmotics. They're slow to produce any volume at low water pressures (a booster pump increases the production rate and increases efficiency). For every litre of "good" water there is about 3 litres of waste - the waste can be used in the garden, for flushing the loo, etc.

The only downside is that DI water is "hungry" after being stripped of all dissolved ions, RO without a DI stage might be better, otherwise there are treatments that can re-ionise the water.
 
Right got a question for you all! on a few rolls of 35mm I have developed there is a shadow of the sprocket holes that run across the image and on the edges of some frames. Any ideas why this is happening?
 
A bit like this ?


Delta100_2011-03-30_030.jpg - unedited scan by The Big Yin, on Flickr

The bottom of the image was on top in the dev. tank. Bromide has dragged in a on-off-on-off pattern, matching the sprocket holes.

I understand my problem was caused by Bromide Drag... came about due to insufficient agitation while using perceptol at stock concentrations. My normal regime of first 30 seconds agitation, followed by a couple of inversions every minute works fine with my normal 1+3 perceptol, but this particular roll had the developer pitched, and wasn't agitated for a good 30 seconds (I put the stock bottle down on something on the draining board and it fell over :bonk:)

Since then I stick to developing with 1+3 perceptol, rather than the stock solution, and put up with the increased duration of processing.
 
a bit like that yes, but on some frames the sprockets go right across the image! just done a test roll with color and there are a few like it too. the film is going onto the reel ok, so only thing I can think of is agitation? perhaps im a bit overzealous.
 
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