1st self developed film
Last week I’ve managed to develop my first roll of black and white film. It wasn’t easy since I had to learn everything via the internet. I did some research for about a month about developing films and stuffs related to it. After I had the idea in my mind on how to develop b/w films, I started to buy the stuffs that I needed. Developer, fixer, stop bath, developing tank, thermometers etc. Well, I spent almost like 50 Euros for everything, but I think it is a long term investment, so probably developing my own b/w films would save costs in the future.
I had also some difficulties regarding the combination of film and developer. My ‘test roll’ was Ilford HP5 and the developer was tetenal ultrafin liquid. There were different developing times suggested on the net ranging from 4,5 minutes to 11 minutes. I was totally confused. I wouldn’t want to underdevelop or overdevelop the film. People say, it’s very normal to screw up on the first try. But I wanted my first try to be perfect. I asked some flickr users, and read through forum discussions, and finally summed up to 8 minutes @ 20°C.
Since I haven’t practiced inserting the film into the developing reel, it took me about 20 minutes to get it right, since I was also working in the dark. My hands were all sweaty inside my ‘changing bag a.k.a backpack’. Using a pair of scissors to cut the film without looking was also challenging. But I finally wound the film into the reel after all.
After that, I mixed the chemicals, and started developing. It was kind of scary if I screwed up, either from my sweaty hands when I inserted the film onto the reel, or probably when I quickly took a look at the film in the presence of light to see whether I managed to reel the film right onto it. After the last rinse, I opened up the developing tank and picked up the reel, and saw the developed film, and to me, they were well developed. I had a big smile that day. I dried them up, and then scanned them.
Here are some pictures that I took and which they turn quite nice.
