1830 hrs US Eastern Time, History is Made!

[joeyk49]

I developed my first roll of film!

Okay, so the History Channel won't be knocking at my door anytime soon, but hey, its been thirty years in the making...

24 frames of Ilford PAN F+ 50

Developed in Ilfosol S 1+9...pretty much textbook...4 minutes

Kodak Stop

Kodak Fix

Kodak Photoflow 200

I thought I screwed the whole thing up when it came out of the tank. 3/4 of the middle of the roll concisted of frame after frame of almost completely clear film with one dark spot in it....

Until I remembered that I had been trying to get some decent shots of the lunar eclipse...DUH!

Another analog monster emerges from the primordial soup...MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

 

[Mateo]

Congradulations! I still remember the very first roll I developed. I hope your negs print well. But...(sorry if this is a negative thought amidst your joy) you might want to find a way to get longer dev times. 4 mins can be too short and you could get uneveness.

 

[joeyk49]

I did think it strange that a lot of other dev times were in the 9 to 15 minute range...But the Ildford chart said so, so who was I to question???

I also thought that the mix ratio seemed strong (1+9) compared to others...
...which would account for the short dev time...

 

[Ed Sukach]

Congradulations! ... you might want to find a way to get longer dev times. 4 mins can be too short and you could get uneveness.

This again?? I've developed, oh, a thousand or two rolls of color film for three minutes, fifteen seconds - sensitive, "critical" C41 - and, *NO* "unevenness".

Irving Penn developed all of his Tri-X in Ethol UFG for *three* to five minutes, and I don't see unevenness there either.

It might be a "good" idea to dilute and go for longer times, but I doubt that it is absolutely essential.

 

[joeyk49]

Ed, your post leads me to my next question...How tuff is c-41 to do???

At least half of the b/w film I shoot is c-41, especially the 120...I'd luv for it to be my next endeavor...

 

[Mateo]

This again?? I've developed, oh, a thousand or two rolls of color film for three minutes, fifteen seconds - sensitive, "critical" C41 - and, *NO* "unevenness".

Irving Penn developed all of his Tri-X in Ethol UFG for *three* to five minutes, and I don't see unevenness there either.

It might be a "good" idea to dilute and go for longer times, but I doubt that it is absolutely essential.

Oops, sorry to offend. I guess I've just blown it a couple of times especially when pouring dev into those little tanks. 30 secs to get it all in and then only a few minutes total time in there. Don't worry, I have not developed a roll of film in years. Isn't it cool to hear about someone enjoying starting out in this though?

 

[joeyk49]

Its funny.

I was talking about my personal milestone while at my son's Cub Scout meeting...I was surprised to see how many people responded with: "Cool! I wish I could do that. I remember my high school photo class. I've always wanted to..."

Not one, "Why aren't you shooting digital?"

 

[photomc]

Cool!!!! Hope you have informed the family, they had better get ready for all of those wonderful prints..

Don't worry to much about everything, just enjoy it. Before you know it you will be using Rodinal, Pyrocat-HD, Pyro, PC-Tea or some other developer...finding a 1:100 dilution that takes 30 min. or more and you will be thinking about that frist roll - only 4 minutes.

 

[joeyk49]

I have to hold myself back...

I've shot 35mm for thirty years... since high school...(ever since I got really tired of crappy photos from crappy 126 cameras with flash cubes...) When I came to this site I suddenly got the wherewithall to develop my own stuff...

In the interim, I bought two Yashicas, a D and a 124G, so that I could start into medium film (can't afford the ttl stuff)...all the while oogling the field cameras and those Speed and Crown Graphics...ITS A SICKNESS I TELL YOU...

But I prefer not to be cured...

 

[Flotsam]

Are you going to print that roll? If you think that you're excited now, just wait until you see that first image developing in the tray.

It's like having your first sex but without the shame, fear and embarassment.

 

[joeyk49]

...hmmm

...all I can remember is, "This is better than anybody ever told it would be!"

Or, was that driving my own car for the first time...
Or, was that my first legal beer...

Anyway...it was good, REALLY good.

What were we talking about?

 

[mikewhi]

I developed my first roll of film!

Okay, so the History Channel won't be knocking at my door anytime soon, but hey, its been thirty years in the making...

24 frames of Ilford PAN F+ 50

Developed in Ilfosol S 1+9...pretty much textbook...4 minutes

Kodak Stop

Kodak Fix

Kodak Photoflow 200

I thought I screwed the whole thing up when it came out of the tank. 3/4 of the middle of the roll concisted of frame after frame of almost completely clear film with one dark spot in it....

Until I remembered that I had been trying to get some decent shots of the lunar eclipse...DUH!

Another analog monster emerges from the primordial soup...MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

Congratulations! <pause while I sip some wine as a toast to you>
I don't see a pre-soak in there. If you're going to develop for short times, you should add in a pre-soak of the film in 68 degree water for oh, 2-3 minutes. This will swell the gelatin emulsion so that when the developer goes in it won't have to take the time to do that and it can get to work right away.
It's a good safety precaution.

Now, on to printing my friend!!!

-Mike

 

[127]

...all I can remember is, "This is better than anybody ever told it would be!"
Or, was that my first legal beer...

First legal beer is way disapointing - I do remember my LAST underage beer though!


I'm sure Ed will tell you otherwise, but C41 35mm development is SO cheap at the minilabs that it's probably not worth it - for $5 I can get a film dev'ed AND printed. Even if you just treat those as proofs, and print again at home, it's still not worth the bother to do it yourself in most cases (though of course there is stuff you don't want to put through the mini-lab for various reasons).

On the other hand I've started experimenting dev'ing c41 to try out the new Macocolor 127 - try taking that to the mini-lab! (even the pro labs moan). It's a lot more intense - ages getting everything to temperature, and then 10 minutes of madness until the negs are hanging. Results so far are mixed - I've screwed up a few out of date films practising, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Get used to 35mm bw, send 35mm c41 to the lab, and try c41 colour when you move to a larger format, where the benefits are more signnifigant.

Ian

 

[Max Power]

First off,
Well done Joey, way to go mate! I just started mucking about with an old Rolleicord and MF and the thrill is certainly there, especially when waiting to see which of my frames will be OK due to the shutter speeds being off!!!!

I don't see a pre-soak in there. If you're going to develop for short times, you should add in a pre-soak of the film in 68 degree water for oh, 2-3 minutes. This will swell the gelatin emulsion so that when the developer goes in it won't have to take the time to do that and it can get to work right away.
It's a good safety precaution.
-Mike

Mike,
A question to further my education: I now understand the purpose of a pre-soak due to your explanation above...Further to that, though, is it usually only used for really short/critical development times? I use D-100 and D-400 in ID-11, thus, the dev times are relatively long. Would pre-soak accomplish anything?

Cheers!
Kent

 

[Flotsam]

...hmmm

...all I can remember is, "This is better than anybody ever told it would be!"

Or, was that driving my own car for the first time...
Or, was that my first legal beer...

Anyway...it was good, REALLY good.

What were we talking about?

Ah yes. My first legal beer.

On my Eighteenth Birthday I proudly marched into the local tavern, pulled up my regular stool, asked Ol' Frank the bartender how the wife and kids were and told him to "bring me the usual".

 

[Bob F.]

The problem with the pre-soak is that you should then reduce the dev time even more to allow for it. Common sense (that most un-common of commodities) suggests that it really depends on how much agitation you use: one inversion every minute is more likely to cause problems with a short dev time compared to an inversion every 30 secs - even less potential problems with continuous, rotary, agitation. You do need to get your timing right for consistent results though when the fill & dump of the tank takes a substantial percentage of the dev time (stop and fix are nowhere near as critical of course).

If it works, it works. Sounds to me like it worked...

Nice one, have fun. Cheers,

 

[joeyk49]

Having read previously about the perils of insufficient agitation, I made sure the the first ten FULL seconds of each minute were filled with several inverstions, shakes from side to sode and rapping of the tank on the counter. Any more and James Bond would have proclaimed it a perfect Martini.

I think, however, that I may have wound the film on the spool abit too tightly, as two frames had a small 5/8" undeveloped streak through them, which tells me that they were in contact with each other and the chemical couldn't penetrate...

I may try the presoak as it seems logical; especially for the short dev times...

 

[ChrisC]

Congratulations!

I'm all too familar with what you're going through, afterall last Sunday I developed my first roll too. I shot a challenging subject for me (mist in bush), and it was only the second roll I had put through my 'new' Yashica, after coming back to film from those other, new wizz-bang cameras. What are they called again? And even with guessing a few exposures, and timing a few 20+ second exposures (first time I had ever done that), I was absolutly chuffed to see those images on the film as soon as I pulled that reel out of the tank. I think now I'm hooked for life.

Best of luck with the many, many more rolls I know you're bound to develop in the future!

 

[Ed Sukach]

I'm sure Ed will tell you otherwise, but C41 35mm development is SO cheap at the minilabs that it's probably not worth it - for $5 I can get a film dev'ed AND printed. Even if you just treat those as proofs, and print again at home, it's still not worth the bother to do it yourself in most cases (though of course there is stuff you don't want to put through the mini-lab for various reasons).

I am not going to disagree, Developing C-41 at a Mini- One-hour Lab is most certainly cheaper.

I do not develop C-41 for "cheapness". True, there can be "sensitive" content (I shudder to think of the teen-ager with raging hormones hovering over the "print another one button", with some of my inevitable "less delicate" nudes- the ones I DON'T print).

However, the *most* important consideration is quality. The "one-hour" machines CAN produce decent quality negatives and prints *IF* operated with the same attention and care that we would use in our own darkrooms. For the most part, thy are not. Chemistry is not replenished or replaced when it should be - to do so would cost more and reduce profits - cleanliness has been IMHO abominable... To tell the truth, I don't even consider most "mini-lab" processing to be accurate enough even for "proof" work.

I can remember one roll of 35mm brought to me by a student: When pieced together, it was the strangest combination of both over- and underdevlopment - all on the same roll - I've ever seen. It looked like a barber pole. I've talked to mini-lab operators since ... and they can't understand how it could have been possible. On top of that, some of the "cutting" was bad ... not through the margins but through 20% - 30% of the frame.
She went back to the Supermarket (!) and complained. They were most apologetic, and complied with their contract. They gave her a replacement roll of film.

Did you ever notice that when someone complains about crappy processing, they will always blame the camera, or "you didn't use Kodak film"... or "You don't know much about photography, do you?"
I once was at a small, local camera shop in Maine ... standing next to a girl who had a set of color prints spread on the counter. All of them with a *HEAVY* cyan cast. The SLEAZE behind the counter was saying, "The color is off because you used a Nikon (which they did not sell). If you used a Canon (which they DID sell) it would have been much better." Etched indelibly in my memory.

So, my C-41 processing - Careful mixing of fresh chemicals; I do "one-shot (more expensive, but worth it). Careful attention to time and temperature (JOBO CPP-2). Gingerly squeegeed - lightly and carefully, and air-dried. Very rare to have scratches or inclusions. It doesn't get much better.

The latest ... In the one-hour mini labs, color developing is done in the usual processor. Printing, all the printing, is *digital*... leading to a lot of comments that, "My digital photography is `just as good as the stuff I shot on film'".

Not surprising.

 

[Jorge]

I think you have enough practice Joey, you need to get started with LF now..

Congrats, isnt this fun?

 

[Flotsam]

When I take my color neg film to the local mini lab, I can pick up the processed film in Ten minutes. Now I know that that you can't do "real" C41, dry to dry, in Ten minutes. I have to assume that they make some compromises in favor of a fast turn around.

 

[joeyk49]

Okay... where do I find directions for c-41 processing???

 

[glbeas]

Okay... where do I find directions for c-41 processing???

Usually in the box the kit comes in.
I've noted each major brand has minor differences in times for the bleach and/or fix, the developer is usually at 3:15. If you can follow directions for B&W then C41 is falling of the log simple.

 

[Ed Sukach]

Okay... where do I find directions for c-41 processing???

I have many and sundry copies. When I get a chance, I'll copy/ something - one of them and post it. It is no more difficult than black and white.

 

[edz]

When I take my color neg film to the local mini lab, I can pick up the processed film in Ten minutes. Now I know that that you can't do "real" C41, dry to dry, in Ten minutes. I have to assume that they make some compromises in favor of a fast turn around.

Sure. Using modern C-41 with combined bleach and fix its 195 seconds Dev, 3 1/2 min. BLIX, 3 min. wash or 9 min. 45 secs. and then into the dryer. The C-41 RA (Rapid Acess) process is 8 1/2 min. Since I don't think you are running a stopwatch that 10 min. seems quite doable..