Film development marathon

lauffray · Dec 26, 2019

38 new rolls all from this morning. I'd been accumulating these since July. It's all HP5 shot at 800 or 1600 with a 35mm or a 28mm, developed in Microphen. Can't really remember what's on them, other than one trip I took in October. Cutting and filing took two whole hours
New film drying rack from the fantastic Mod54, you guys should check them out. Mixed 12L of Microphen for this, until a buddy pointed out you can reuse the developer. Anyone ever reused Microphen when pushing?

Anyway, tomorrow is contact printing

Agulliver · Dec 27, 2019

Reusing Microphen is fine, my throughput is such that I've kept 1L of Microphen for around 4 months, using it to process 15 B&W films in that time...if memory serves 5 were pushed (HP5+ shot at 1600). I tend to prefer ID-11 however.

foc · Dec 30, 2019

Well done.
On a completely different topic, where did you get the film clips?

Mick Fagan · Dec 30, 2019

Looks great, I've done similar after some long trips. The real problem happens after the film developing and contact sheets are made. You really can be overwhelmed with the workload. A few 3 month trips to Europe, have left me in an almost identical situation as yours, I sometimes didn't finish the bulk of the printing until around 9 months from when I had the contact sheets.

Another time it was almost two years before I finished the printing from a long trip.

These days in my own country, I almost exclusively use 4x5" film and have very few sheets to worry about. That said, I'm off on another overseas trip for a couple of months this coming March, where 35mm will be the camera of choice. I hope the contact sheets will be finished in late May with printing to be done in the winter months of June and July.

Looking forward to how well your contact sheets come out.

Mick.

lauffray · Jan 3, 2020

foc said:
Well done.
On a completely different topic, where did you get the film clips?

Thanks, those are by mod54, I can't recommend them enough, they're really good.

lauffray · Jan 3, 2020

And here are the contact sheets, done in a single 2h session. All 9.5x12" RC sheets, which is perfect for making contacts

lauffray · Jan 3, 2020

Mick Fagan said:
The real problem happens after the film developing and contact sheets are made. You really can be overwhelmed with the workload.

Thanks Mick, I'm only starting to realize the scope of this problem now ! At my current rate I'll probably be printing these next year. I'm still printing things from 2018-2019. I really should burn less film, but shooting is so much fun

Andrew O'Neill · Jan 3, 2020

I get anxiety attacks from cutting and sleeving a roll of 36 exposures. The OP should get a medal for doing 38 rolls!

Pat Erson · Jan 3, 2020

Just curious... I see 36 images per film (not 37, 38 or even 39). Is that a deliberate decision?
https://www.photrio.com/url?sa=t&rc...s-policieres&usg=AOvVaw37dJzylqVC2W7IiMf1J58j

lauffray · Jan 6, 2020

Andrew O'Neill said:
I get anxiety attacks from cutting and sleeving a roll of 36 exposures. The OP should get a medal for doing 38 rolls!

The cutting and sleeving took ages, such a tedious step

Pat Erson said:
Just curious... I see 36 images per film (not 37, 38 or even 39). Is that a deliberate decision?

Yes I only shoot 36 frames per film, it's a bit ocd of me but it makes contact printing easier as it's just 6 strips of 6 frames and they all fit on a 9.5x12" sheet

Tom Kershaw · Jan 6, 2020

I only do a small amount of 35mm work at the moment, not sure how I'd manage 38 rolls - would result in a lot of work prints. Are you using PrintFile negative sleeves?

lauffray · Jan 6, 2020

Tom Kershaw said:
I only do a small amount of 35mm work at the moment, not sure how I'd manage 38 rolls - would result in a lot of work prints. Are you using PrintFile negative sleeves?

No I stopped using those last year, I think they changed something now they're very thin and the sleeves barely cover the edges of the film strip. Yeah 38 rolls is a ton of work afterwards too, these are going to be in my 2021 backlog, I'm still working on printing stuff from 2018-2019. I also do shoot a lot of junk sometimes, I don't know what the keep ratio is here, maybe like 2-3%

Tom Kershaw · Jan 6, 2020

I bought a huge stack of the PrintFile sleeves with the substantial plastic a few years ago so have been working through those. I'm mostly a '120' user and tend to find I get fewer keepers when in 'scene recording' mode than that of deliberate composition.

lauffray · Jan 6, 2020

Tom Kershaw said:
I bought a huge stack of the PrintFile sleeves with the substantial plastic a few years ago so have been working through those. I'm mostly a '120' user and tend to find I get fewer keepers when in 'scene recording' mode than that of deliberate composition.

Yes I enjoy shooting and tend to waste film, so much for the "film makes you slow down" argument haha
Btw, which part of Norfolk are you in? I know a photographer who lives there too, terrific printer

Patrick Robert James · Jan 6, 2020

That is an insane amount of film for one day. What kind of tanks do you have?

I remember the first road trip I took way back when I was young. I think I came back with 60 something rolls of film and I only had a two reel tank. Lol. Took me a couple of weeks to develop all the film.

lauffray · Jan 7, 2020

Patrick Robert James said:
That is an insane amount of film for one day. What kind of tanks do you have?

I have a 3 reel tank for the saner kind of development session but I kept my old 8 reel tank from years ago for these rare occasions when I have tons to develop.

Film development marathon

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