How hard is developing your own film really?

I'm generally someone that likes older things, and analog formats, tapes, vinyl, I even own a type writer. So, film photography fits right in for me.

I have seen basic youtube guides for developing film at home, and it seems you need either some sort of dark box/bag, or room with complete darkness, a patterson tank, and three chemicals.

But here's my question, how hard or time consuming is it really, is it something anyone can pick up, or does it take a lot of dedication?

The main reason that I am asking is because there are no places that develop film that are truly local to me, the closet is half an hour away. and then you have to pay them as well. I currently shoot instant films, but I think that 35mm film could be much more cost effective, if, and only if, I can actually do it at home.

Assuming 35mm film.
Black and white film is quite easy.
Colour film is a bit more challenging.
With either, you also need to use the results to create positives - either by printing them in a darkroom, or by digitizing them with a scanner or other means, and then presenting the results of those digital files in some form.
I started developing black and white film and then printing it when I was 11 years old - that was in Canada's Centennial year .

It’s as complicated as you want to make it ! and not all that time consuming once you’ve processed a few rolls.

B&W is simple in its basic form. Dev stop fix @20c
C41/E6, you need to warm it up, and maintain temperatures.

If you want to dip your toes and not invest too much. Small paterson tank, and some easy to use liquid chemicals.

+ wetting agent so the negatives dry nicely.
+ some kind of storage for your nice new negatives

Thanks.

Apparently if I go the black and white route this would help, I think?

Twiggy said:

I'm generally someone that likes older things, and analog formats, tapes, vinyl, I even own a type writer. So, film photography fits right in for me.

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Twiggy said:

Apparently if I go the black and white route this would help, I think?

Df96 “Developer&Fix” B&W Monobath

Our new Powder Df96 Monobath and Cs41 2-Bath Color Kit can now ship in First-Class/Priority mail envelopes, not regulated for transport. Save up to 75% on shipping rates! The tried and true Df96 Monobath formula is now available in lightweight powder form, for economical shipping, indefinite...

cinestillfilm.com

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Sure. You will learn something and most of all you will get the result you desire. It is not a classic developer - fixer, but it is a well-usable chemical. I now use the same because I do not have suitable conditions for photographic work. So I'm probably the same way. But I think that later on you will want a classic and more controllable process for which other chemicals are suitable. So yes, but be prepared for the fact that others here on Photrio will convince you to try the classic developer-fixer procedure.

Twiggy said:

Apparently if I go the black and white route this would help, I think?

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It's not where I would start. The things people run into when starting out often would not be prevented by a monobath. Think of figuring out how to spool the film into a reel, preventing drying marks on processed film or just the basic handling of a wet strip of film that comes off of a rool. None of it is particularly difficult; it just takes some getting used to and sometimes some experimentation to find/learn the routines that work for you

It's not rocket science. Just get going; get yourself a Paterson tank & reel, a changing bag, some D76, stop bath and rapid fixer, a graduate for measuring liquids and a thermometer.

Twiggy said:

Thanks.

Apparently if I go the black and white route this would help, I think?

Df96 “Developer&Fix” B&W Monobath

Our new Powder Df96 Monobath and Cs41 2-Bath Color Kit can now ship in First-Class/Priority mail envelopes, not regulated for transport. Save up to 75% on shipping rates! The tried and true Df96 Monobath formula is now available in lightweight powder form, for economical shipping, indefinite...

cinestillfilm.com

Click to expand...

Cinestill DF96 has worked very well for me, except for Lomography Berlin, which didn’t fully clear using my guesstimated processing times, but that may be my fault.

I'm looking to make the process as uncomplicated and as little time consuming as possible.

So I do think I will go the B/W route. My father does have an old Praktica "Made in the German Democratic Republic" that he got on a trip a long time ago, considering he's from Poland, not Germany, but I guess that was okay travel as it still was east of the wall, lol.

Though I think it's from well within the days when color film was mainstream, so maybe I'll try to hunt down a 50's or 40's camera instead. There's on on local FB marketplace for $15.

Twiggy said:

I'm looking to make the process as uncomplicated and as little time consuming as possible.

So I do think I will go the B/W route. My father does have an old Praktica "Made in the German Democratic Republic" that he got on a trip a long time ago, considering he's from Poland, not Germany, but I guess that was okay travel as it still was east of the wall, lol.

Though I think it's from well within the days when color film was mainstream, so maybe I'll try to hunt down a 50's or 40's camera instead. There's on on local FB marketplace for $15.

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After practice on a few films and using regular developers (no exotic formulas and potions) you should easily be able to develop, fix, and hang to dry within half an hour. You need nothing more than a kitchen sink as a workspace. All the bits of equipment you'll need will fit inside a 12"x12"x14" cardboard box. But it's having the right equipment that's important to an efficient workflow. You'll need a changing bag to load your film, chemicals, beakers and jugs, a thermometer, a developing tank and reels, and clips to hang your film from an improvised line (somewhere dust free like a bathroom). You'd need nearly as much 'stuff' to take an easy route and use a monobath process as you'd need to do it properly with a dev and fix regimen, so you may as well do it properly in the first place and reap the benefits down the line.

So in terms of a 40's or 50's camera:

Here is this local one (for me) on marketplace. Says it takes 35mm film, but online google says it is 120?

My question is, the condition is pretty good, the top side corner fabric can be easily reglued, the metal can be easily cleaned with alcohol or what not.

The bellows seem slightly rough though, should that be an issue or not?


If it's still good, I'll buy it both for collection/aesthetic and use.

To answer the original question…. It’s easy. I was born into a totally impractical arty family, but at the age of about 11 or 12 (aeons before the internet) I found out how to develop film and started to do so, borrowing the kitchen sink from my mother for an hour at a time. I bought a Paterson tank, two plastic measuring cylinders, a thermometer and some liquid concentrate chemicals. My pocket money would not then stretch to a changing bag too, so I loaded film into the tank under the bedclothes in a darkened room. I timed processes with my wristwatch. You don’t need much else, in fact that’s pretty much all I used this morning.

Ilford nowadays make the chemical side of things easy for beginners: see here.

PS - My mother, who didn’t understand anything technical, was anxious that the chemicals might somehow eat the underground drainage. So after I had finished processing and taken my film away to dry, she would liberally sluice a powerful disinfectant called Jeye’s Fluid down the sink, which certainly won’t have done the environment much good. It made her mind easy, so I never said anything. How I miss her instinctive logic.

Twiggy said:

The bellows seem slightly rough though

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That camera would leak light like a sieve. Don't get it, unless you want to put it on a shelf.

You will need to learn about exposure. You should get a 35mm slr with a meter. 35mm film is probably a better way to start than 120 - which can be challenging for very experienced people to load on reels.

Twiggy said:

I'm looking to make the process as uncomplicated and as little time consuming as possible.

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In a sense, you've come to the wrong place. While it is pretty quick to develop a roll of film, and it's not complicated, the accumulation of stuff and the steps to get your negatives into positives both complicate and add massively to the amount of time involved. A lot of people like doing this because of that, actually - but many many darkroom workers gladly gave it up when digital was barely matured. Impatience and film photography don't go that well together.

It can take a day or a month to shoot 36 exposures.
It can take 40 minutes to develop, stop, fix that roll of film.
It can 6 hours or so to dry that film (to be on the safe side)
It can take an hour to scan that film or
It can take 5 minutes to contact print the negative sheet and potentially weeks to make satisfactory prints from each image (you're very unlikely to print each image).

Easy enough that I sometimes develop film twice a week (3 rolls per develop) while having a full time day job and a bunch of other obligations.

I don't find black and white vs. C-41/E-6 much different in difficulty.

With B&W, you typically have to mix your chemicals from a concentrate every time, where as with C-41 and E-6, you mix the kits once and use them for 20+ films for a liter.

The only additional challenge from color is putting a stopper in your sink, filling it with hot water and throwing your chemical bottles in for a few minutes. You check the temperature with a thermometer and start your development when it's around 39C/102F, though I found anything in the 35-39C/95-102F range works fine with an adjustment in time. A 3 reel Paterson tank might lose a degree or so in the course of a development so keeping everything in finely regulated water bath is not really necessary unless you're going for absolute technical perfection.

I think I started color developing after doing B&W for only about a month.

The changing bag is not as difficult as it first seems. You get the hang of it after a few tries. Please go for it, and good luck!

If you want to delve into B&W processing, go and start with Rodinal developer, and in fact you may never need another one.

Twiggy said:

But here's my question, how hard or time consuming is it really, is it something anyone can pick up, or does it take a lot of dedication?

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Hi, let me try to put the difficulty in perspective. My father was a photo hobbyist with a makeshift darkroom in the basement. When I was 5 years old it would have been probably beyond my capabilities to develop film (b&w only - color was wayyyy too difficult and expensive in those days). By the time I was 7 or 8 years old it would be no problem PROVIDED he was telling me what to do. Then, similar to Matt, I could do it all on my own by the time I was 10 or 11. But... I was using my father's equipment - darkroom, enlarger, etc.

And... I don't think I was disciplined enough to wait around and time things beyond the developer so I probably was fixing and washing the heck out of the film. After a few seconds in fixer I'd open the tank to see how the film looked, then leave it in there for a long while whilst I do more interesting things. Then similar thing with washing - fill and empty the tank a few times right away, let it sit for a while then come back for a few more fill and empty cycles, etc. (Fwiw back in those days we didn't have accurate digital timers and the like)

Today, I imagine I could probably teach an interested high school student the basics of film development in perhaps three 1-hour sessions on separate days. First day I might develop a roll while explaining what I'm doing. Second day have the student write down the steps in a notebook while discussing details. Third day, THEY do the mechanics, based on their notes. At this point I expect that they have a good enough start to rely on online instructions, etc. To be clear, I HAVE NOT ACTUALLY DONE THIS, just imagining how it might work.

Fwiw I've only talked about FILM developing. This leaves you with "NEGATIVES," where the tones are backwards. Wherever the original scene was light the film negative is dark. And vice versa. You likely would not even recognize one of your friends on a negative.

The conventional way to deal with this is to make a so-called print, perhaps a "contact print." For this all you need is a piece of glass and a light (with switch). (Plus the light-sensitive photo-paper and its developer and fixer. And a so-called safelight can be very helpful.) The photo-paper is much like film except that it is MUCH less sensitive to light and is on a white paper base.

So, to make a contact print you go into the dark and lay the negative on top of the photo-paper (emulsion towards emulsion so that signs/writing don't get reversed). Lay the glass on top to hold them tightly together (otherwise the print will be a bit blurry). Then turn on the light briefly; this will be determined by trial and error. But perhaps a second or less might be a good starting point.

A sort of strange thing happens. The photo paper reacts in a negative way (just like film); light makes the paper get dark (after being developed, of course). But... since the film is already negative, and it is used to expose a negative-reacting material (the photo paper) the final result is a normal appearing image - a "positive." Anyway, you develop (and fix, and wash, etc.) the photo paper. Now, it's almost certainly gonna be way too dark or too light, so you gotta change the exposure time. Then develop, etc. This is gonna be a tedious process of trial and error depending on how finicky you are. It would probably take another one or two 1-hour sessions to teach the minimum basics of this.

As a note the contact print is the same size as the negative, so you'll probably wanna use a "loupe," a strongish magnifier, to inspect the so-called "contact sheet." Just like the famous photojournalists or fashion photographers you've probably seen in older movies.

So, these are the basics. Which I think that most people with a sincere interest could learn, provided that they are at least 10 or 12 years old. After this you could carry on about as far as you want. I personally spent over 40 years working full-time in photography, most of it in lab or other technical work; always on a mission to learn more.

Twiggy said:

Though I think it's from well within the days when color film was mainstream, so maybe I'll try to hunt down a 50's or 40's camera instead.

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If your dad's Praktica works, use it! Do you know what model it is? Cameras from the 40's and 50's are mostly collectors' items, not user cameras. There are exceptions of course but I'd rather not risk it.
As for home development, this is a fairly straightforward and a rewarding process. I recommend to at least try it. As @koraks suggested I would start with a classic developer and fixer. You can't go wrong with D76. Here is a big secret. The process is very forgiving. If you get your temperature and development time wrong (within limits) you will still get a printable image.

At about ten-eleven years old I developed the 127 film exposed with my official Donald Duck camera using an FR packaged developing kit that included chemicals, small trays, etc. If my memory is correct (almost 80 yrs ago), there was even provision to make a few prints using a small contact sheets.
Of course, this was all before the nanny state, when chemistry sets were real. Probably such kits would be illegal today.

PS I remember FR because of the black silouette of photographer on packages.

Twiggy said:

Though I think it's from well within the days when color film was mainstream, so maybe I'll try to hunt down a 50's or 40's camera instead.

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I don't follow. A praktica will happily shoot color or b&w; it doesn't care what film you put into it. It'll capture light all the same. Use whatever camera you want with whatever film you want; as long as it physically fits, it'll work.

guangong said:

Probably such kits would be illegal today.

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I don't know. In the USA, there's no trouble getting a film developing kit or chemistry delivered. They just require ground shipping.

Developing black and white film is about as difficult as baking an apple pie and similarly requires a little patience, dexterity, foresight and ability to follow a recipe.

Developing B/W film is easy. If my high school kids can do, so can you. There are three main steps, plus a wash.
Stay away from monobath developers for now. Get your hands on whatever is available to you. I don't know where you live in Canada (I'm on the west coast near Vancouver), so I'm not sure if there is a shop around that provides film, and darkroom needs. I'm lucky. Kerrisdale Camera is in the mall near me. They have film, and basic darkroom stuff.
There are three options for developers: liquid, dry (powder form), or making from scratch. For stop bath, I like to use Ilford's indictor stop bath (or you can just use plain old diluted vinegar, that you dilute down further). Fixer... there are also three options: liquid (I prefer Ilford's Rapid Fix), dry, or again, mix from scratch.
For film, maybe start with HP5, or Kentmere 400 (even cheaper).

It’s fairly easy once you do it a few times.

Getting used to work in complete darkness and getting film on spool with probably be most difficult, but that would depend on what type spool you’re using.
It good to practice on a sacrificial roll of film a few time before actually doing with a roll you want to develop.
As far as time it pretty fast after a few time and you have your routine down.

Unlike capturing subjects on film, developing B&W film can soon become routine. When using the camera, the basic technique is also fairly easy to master. However, the art of photography should be a lifelong learning experience.

Twiggy said:

I'm generally someone that likes older things, and analog formats, tapes, vinyl, I even own a type writer. So, film photography fits right in for me.

I have seen basic youtube guides for developing film at home, and it seems you need either some sort of dark box/bag, or room with complete darkness, a patterson tank, and three chemicals.

But here's my question, how hard or time consuming is it really, is it something anyone can pick up, or does it take a lot of dedication?

The main reason that I am asking is because there are no places that develop film that are truly local to me, the closet is half an hour away. and then you have to pay them as well. I currently shoot instant films, but I think that 35mm film could be much more cost effective, if, and only if, I can actually do it at home.

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Well, 8yr olds could learn easily in the 1960s

If you can get someone to show you the ropes in person as this is a sensorial experience that is hard to understand on videos