After discussing the impetus for home developing my black and white film photography, I took my Pentax 67 along to the MRA Cranbourne GP Run to carry through with my intentions.
The developing kit I assembled was based around a Paterson Super System 4 Developing Tank which takes 500ml of chemicals for a single roll of 120 film. The hardest part of the whole process was actually getting the film onto the plastic reel in the dark. I had used Ilford FP4 Plus film which lead to a 1-25 ratio of R09 One Shot B&W film developer to water, 1-19 ratio of Ilford Ilfostop Stop Bath and 1-4 ratio of Ilford Rapid Fixer.
With all the chemicals pre-mixed I proceeded to tip in the developer, continously agitating for the first 1 minute and tilting the tank every 30 seconds following until 8 minutes was up. I then tipped out the developer and poured in the stop bath and continuously agitated the tank for 30 seconds. I then tipped out the stop bath and poured in the rapid fixer, continously agitating for the first 1 minute and tilting the tank every 30 seconds until 4 minutes had passed. I then removed the fixer and lid of the tank and washed the film by filling the tank with water and tipping it out a few times. The final step involved using a wash of Kodak Photo-Flo to minimise drying marks before I hung the film up to dry with a weight attached to the bottom.
The photographs presented here are from that first roll of home developed black and white film – it would’ve been a shame to screw it up.
Nice work Cain – a few look a touch over for my liking, but that may have been the exposures themselves. Regardless, you must be so satisfied with the entire process and results.
cheers,
I think the over-exposed highlights come from my levels adjustments of the scan but I try not to clip them in PS. I’d like to get some gauge on what is seen as good black and white scan because you can use contrast and curves to change it quite significantly. The telltale will actually be the contact prints I intend to learn how to do next. You may have also noticed the streaks in particularly the first image – I assume they are drying marks which I need to work out how to get rid of. Other than that, yes, I’m quite satisfied!
Hi Cain,
Congratulations on your first attempt at developing. I have just done the same (using same equipment and chemicals) in the past couple of weeks, and am yet to see how they look because I lack a neg scanner.
What neg scanner do you use?
Your agitations were a little different to mine. I think I will print your instructions out and give them a go on my next roll.
I have to admit I was so excited at the end of the process to take teh film out and actually see defined images on the negs.. Gives one a real buzz!
nice work – i was so eager to pop off the lid too. i use a canoscan 8800f with vuescan software instead of the packaged one. vuescan has film profiles but that’s not so much of an issue with B&W. as long as you have the same film and chemicals then by all means give it a go. let me know when/where/if you put your results online so i can check them out.