First rolls developed at home

[David_Manning]

Sorry to bore everyone, but just uploaded some images from the first rolls I actually developed myself, all using HC-110 dilution B, 24 degrees @ 5 minutes. The images are from my trip last week, Nashville, Toronto, and Los Angeles layovers.

Please tell me what you think. http://www.flickr.com/photos/davids_silvershots/

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Love the hotel bed photo.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear David,

I particularly liked the tonality of the last shot, but of course the others may look even better as real prints than on screen. For composition, it's the second and last shots for me, but this is of course subjective.

Congratulations,

R.

 

[David William White]

Excellent job. I liked the dog in the stroller too. What film?

 

[cweg]

Why Sorry? Very good work, thx for sharing.

 

[David_Manning]

It was all Tri-X, exposed @ box ISO. Appreciate the kind comments.

 

[sweathog]

Nice shots, and a great job on developing.
Oh how I miss the darkroom...

 

[kknox]

They look great, not so hard & fun to do.

 

[nikon_sam]

I love the bed shot and the first one too..I believe that anyone developing their own film has a right to brag when it comes out like this...very nice.

 

[Chris101]

Good stuff David! I like your set. At first I was thinking that looks like a lot of contrast for 5 minutes, but then I saw 74°. That translates to about 7min @20C. So a tiny bit of added contrast/speed/grain by my reckoning (I typically give trix 6.5 min @20C to get iso 400.) It suits your pictures well.

 

[David_Manning]

Thanks Chris.

The added contrast was for my taste, via levels after scanning. Believe it or not, my negs look great at 5min @ 24C. They're actually about the same as the negs I ran at 20C for 6min off the massive dev chart.

I use the 24C because it's easier to control the temp of all the chemistry consistently...it's room temperature!

I'll have to print them to see what they look like. I use RC paper, but I won't use any filters.

 

[raydm6]

David, congratulations! I also like the mood and tonality of the bedroom.

Gives me all the more inspiration (along with the rest of you folks) to get going and do my own B&W dev also. (Got some Diafine to mix & Tri-X to shoot - just need to get off my butt and do it)

Nice job!

- Ray

 

[SolaresLarrave]

The bedroom shot is really good, but the isolated face in a sea of seats looks striking too.

Good job!

 

[David_Manning]

Thanks...I like that bus seat picture too.

 

[Samsam]

imho, the first photo is the best
you've got really nice tones for a first try

 

[radambe]

Very nice. The 1st shot is my favorite.

Which scanner?

 

[vrgard]

Very, very nice David. You really make me want to try my hand at developing B&W (which I haven't done in almost 30 years).

-Randy

 

[David_Manning]

Thanks again...still on my "high" about the whole process (it was 25 years since I did the same in high school...Tri-X and a Pentax K-1000 then).

I scanned on an Epson Perfection 4990, and obviously did not dust spot. I scanned 8-bit, at 1200dpi, no sharpening. I made the blacks black and the whites white in levels. It didn't take too long.

I'm looking forward to printing some 8x10s on my enlarger...that will be the true test of the tonality I captured. I'll be using RC paper (it's cheap to buy and quick to wash and dry), but not any contrast filters. I'd like some neutral prints to gauge my exposures by.

For all you fence-sitters, get out there and shoot and develop. I do all this stuff after the kids go to bed, or in the morning after they leave for school. 🙂